October 17, 2022
Blue economy solutions provider Sustainable Marine has sold its anchoring and mooring business, Swift Anchors, to a newly formed subsidiary of its largest shareholder and long-standing partner, SCHOTTEL.
Sustainable Marine has a reputation for successfully developing highly innovative technology solutions to support the rapidly expanding marine renewable energy sector, and has been working with SCHOTTEL to jointly develop cutting marine energy solutions for close to a decade. This includes the PLAT-I floating instream tidal energy system which recently became the first of its kind to deliver electricity to the grid in Canada. Swift Anchors’ technology has been developed in tandem with this pioneering work to facilitate faster and more cost-effective mooring installations in highly energetic tidal sites, with very short working windows.
The announcement comes shortly after the launch of Swift Anchors next-generation, remotely operated rock anchor installation system, dubbed AROV2 - which will be used to install anchors for Sustainable Marine’s Pempa’q Project – the world’s largest floating tidal array.
Swift Anchors’ technology offers a broad range of solutions include large helical screw anchors for sand, shingle and clay seabeds; rock anchors for a range of rocks and grouted piles for mixed seabed geologies. In particular, the rock anchors drive significant OPEX and CAPEX cost savings, plus wide-ranging environmental benefits compared to traditional to gravity anchors.
Now positioned under SCHOTTEL’s newly formed subsidiary AQUOS, Swift Anchors will expand its market offering beyond marine energy, into floating wind and offshore aquaculture. Sustainable Marine will remain a key distribution partner for Swift Anchors, with a series of projects currently underway in North America.
The two firms are jointly exhibiting at ICOE-OEE 2022, and both Sustainable Marine and Swift Anchors will be providing updates to their industry colleagues on not only the new anchoring system, but also advances made in other areas such as environmental monitoring, as Sustainable Marine prepares to deliver its flagship Pempa’q Project in Nova Scotia.
Sustainable Marine CEO Jason Hayman said the deal demonstrates Sustainable Marine’s capacity as a world-class technology development company. “It takes many years to successfully develop ‘first-of-a-kind’ technology and effectively demonstrate commercial value,” he said. “We are pleased to see Swift Anchors making this natural transition to our long-standing partner SCHOTTEL. We see potential for more technology and IP spin offs in the future. Under AQUOS, Swift Anchors will receive the necessary capital, combined with detailed engineering expertise, large-scale manufacturing capabilities and global market contacts to achieve its full potential.
“Over the last ten years Sustainable Marine has accumulated extensive expertise in the tidal energy space. Owing to this experience, our brand is now evolving into a broader blue economy solutions provider. We are in a strong position to leverage this unique experience and support marine energy project developers worldwide, by delivering a range of innovative solutions. In particular, we are looking to address the challenging outlook for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and coastal developing countries, which are currently experiencing a savage economic shock due the recent volatility in fossil energy prices. There is much work to be done to drive greater energy independence across these regions, in a way which both addresses climate concerns and realises net-zero targets.”
David Ainsworth, MD of Swift Anchors Ltd said: "This is a huge vote of confidence in the technology that Sustainable Marine has spent nearly a decade developing. With the predicted growth for floating offshore wind, the timing was perfect for Sustainable Marine to create the Swift Anchors brand in 2021. The team at Swift Anchors has already attracted significant interest from the floating wind community, with the team, the IP, the assets and the experience we are perfectly set up to be a major supplier to the sector."
Sascha Scholz, CEO of SCHOTTEL AQUOS Marine Technologies GmbH said: “The anchoring technology fits into the overall group strategy to extend our offering to rapidly growing marine renewable energy industry. Swift Anchors’ products can offer significant benefits to the floating offshore wind sector which will experience incredible growth over the next decade and has huge potential in other blue energy sectors including tidal, wave, floating solar and aquaculture. Above all, the expansion of the relatively young but emerging floating wind energy can be noticeably accelerated with the unique Swift Anchors rock anchor technology"