Community & Benefits

The need for the Llŷr Floating Offshore Wind Demonstration Projects

The Llŷr Projects have been set up to generate knowledge and experience to:

  • Optimize the design of floating wind arrays to reduce costs for future floating offshore wind developments.
  • Accelerate the adoption of floating offshore wind technology by meaningfully addressing any short- or long-term impacts to sensitive ecosystems, commercial fisheries and other maritime users.
  • Provide a research platform to understand the interactions of floating offshore wind with the natural environment.
  • Identify and maximise potential supply chain and employment opportunities for the Welsh economy.

The Llŷr site has been carefully selected to enable suitable access to evaluate both the technology’s performance and its environmental interactions. The project provides a unique opportunity to identify issues and test mitigation and monitoring strategies prior to wider commercial rollout across the Celtic Sea.

 

Supply Chain Development

By staging the Llŷr Projects incrementally, we will give the local supply chain, infrastructure, and workforce time to adapt. Giving them time to scale up the necessary investment, capacity and learning at a manageable rate, ahead  of larger-scale deployment, will ensure they reap the full rewards.

Maximizing Economic Impact

Llŷr will provide direct economic and employment benefits while enabling the Welsh and UK governments to meet their ambitious net zero targets. It will also provide an opportunity to establish the region as the European centre of excellence for floating offshore wind.

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Research

Llŷr offers a unique opportunity for industry and academia to promote educational research, learning and understanding in a wide range of technical fields (e.g. environment, engineering, economics, materials, industrialization, etc)

Environmental Interactions

The Llŷr projects will provide a platform to understand floating offshore wind technology’s interactions with the surrounding natural environment before the roll out of larger scale commercial deployment.