Oil major Chevron backs new floating offshore wind company

Oil major Chevron and Norwegian consortium Moreld have bought into a new floating offshore wind company launched by sector veterans who helped develop the WindFloat concept.

Chevron Technology Ventures (CTV) and Moreld Ocean Wind (MOW) invested in Ocergy to back its floating offshore wind turbine technology and data environmental monitoring buoy.

Ocergy (OCG) aims to get its data platform in the water between 2021 and 2022, and to have its semi-submersible platform, made from steel, operating between 2023 and 2024. 

It is working on multiple opportunities for testing with various partners and developers, CEO Dominique Roddier told Windpower Monthly.

Roddier would not disclose how much was invested or what stake MOW or CTV took in the company.

US- and France-based Ocergy was founded by three offshore wind veterans from Principle Power, who helped develop the WindFloat concept. Alexia Aubault was the floating pioneer’s vice president of engineering, while Christian Cermelli and Roddier co-invented WindFloat and served as Principle’s chief naval architect and chief technology officer respectively.

Moreld Ocean Wind is a newly formed subsidiary of Moreld – an industrial group of 20 oil and gas firms managed by Norwegian private-equity investor HitecVision. 

It is due to provide an EPCI (engineering, procurement, construction and installation) solution for OCG-Wind’s steel semi-submersible platform – similar to the one used for Principle Power’s WindFloat design.

Meanwhile, Chevron Technology Ventures invested in Ocergy through its Future Energy Fund, which identifies technology solutions needed for the energy transition including industrial decarbonisation, emerging mobility, and energy decentralisation.