Offshore wind turbines existing today are built through pile foundations made of concrete and steel, which are often costly at depths greater than 40 meters. This is the conventional method for civil engineers to erect structures through bodies of water. But there’s now a new concept that will outdate this method for generating wind power: floating wind farm.
This will be done first 15 miles off the coast of Scotland by Statoil, a Norwegian energy company. Each turbine has a floating steel tube containing ballast, tethered to the sea bed. The company has already been granted a seabed lease by the Crown Estate to stage five 6MW turbines which will be floating in the North Sea. The new system is expected to generate electricity by the end of 2017, with a pilot run already deployed off Norway.
Floating wind farm (Source: Statoil)
Called the Hywind turbines, they will be reaping the strongest winds offshore without complicated deep foundation requirement. Lindsay Roberts of Scottish Renewables shared, “Floating offshore wind is an exciting technology with huge, global potential, and it’s great to have this world first in Scottish waters.”
Only about 3% of the total wind power is generated by offshore wind, with most wind turbines built on land.
