Siem Offshore Contractors invests in Ideol, a global leader in floating offshore wind

Siem Offshore Contractors has entered the floating offshore wind market through an investment in Ideol, a global technology leader, further expanding business and opening opportunities for in-house vessels in the renewable energy sector while providing construction expertise for commercialising floating offshore wind.



Siem Offshore Contractors GmbH (SOC), a global marine contractor specialising in offshore wind and subsidiary of Norwegian Stock exchange listed Siem Offshore Inc. (SIOFF) has today announced its investment into Ideol SA (Ideol), an internationally recognised leader in floating offshore wind foundation technology. SOC has until this point focussed on the turnkey supply and installation of submarine composite cables on fixed-bottom offshore wind farms. In addition SOC is providing equipment and personnel transfer as well as accommodation support vessels also known as “Walk-to-Work” vessels from within the SIOFF fleet of over 45 high-end offshore service vessels. With its innovative cable installation solution ‘Siem Duo’ consisting of the cable lay vessel Siem Aimery and the installation support vessel Siem Moxie, SOC has revolutionised the offshore wind cable installation market. The floating offshore wind market represents an opportunity to deploy an even broader selection of innovative construction vessels from within the SIOFF fleet while expanding into a new market.

Floating offshore wind is nearing commercial deployment and Ideol is unique by having demonstrator projects in two key markets of Europe and Japan. Ideol, was created in 2010 with the aim of developing both technically and economically viable floating foundation solutions for the offshore wind industry and is recipient of numerous innovation and entrepreneurship awards. Ideol’s patented “Damping Pool”® floating foundation design is compatible with all existing offshore wind turbine generators and offers a particularly cost-competitive solution and has global applications without water depth or soil constraints on sites benefiting from the best available wind locations. Ideol is currently working on several projects across the globe including France’s first offshore floating wind turbine (the FLOATGEN project, currently under construction), Japan’s floating offshore wind demonstrator scheduled for commissioning in 2018, the French Mediterranean’s first floating offshore wind farm as well as a pipeline of 1.5 GW of projects in the UK and 1 GW in Ireland, positioning Ideol as a leader in this fast-growing and accelerating market.

SOC is bringing its extensive international construction experience and fleet of innovate vessels to Ideol and will help to further reduce costs en route to commercial scale deployment, while as a known and trusted construction expert will bring risk reduction for all deployments.



Regis Rougier, Managing Director of SOC, said, “Siem Offshore Contractors has demonstrated its leadership in the field for fixed-bottom foundation offshore wind, and we will now expand into floating offshore wind. Our ability to de-risk the construction process by making use of our fleet of innovative vessels supported by our engineering teams will contribute to develop cost effective and reliable solutions for the next generation of offshore wind farms. We look forward to working together with Ideol to realise their commercial deployment plans.”

Location: Leer, Germany