Scotland
Plans to produce floating offshore wind foundations at Port of Ardersier have taken a step forward with the approval of more than £778,000 in Scottish Government funding.
Approval was given by Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) after close collaboration with Scottish Enterprise’s international arm, Scottish Development International (SDI), to secure the project for Scotland.
The funding will support an 18-month front-end engineering design (FEED) study led by the France-based company BW Ideol, a subsidiary of BW Ideol AS, which plans to develop an industrial facility at the Port of Ardersier dedicated to the serial production of its Damping Pool concrete floating foundations.
Optimised for serial construction methods such as gantry slipforming and automated prefabrication, the facility is designed to deliver one foundation every 12 days from a single line, equivalent to approximately 500 MW of annual capacity.
Once operational, it could create around 1,200 direct jobs in the Highlands and catalyse a broader regional supply chain.
The Damping Pool has been identified as the preferred floating foundation for the Buchan Offshore Wind project (1 GW), in which BW Ideol holds a 33% stake alongside BayWa r.e. and Elicio.
BW Ideol is a world leader in the design, development and deployment of reinforced concrete floating offshore wind foundations. In Scotland, it strengthened its long-term commitment to the Port of Ardersier through a partnership agreement signed in September 2021, securing exclusive access to the site for concrete foundations.
The project will also enable major investment in Scotland’s renewable wind energy that will unlock the region’s energy opportunity and support its transition to net zero.
