Mapping of the levelised cost of energy for floating offshore wind in the European Atlantic

Understanding the spatial variation of the levelised cost of energy (LCOE) of offshore wind is fundamental for identifying potential areas for the development of this technology. With this in view, this paper presents a large-scale mapping of the LCOE of floating offshore wind over the European Atlantic, with a focus on floating semi-submersible platforms. The energy production is estimated accurately at every site using hindcast wind data combined with the power curve of an exemplar wind turbine. Furthermore, this work presents an analysis of the different costs incurred in the lifetime of the project using expressions depending on site-specific variables, i.e., water depth and distance to shore. The results highlight the paramount influence of the energy production and, therefore, the wind resource on the final cost of energy. The lowest LCOE values (∼95 €/MWh) correspond to the areas where the wind resource is most abundant: off Great Britain and Ireland, in the North Sea and off NW Spain. The influence of the resource leads inevitably to LCOE values somewhat higher off Portugal and Norway (∼125 €/MWh), and much higher in the Gulf of Biscay and south of the Iberian Peninsula (>160 €/MWh). Within regions with a similar resource, e.g., the North Sea (LCOE in the range 95–135 €/MWh), the distance to shore is found to be the main variable affecting the LCOE. By comparison, the costs related to water depth (primarily, mooring costs) are of little significance – unlike with bottom-fixed technologies.