The world’s first floating wind farm is set to be deployed off the coast of Scotland. The Norwegian based Energy company Statoil is launching the innovative project in the North Sea off the North-east coast of Scotland.
The floating wind farm will be created from massive wind turbines that sit out in the ocean. They are tethered to the ocean floor and have ballast lines off them to keep them upright. They bob about like a buoy and stand over 100 m proud of the water.
So far five turbines are ready to be tugged from Norway to Scotland in an expensive and delicate shipping operation. The £200 million project is the first massive investment into renewable energy from the company Statoil who are calling the project ‘Hywind’.
Image: Statoil
Irene Rummelhoff, head of the oil firm’s low-carbon division, explains how the floating wind farm opens up possibilities within the industry, “It’s almost unlimited” she said. Currently, we are saying [floating wind farms will work in] water depths of between 100 and 700 meters, but I think we can go deeper than that. It opens up ocean that was unavailable.”
While the Hywind project isn’t breaking any records for actual energy production. It will produce enough power to power only 20,000 homes. It is definitely making a point about the future of floating turbines.
Full story at Interesting Engineering
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