A geological and geotechnical assessment of the UK and Irish Celtic Sea seabed for floating wind energy

The Celtic Sea has been identified as a new frontier for offshore wind development. In July 2022 the Crown Estate announced the first five Areas of Search and floating wind projects are starting to be develop in Irish Celtic Sea sector too. What makes the Celtic Sea ideal, apart from the wind yield, is that it is a broad epicontinental sea with water depths ranging from 60-200m. The Celtic Sea shelf shows broad variability in terms of 1) seabed conditions, such as outcrops, sediment waves, and large-scale ridges, 2) thickness of sediment over bedrock, and 3) bedrock type, which will require different anchoring solutions. In this work, we integrate publicly available data to assess optimum anchoring solutions for future floating wind developments in support of early engineering, installation analyses, and cost modelling.