Background
The increasing worldwide demand for energy generated from renewable resources is an opportunity for France and the U.S. to advance offshore wind energy technology and harvest the rich offshore wind resources from their extensive coastlines. Innovations in floating wind technology are especially promising because of their high capacities, extensive harvesting potential in a large range of water depths, and relatively low disruption to other offshore activities.
This year’s French-American Innovation Day (FAID) is co-organized with the Consulate of France in Boston, Northeastern University, the University of Nantes, and POWER-US. It aims to be the first of a series of international workshops on floating offshore wind energy technology (I-FOWT) and has been designed to share information on the innovation potential of floating technology and to discuss and identify the key issues that can reduce costs and increase public acceptance.
FAID is an annual event organized by the Office for Science and Technology of the Embassy of France in the U.S. It is intended for researchers and companies to exchange views on a specific technological issue, start cooperative activities, and develop business relationships with a transatlantic perspective. The goal of FAID is to facilitate the development of innovations between France and the U.S. by bringing together scientists, practitioners, and other interested stakeholders from both countries and preparing for the next generation of collaborative research projects.
This year’s workshop is organized around four themes:
- Demonstrations and innovations of floating technology
- Risk, regulation, and insurance of floating infrastructure
- Structural-geotechnical interaction of anchoring of floating systems
- Legal and technological issues for multi-use offshore development
