‘Floating’ a new idea on the wind energy landscape

Innovators hope floating turbines are the future of offshore wind

A new concept has begun to surface in offshore wind energy—the floating turbine.

In May 2016, a consortium led by Norway’s Statoil won approval to begin building what could be the world’s first commercial-scale floating wind farm, Hywind, off the coast of Scotland.

Thought leaders in the wind energy space have long believed that turbines placed far offshore would be able to harvest power from some of the strongest winds on the planet. Of course, the depth of those waters makes a traditional fixed turbine an impossibility.

The Colorado-based National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates that 60 percent of offshore wind resources available off America’s coasts are based at a water depth of more than 590 feet, far too deep for conventional technology.

Enter the floating turbine. Right now, there are more than 40 pilot projects underway worldwide to try and validate the concept, which generally consists of a wind turbine perched on a buoyant structure and tethered loosely to the ocean floor at depths of up to 3,200 feet.

“The analysis of floating wind turbines is a complex challenge that requires the integration of different technologies and disciplines,” says Luca Vita, a senior engineer at DNV GL, which recently launched a joint industry project involving 14 global partners to boost the practicality of the floating turbine.

The wind energy industry is keenly focused on developing floating offshore facilities, but costs are prohibitive.

Still, producers are hoping that mass production, improvements in technology and the use of different materials can improve the economics.

And a number of trailblazing projects continue to move ahead, including:

• Hywind, whose five turbines will produce 6 megawatts (NW) of energy apiece;
• Fukushima Forward, off the northeast coast of Japan, which expected to see the installation of a third turbine this summer;
• WindFloat Atlantic, off the northern coast of Portugal, with an expected output of 25 MW; and
• Floatgen, a floating 2 MW turbine with a ring-shaped foundation, slated for 2017 off the coast of France.

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