Aker Solutions and Cognite have been awarded a US$ 2 million grant from the California Energy Commission (CEC) for a project called NextWind Real Time Condition Monitoring. The project is focused on next generation solutions in wind through digitalisation and aims to develop a holistic digital solution that will enable monitoring the condition of an offshore floating wind farm and its impact on the environment via live data streaming.
A digital twin model of physical offshore wind assets will be developed to assess conditions and integrity management. Making this data available to a wide range of users will allow for additional understanding of environmental and wildlife impacts to help reduce mitigation.
In April 2018, the Redwood Coast Energy Authority selected a consortium which includes Aker Solutions, Principle Power and EDPR Offshore to enter into a public-private partnership to pursue the development of the proposed Redwood Coast Offshore Wind Project. The 100-150 megawatt floating offshore wind farm is planned to be located more than 30 kilometers off the coast of Humboldt Bay, and is expected online in the mid 2020's. The team intends to use this project as a case study for the new initiative due to its relevance.