Glosten’s PelaStar™ is one of nine winners of the FLoating Offshore Wind ReadINess (FLOWIN) Prize: a three-phase competition launched by the US Department of Energy (DOE) to spur the development of floating wind energy platform technologies. The $6.85-million total prize pool is intended to incentivize platform designers, fabricators, and developers to form teams that can industrialize their designs and build a domestic supply chain to support large-scale deployment in the US market.

PelaStar™ is the only tension-leg platform (TLP) amongst the Phase One winners designed to support offshore floating wind turbines in deep water. Glosten developed the PelaStar™ concept over 13 years ago and has optimized it to reduce the costs and operational challenges that emerge throughout the lifecycle of a commercial-scale wind farm by:

• Reducing development costs through low steel weight.
• Maximizing reliability via a robust design with intrinsic redundancy.
• Maximizing energy production and turbine reliability with a small seabed footprint and low motions in service
• Providing compatibility with existing service vessels and processes due to its central column and low motions.
• Maximizing ocean co-use and minimizing its environmental footprint.

Phase One of the FLOWIN competition asked entrants to prove their concepts were suitable for US sites and could be scaled in a cost-effective way to help address US supply chain constraints. Phase Two will focus on platform manufacturing in the US and the major economic benefits that come with it: job creation, renewable energy production, and energy independence. This is a timely opportunity for Glosten’s PelaStar™ team to accelerate plans for commercialization and rise to meet the ambitious deployment targets set by state and federal governments. As developers navigate the complexities of decarbonizing our electrical infrastructure, PelaStar™ will be there to help them execute their projects and deploy wind farms on the gigawatt scale.