SEA-LIFT. New system for installation and maintenance system to reduce the cost of marine the cost of marine energy.

The SEA-LIFT project aims to develop an innovative solution for the installation and operation of offshore wind farms. This will result in improved availability of installation means, more flexibility in the planning and execution of new projects. Compared to traditional systems, SEA-LIFT estimates a significant reduction in the implementation costs of such solutions, which according to the consortium’s calculations are 3 to 5 times cheaper than traditional means. Furthermore, self-lift methods reduce the dependence on specialised or high-capacity port infrastructures, which is why SEA-LIFT will open up the market to ports that are currently uncompetitive due to their infrastructure.

SEA-LIFT is a research project funded under the TRANSMISIONES 2023 call of the Spanish Research Agency (AEI) and the Centre for Technological Development and Innovation (CDTI). The consortium, made up of five companies and two research centres, will take as its starting point NABRAWIND’s Skylift technology of self-stacking towers (already in use in onshore wind farms), and will work on its evolution for use in offshore wind. To this end, the consortium will count on the participation of SAITEC, NAUTILUS, INGECID, TETRACE, IHCantabria and CENER.

With all this, the consortium aims to develop a new installation and maintenance system that will facilitate the evolution of the offshore wind market by installing high-power turbines (15 MW-20 MW) and at greater depths, overcoming the technical and economic barriers that currently exist. Because SEA-LIFT will allow the assembly of the key elements of the wind turbine in both fixed and floating offshore substructures. Its versatile design will allow installation both in harbours and at sea. This flexibility represents a major innovation.

CENER’s general objective is to extend its knowledge in relation to the control systems of floating offshore wind turbines (which is currently focused on when the wind turbine is already in operation) to the tower self-raising manoeuvre during the assembly phase. In this way, knowledge will be acquired in wind tower lifting technologies in offshore environments. To this end, it will research, design and experimentally validate a control system for the wind turbine self-raising tool on offshore wind platforms, with the capacity to adapt to and mitigate the vibrations induced by the sea on the floating platform.