Single-use and multi-use business cases for floating islands for selected locations were studied. This showed that some applications can benefit individually from floating solutions while others require the multi-use aspect to share costs and/or create a market. Locations for the business case demonstrations have been selected, one on the North Sea and one in the Mediterranean. A HAZID was performed for the elaboration of a risk register to monitor the risks and regulatory issues. The risk register will be filled out in the second part of the project. Partners have worked on updating and validating the numerical codes to be used in the design of the mooring. This was done in close cooperation with partners focussing on adjustment of numerical methods. Model tests were done to be used for the validation. Space@Sea furthermore delivered a mooring solution for the Mediterranean, it seemed that the North Sea mooring was not technical feasible without the use of a breakwater to reduce the wave loads in this shallow water location. Partners developed the basic floater design and the detailed design, including solutions linking the individual floaters. Where the project started with triangular floaters, during the project in close cooperation with the application work packages, it was decided that square floaters would better fit the requirements. Installation and maintenance research focussed on transporting the floaters to the site, mooring them to the seabed and monitoring the condition of the floaters for maintenance.
Various applications and activities on the floating were designed. The energy hub was designed as well as ways of generating energy from the relative motions between the floaters. Living facilities and housing on floaters was designed. Partners have looked into aquaculture for sea bass and mussels. The preferred type of cargo for the demonstration location just outside the Schelde river was selected to be containers.
Integrating all the developments started with collecting the requirements of the various applications. The demonstration consisted of a technical demonstrator in July 2020 where essential components were measured in a range of environmental conditions in the MARIN Offshore Basin. In October 2020 demonstration tests were done to showcase the concept to the press and the audience at the WCFS 2020 conference. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, this demonstration was streamed and could not be attended by audience.
The project management was coordinated by MARIN and TU Delft. All work and results have been disseminated through the project website, relevant social media channels and a large number of presentations at events. The highlights are the following:
•Project coordinator represented the Space@Sea research during the Community of Practice Noordzee, Den Haag, the Netherlands, 20 September 2018
•Project coordinator and offshore living leader presented on living at sea and the contribution of Space@Sea to these development during Kuststad Den Haag, Living at sea, Scheveningen, the Netherlands, 19 October 2018
•Space@Sea has a special edition on the Frontiers in Marine Science website on floating islands. Multiple papers have been published throughout the second reporting period on this open access platform. Some papers are still in the reviewing process at time of writing of this paper.
•Space@Sea presented the project final results at the World Conference on Floating Solutions – Paving the Waves 2020 which included a special session on Space@Sea. October 6-8, 2020.
Exploitation of the concept was considered throughout the project focussing on uptake of the result by stakeholders that can bring floating islands to the next level. Barriers for exploitation have been identified throughout the project and summarised in the final report being mainly on regulatory and governance issues. A roadmap for deployment of multi-use floating island resulted from the project which will be published early 2021.
