Aikido Technologies, a startup based in San Francisco, has developed a unique folding platform for offshore floating wind turbines that can be assembled in under 40 hours, 10x faster than traditional methods.
The Aikido One platform uses a semi-submersible design that can transport a fully assembled floating wind turbine to the installation site. Once there, it only needs to be ballasted with seawater to become operational.
Aikido’s platform design uses pin joints and serialized production of the 13 steel components, allowing the structure to be folded up and occupy two-thirds less space during assembly and shipping.
A 1:4 scale 100kW prototype of the Aikido One platform was recently built by Morrison Fabrication in Louisiana in less than 40 working hours, setting a new industry record.
The compact and fast assembly capabilities of the Aikido platform can help reduce costs and enable more ports and vessels to participate in the offshore wind industry, supporting domestic manufacturing and the energy transition.
The platform design is backed by Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Fellows program and aims to advance floating offshore wind technology.
Source: Interesting Engineering
