Seattle-based architecture firm Glosten’s PelaStar tension-leg platform has netted the U.S. Department of Energy’s Floating Offshore Wind Readiness (FLOWIN) Prize, the naval architecture and marine engineering consulting firm said March 29.
Glosten is among nine Phase One winners in the contest by the Energy Department’s Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO), which advances the development of floating offshore wind energy tech.
The contest is in three phases. In the first phase, competitors needed to show that their ideas could work for U.S. sites and “could be scaled in a cost-effective way to help address U.S. supply chain constraints,” according to the announcement.
The second phase is expected to center around platform manufacturing in the U.S. and economic benefits such as job creation and the generation of renewable energy.
Glosten said the award helps the company further assist developers in working past deep-water wind hurdles and decarbonizing the electrical grid by 2035.
“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,” Glosten said. “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.”
