Manufacturing-stage cost and environmental assessment of shared mooring systems for floating offshore wind farms

Paper in proceeding, 2027

Shared mooring systems are being considered for floating offshore wind farms to reduce infrastructure redundancy and material use. This study presents a cradle-to-gate cost and environmental assessment framework of shared mooring systems. A modular cost model and an OpenLCA-based inventory are applied to optimized shared-mooring layouts under two water depths, 243.3 m and 799.2 m. The case study focuses on the manufacturing stage of mooring components and provides a consistent basis for comparing alternative shared-mooring configurations. Results show that shared moorings do not automatically reduce cost or CO2 emissions in shallow water, where added system complexity can offset material savings. In deeper water, reduced mooring-line redundancy provides clearer economic and environmental benefits. The findings highlight the importance of water depth and system topology in early-stage shared-mooring design.