DORIS Engineering Expands Renewable Offering

21st March, 2017

DORIS Engineering, known worldwide for its pioneering work in offshore oil and gas over the last 50 years, has formally announced its entry into the marine renewables market.

DORIS, one of the world’s leaders in complex and challenging marine engineering & offshore services see this as being directly adaptable to the floating wind market.

The new division “DORIS Renewables” will complement the Group’s London headquartered subsidiary, ODE, which has built an impressive track record in marine renewables. DORIS Renewables will focus on the floating wind market, and seawater thermal energy. ODE will remain the centre of excellence for the shallower fixed market in which it has almost two decades of experience. Building on its track record in oil and gas, ODE will provide O&M services for both floating and fixed markets.

“In creating this new division, we would like to grow marine renewables to 30% of Group turnover within five years, compared with 5% to 10% at the present time,” says Jérôme Iacovella, Head of the Renewables Business Unit at DORIS Engineering.

“While ODE has been at the forefront of fixed marine renewables for almost 20 years, DORIS Engineering itself has also been active in this market for fifteen years, but without having a formalized structure. With the creation of DORIS Renewables, the Group now has real structure and identity to meet the needs of clients across the marine renewable energy sector.” Jérôme added. “For the moment, DORIS Renewables is a business unit that remains an integral part of DORIS Engineering, at the Paris headquarters. In the long term, the company does not rule out the creation of a dedicated subsidiary”.

Jérôme continues “As an illustration, our extensive expertise in oil & gas is particularly relevant to work on such aspects as adapting anchoring systems to the specific requirements of floating wind turbines, with an emphasis on reducing supply and installation costs. At present, the cost of an anchorage system and its installation accounts for about 25% of the price of the floater and we have the expertise to address such challenges.”

Head of Renewables at ODE, Stephen Stuart-Matthews, commented “This is a really exciting opportunity to build on the group’s pioneering nature. ODE has been at the vanguard of offshore wind from the outset in the UK and Europe with projects such as Ormonde and Wikinger. We have developed solutions for technically challenging projects, and in harsh environments such as the Icebreaker project on Lake Erie in the United States and more recently the Hǎi Lóng project in the typhoon prone and seismically active Taiwan straits, we have continued to be at the forefront with new technical innovations for our clients”.

Stephen continues, “Applying and working with DORIS Renewables and utilising their experience in deep water from oil and gas will be very complementary to the Group’s overall renewables offering. This is especially true as wind farms move further offshore in to deeper and more challenging environments that will require floating solutions.”

The first projects for the new DORIS division have been for EDF EN on the Provence Grand Large floating wind project and for Quadran on the EolMed floating wind project. The collaboration with Bardot on the development of a Sea Thermal Power Plant is also an important aspect of the development.