ARPA-E announced $26 million in funding for 13 projects as part of the Aerodynamic Turbines, Lighter and Afloat, with Nautical Technologies and Integrated Servo-control (ATLANTIS) program. These teams will develop new technologies for floating, offshore wind turbines (FOWTs) using the discipline of control co-design (CCD).

The ATLANTIS program focuses on three technology development areas to develop FOWT systems: 1) New Designs, 2) Computer Tools, and 3) Experiments. The selections contained within the ATLANTIS program fall into at least one of these three areas, and teams are encouraged to collaborate with other awardees over the lifecycle of their funding to work towards designing a fully integrated FOWT incorporating all three areas into one system.

Accessible offshore wind is estimated at more than 25 quadrillion BTUs per year, with more than half of that generation blowing across water too deep to be economically accessible with current offshore wind turbine design. The FOWT designs in these ATLANTIS projects could enable access to those unutilized wind resources, enabling greater production and market share access in offshore wind energy.