Swift Anchors, awarded grant for Floating Offshore Wind test project

Swift Anchors, the Scottish company that is deploying and developing a suite of cost efficient, rapidly deployable and environmentally sensitive rock anchoring solutions for the global offshore energy (floating wind, floating solar, tidal and wave) and aquaculture industries has secured a UK£395,000 grant from the Offshore Wind Growth Partnership (OWGP).

Swift Anchors, which has been owned by AQUOS SCHOTTEL Marine Technologies since October 2022, will use the OWGP grant to complete testing of its anchor technology in diverse and technically challenging rock seabed sites for floating offshore wind (FOW) projects.

Swift Anchors will work with several subcontractors such as Morek and Mollart Cox and researchers from the University of Dundee to deliver the project.

OWGP is a long-term programme that is promoting closer collaboration across the offshore wind supply chain in the UK, implementing technology and business improvement programmes and facilitating business opportunities between developers of offshore wind projects and supply chain companies, like Swift Anchors.  OWGP is funded by the UK Offshore Wind Industry Council and Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult leads its delivery.

Over the course of the project, Swift Anchors will evaluate data from a number of planned (FOW) projects which are in the pipeline to deliver international targets by 2030.  It will create baseline specifications for its rock anchoring solution, such as mooring system demands, loads and architectures, before building and deploying scale anchor models to a representative testing site.  After testing and validation, Swift will partner with the University of Dundee for testing across an array of rock strengths. Resulting data will be evaluated and anchor design will be updated and certified by DNV (the international accredited registrar and classification society) against a specific floating wind standard: DNV-ST-0119.

David Ainsworth, Managing Director of Swift Anchors said: “Thanks to the OWGP’s grant support, we are able to work with the University of Dundee and other companies on this anchoring project. It gives us the opportunity to capitalise on the fantastic opportunities that floating offshore wind offers. If the UK and other countries are to deploy the potential FOW capacity over the next decade and more, finding cost-effective and robust anchoring solutions for diverse and challenging seabeds are essential.”

“The results from our OWGP project, our experience of working on tidal energy projects on both sides of Atlantic over the past 10 years and the pedigree and expertise of the wider SCHOTTEL group of companies that we draw from, will support the growth of FOW in UK and indeed global waters.”