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Salamander will provide a springboard for the local supply chain to gear up for commercial scale opportunities in Scotland and beyond, says Hugh Yendole, Salamander project director
SALAMANDER, a joint venture floating offshore wind project off the northeast coast of Scotland, is poised to be the launchpad for a new global industry and an exciting new energy solution for Scotland and the UK.
This pioneering stepping-stone project provides a fantastic opportunity to demonstrate how floating offshore wind can significantly contribute to the energy mix as well as being the vital link in developing a robust Scottish offshore wind supply chain.
This will help Scottish and UK governments meet their net zero targets, ahead of larger, gigawatt-scale projects expected to follow in the mid-2030s.
FULFILLING THE POTENTIAL OF FLOATING
FLOATING offshore wind offers immense potential as a source of green energy.
Innovative floating offshore wind technology will allow turbines to be placed in water deeper than 60 metres, where wind speeds are stronger, more consistent, and can generate more power.
This could allow us to tap into as much as 80% of the world’s untapped offshore wind resource by placing turbines in much deeper waters.
However, to unlock the enormous potential of floating offshore wind and convert into a truly affordable supplier of electricity, it needs to reach industrial scale.
The cost of the technology needs to be brought down and the supply chain – especially the local supply chain – needs to be given the opportunity to ramp up.
Salamander is a floating offshore wind project announced as part of the Innovation and Targeted Oil & Gas (INTOG) Leasing rounds in 2023.
It aims to help bridge that gap between where floating offshore wind is today and where it needs to be to become a truly cost-competitive renewable energy at scale, with meaningful Scottish content.
BRINGING TOGETHER A TEAM OF EXPERTS
DESIGNED as a stepping-stone project for innovation, technology developers, local supply chains and stakeholders, Salamander is facilitating key learnings about risk
mitigation and cost reductions in preparation for larger commercial scale floating offshore wind projects.
Our dynamic partnership assembles leading offshore experts to deliver this trailblazing project. The joint venture project brings together:
■ Ørsted, the world’s leading offshore wind developer, with more than 30 years of experience developing, building, owning, and operating more offshore wind farms than any other company.
■ Simply Blue Group, an Irish blue economy project developer working globally, predominately with the ocean’s resources to deliver solutions to the climate crisis. The company has a pipeline of over 10GW of offshore wind projects across the globe.
■ Subsea7, a global leader in the delivery of offshore projects and services for the energy industry.
Working collaboratively with a focus on local supply chain development, Salamander, when consented, will provide a springboard for the local supply chain to gear up for commercial scale opportunities in Scotland and beyond. This will allow Scotland to build off its tremendous offshore wind resource and industrial offshore heritage to create skilled, long-term local jobs.
Located about 35km off the coast of Peterhead, Salamander will generate enough green energy to power about 100,000 Scottish homes, making it a key contributor toward the Scottish Government’s ambition of 11GW of offshore wind by 2030.
It will also contribute toward the UK’s larger goal of 50GW of offshore wind by 2030 – which includes 5GW of floating offshore wind.
COMMUNITY COLLABORATION
SALAMANDER’S ambition is to work with the local community to deliver floating offshore wind and all the economic and social benefits that can come with it – from skills training to long-term job opportunities.
We will continue to meaningfully engage and work with the local community in Peterhead and neighbouring towns, meeting with them to get their feedback which will be incorporated into our planning process.
The Salamander team is currently working on the development phase of the project. In 2023, following the release of our Environmental Impact Assessment Scoping Report (which can be found on our website), we held a number of well-attended public consultations and are incorporating the feedback from those consultations into our planning processes, which should result in a planning submission by mid- 2024.
SCOTTISH PORTS & SUPPLY CHAIN
SCOTLAND has a huge opportunity to be a front-runner in this emerging industry with the most seabed dedicated to developing floating offshore wind anywhere in the world.
Consequently, it has the chance to enable its ports and supply chains to flourish – if pioneering projects such as Salamander are not delayed.
Salamander is already working with Scottish ports which have an essential role to play in the expansion of floating offshore wind as they develop their plans for how best to facilitate growth and usher in a resurgence of these coastal communities, including economic investment and eventually export opportunities.
Upgrading Scotland’s ports is critical to kickstarting the floating offshore wind industry. Salamander will play an essential role in facilitating this by providing early and appropriately-sized opportunities to the ports and associated supply chains to demonstrate and prove how floating wind can be incorporated into and build onto their existing businesses.
FISHING COMMUNITY
AS part of the public consultation process for Salamander, we will also continue working with the local fishing community.
We have already been looking into any potential impacts of floating offshore wind on the fishing industry during the construction, operation, and maintenance of the project as part of our Environmental Impact Assessment Scoping Report.
We are confident that floating offshore wind and commercial fishing can productively co-exist in the same waters – and are eager to work with the fishing industry to ensure that’s the case. We have recently announced ‘PREDICT 2.0,’ an innovation supplied by Scottish universities which will improve our understanding of interactions between fish and windfarms. (See panel below).
SCOTLAND AND SALAMANDER: THE TRAIL BLAZERS
FLOATING wind technology has tremendous potential to bring offshore wind power generation to much deeper waters.
With floating offshore wind on an industrial scale, we can get a huge step closer to Scotland and the UK’s net-zero goals.
The innovative Salamander project will provide confidence to the industry, investors, local stakeholders, supply chain providers, and the Scottish and UK Governments that Scotland and the UK can lead the way on industrial scale floating offshore wind projects.
Ørsted’s Hugh Yendole is the project director for Salamander, a floating offshore wind joint venture project with Simply Blue Group and Subsea7
Large scale operation aims to predict migration of fish
SALAMANDER was included in the Innovation and Targeted Oil & Gas (INTOG) leasing rounds in 2023.
One of the innovations that Salamander promised and is now delivering is ‘PREDICT 2.0.’
Tom Brown, Salamander’s Innovation manager, explained the project: “This multi-year research initiative led by the University of the Highlands and Islands’ Environmental Research Institute and the University of Aberdeen aims to develop understanding of fish migration patterns and how these can be better monitored.
"The goal is to improve siting of offshore wind farms to minimise any impact on fish and their predators (seabirds and marine mammals).
"The Salamander project will soon be installing PREDICT sensors (fluorometers and echosounders) on existing monitoring equipment at the site to gather data on fish movements.”
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