DR TECHN OLAV OLSEN AS

Their core work

Dr. Techn. Olav Olsen is a Norwegian structural engineering consultancy specializing in concrete and marine structures, with deep expertise in designing floating substructures for offshore wind turbines. In H2020 projects, they contribute engineering know-how for floating offshore wind platforms — from qualifying substructure designs for 10MW+ turbines to optimizing costs for commercial-scale deployment. Their work sits at the intersection of heavy civil engineering and renewable energy, making them a key enabler for the transition from fixed-bottom to floating offshore wind farms in deep-water locations.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Their H2020 trajectory shows a clear progression from R&D toward commercialization. The earliest project (LIFES 50plus, 2015) focused on qualifying floating substructure concepts for large turbines — essentially proving designs could work. By 2018-2020, their projects shifted to industrial-scale concerns: cost reduction, scale-up, LCoE optimization, and replicability across different sea conditions. This mirrors the broader floating wind sector's maturation from prototype validation to pre-commercial deployment.

They are moving firmly toward industrialisation and cost engineering of floating wind, positioning themselves as go-to structural engineers for the commercial rollout phase of floating offshore wind in European waters.

How they like to work

Olav Olsen consistently joins as a specialist participant rather than leading consortia — across all three projects they served as a partner, never as coordinator. With 43 unique consortium partners across 8 countries, they operate in large, multi-national research and innovation consortia typical of major energy demonstration projects. This pattern suggests they are valued as a technical specialist that larger consortia recruit for their specific structural engineering expertise rather than acting as project initiators.

They have collaborated with 43 unique partners across 8 countries, reflecting strong integration into the European offshore wind research community. As a Norwegian company, their network likely spans the North Sea and Atlantic-facing nations where floating wind is most relevant.

What sets them apart

What sets Olav Olsen apart is their specialization in concrete floating structures for offshore wind — a niche where few European engineering firms have equivalent depth. While most offshore wind engineering consultancies focus on steel structures, Olav Olsen brings decades of concrete marine engineering heritage to a sector actively seeking cheaper, more scalable foundation solutions. For any consortium working on floating wind commercialization, they offer structural design expertise that bridges traditional offshore concrete construction with next-generation renewable energy deployment.

Highlights from their portfolio

• FLAGSHIP
  Their largest H2020 contribution (EUR 1.7M) focused on optimizing floating offshore wind for commercialization — a project directly targeting the path from demonstration to market.
• LIFES 50plus
  An early-mover project qualifying floating substructures for 10MW turbines in deep water, laying the engineering groundwork that their later projects built upon.
• i4Offshore
  Focused specifically on industrial innovations for offshore wind cost reduction, bridging the gap between R&D results and deployable solutions at scale.