Sian Crampsie
Several leading players in the growing floating offshore wind energy market have joined World Forum Offshore Wind (WFO).
JERA, Japan’s largest utility company, Norway’s Aker Solutions and France Energie Eolienne (FEE), the French wind energy association, have joined WFO’s Floating Offshore Wind Committee, which was set up earlier in 2020 to help accelerate development of the technology globally.
According to WFO, Japan, Norway and France are “highly committed” to supporting and accelerating the development of floating offshore wind. In a statement it said: “These countries have not only invested hundreds of millions of euros in multiple pilot and demonstration projects but have also worked towards the creation of the necessary regulatory frameworks to enable commercial-scale projects for floating offshore wind in the very near future.”
Gunnar Herzig, Managing Director, WFO, said: “We are enormously proud to have JERA, Aker Solutions and FEE as new WFO members from these three pioneer markets for floating offshore wind. We look forward to welcoming more prominent global players from different stages of the offshore wind value chain as new WFO members shortly.”
“We are thrilled to be able to count on heavyweights such as Japan’s JERA, Norway’s Aker Solutions and France’s FEE to further promote the acceleration of commercial-scale floating offshore wind in their respective domestic markets but also across the globe,” said Bruno Geschier, Chairman of WFO’s Floating Offshore Wind Committee. “Europe, Asia and North America are now duly represented on the Committee and we look forward to adding even more leading international players to further boost the build-out of floating offshore wind on all continents.”
The Committee will hold its first meeting virtually in mid-June. Other members include RWE, Northland Power, Innogy, DEME Group, US Business Network for Offshore Wind, ORE Catapult, Simply Blue Energy, and Hogan Lovells.
