{"id":821,"date":"2020-01-13T10:53:06","date_gmt":"2020-01-13T08:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ege-windturbines.com\/en\/?p=821"},"modified":"2020-01-13T10:53:06","modified_gmt":"2020-01-13T08:53:06","slug":"2020-vision-five-floating-wind-power-technologies-to-watch-this-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ege-windturbines.com\/en\/2020\/01\/13\/2020-vision-five-floating-wind-power-technologies-to-watch-this-year\/","title":{"rendered":"2020 Vision: Five Floating Wind Power Technologies to watch this Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”justified” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”]<\/p>\n

Though today still a fledgling sector by almost any measure, floating wind power is fast approaching industrial lift-off, with arrays in development in all major maritime regions and over 20GW of commercial-scale projects in early planning.<\/p>\n

Many analysts in fact see floating wind as a booster rocket for a wider offshore wind multi-100GW build-out from 2030, as its levellised cost of energy (LCOE) falls to the sub-\u20ac50\/MWh range now being seen in conventional bottom-fixed fleets.<\/p>\n

This year will be a crucible for the sector and the following five projects will be instrumental to its future, during what Sebastian Bringsvaerd, head of floating wind at Norwegian energy giant Equinor \u2013 which brought the\u00a0world\u2019s first floating wind array<\/a>, Hywind Scotland, online in 2017 \u2013 calls \u201ca critical period on the pathway to a floating wind industry where scaled, low-cost, high-performing assets are the standard\u201d.<\/p>\n

WindFloat<\/h2>\n

Being built off Portgual in the Atlantic Ocean, the 25MW WindFloat Atlantic (WFA) project is continental Europe\u2019s flagship floating wind array \u2013 and only the second on the planet (if you exclude the now partly-decommissioned Fukushima Forward demonstrator installed off Japan in 2014). Developed by the EDP-led WindPlus consortium, WFA is based around a trio of semisubmersible platforms designed by US pioneer Principle Power, which are mated to 8.3MW MHI Vestas V164 turbines.<\/p>\n

First power\u00a0was reached on the last day of 2019<\/a>, and once all three units are connected to the grid, the array will contribute to producing power to supply 60,000 homes.<\/p>\n

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Power flows from mainland Europe’s maiden floating wind array<\/div>\n

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WFA represents a milestone for the floating wind industry in Europe as the first project to reach switch-on since Hywind Scotland, but it also has the wider significance of having been built without heavy-lift construction vessels, a key cost-reduction area for the sector as it tries to shave down its LCOE to be on par with bottom-fixed offshore wind.<\/p>\n

Principle Power CEO Jo\u00e3o Metelo believes the project \u201cmarks the beginning of a new era, where floating wind enables the true globalisation of offshore wind and firmly establishes this industry as the renewable energy source with the highest growth for the coming decades\u201d.<\/p>\n

The floating platform technology being used on WFA was\u00a0prototype-tested as a 2MW unit<\/a>\u00a0from 2011-2016, also off Portugal, and has gone on to become a leading concept, with WindFloat in the frame for projects including the 50MW Kincardine off the UK, 30MW\u00a0Golfe de Lion<\/a>\u00a0off France, and the up-to-150MW\u00a0Redwood Coast Offshore Wind Project<\/a>\u00a0off the US West Coast, as well as others in a 10GW pipeline.<\/p>\n

TetraSpar<\/h2>\n

Brainchild of wind power grand homme Henrik Stiesdal \u2013 who was laurelled as the\u00a02019 Recharge Floating Wind Power Player of the Year<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 the TetraSpar is designed as an antidote to the offshore oil engineering-inspired spar, semisub and tension-leg platform concepts that have informed the first wave of floating wind projects.<\/p>\n

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Floating wind power’s European depth charge<\/div>\n

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The innovative design \u2013 a modular tetrahedral structure made up of standardised components and steel-work that can be manufactured in \u201clocal factories\u201d and transported to quayside for assembly to cut construction time and reduce per-unit delivery to \u201cweeks rather than months\u201d \u2014 features a unique triangular float-keel that is tucked up during construction in harbour and tow-out to site, and then lowered using air-filled ballast tanks to provide deep-draft stability for the unit as sea.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have built up an extremely good knowledge-bank in the wind industry over the last decades and in bringing costs down,\u201d says Stiesdal. \u201cWe need to bring this to bear on floating wind so we don\u2019t spend years teaching shipyards and fabrication yards, which come from the high-cost oil and gas sector, to \u2018do\u2019 low-cost floating wind.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Shell takes control as TetraSpar floating wind gets green light<\/div>\n

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Backed by substantial\u00a0investment from oil giant Shell<\/a>\u00a0and utility Innogy, the first TetraSpar is currently in piece-work construction in Denmark, with plans to install the prototype topped with a 3.6MW Siemenes Gamesa turbine this spring as part of a \u20ac18m ($20.3m) demonstrator project at the Marine Energy Test Centre off western Norway, where the first-ever industrial-scaled floating wind turbine, the Hywind Demo (now an R&D unit) has been turning since 2009.<\/p>\n

After a programme of trials in the North Sea, the TetraSpar is being looked at for a number of international, industrial-scale projects, as well as being included in developer Magellan Wind\u2019s planned bids for\u00a0leases off California<\/a>, construction at manufacturer\u00a0Welcon\u2019s new factory<\/a>\u00a0on the US East Coast, and even for developments in\u00a0North America\u2019s Great Lakes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

SATH<\/h2>\n

One of several Spanish designs now heading for \u2013 or in \u2013 the water, the SATH (Swing Around Twin Hull) being developed by engineering outfit Saitec\u00a0is to be installed<\/a>\u00a0as a \u201cmedium-scale\u201d prototype in the Cantabrian Sea in the first quarter of this year.<\/p>\n

The 2MW 1:6 demonstrator, based on a design built around conjoined cylindrical pre-stressed concrete hulls anchored to the seabed via a single-point mooring system that allows the unit to \u2018weathervane\u2019 to face the wind, will undergo a 12-month testing programme version as part of the so-called BlueSATH project.<\/p>\n

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First tests of new-look Saitec floater off Spain ‘in early 2020’<\/div>\n

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The concept, which received \u20ac2m from the European Commission (EC) last year, will be tested for its dynamics in the open sea, as well as for the robustness of its assemblies and the choice of concrete mixtures for the hull, but also to accelerate the commercialisation process toward a 10MW-plus model.<\/p>\n

Along with its work in European waters, Saitec in 2018\u00a0tied up via a special purpose company<\/a>\u00a0with Spanish-Japanese renewable energy developer Univergy International to develop floating wind projects off Japan, last year\u00a0securing a key patent<\/a>\u00a0for its innovative platform concept.<\/p>\n

W2Power<\/h2>\n

The world\u2019s first twin-rotored floating wind power platform, W2Power\u2019s eponymous design,\u00a0was brought online off the Spanish island<\/a>\u00a0of Gran Canaria last year, by developer EnerOcean.<\/p>\n

The 1:6 scale unit \u2013 a triangular steel semisubmersible with angled turbines at two corners that \u2018weathervanes\u2019 into the wind \u2013 was put through its paces in 65 metres of water in a fast-track testing programme, as the launch-pad for the developer\u2019s plans for a maiden full-size array in the coming years.<\/p>\n

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World’s first twin-rotor floating wind turbine set for sea-trials<\/div>\n

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The 40-tonne prototype, which will fly two \u201cgeneric\u201d 100kW machines, has a shallow-draft design that can be adjusted to get in and out of harbour. At full-scale, the W2Power platform is conceived of for a \u201csweet spot\u201d of water-depths ranging from 35-300 metres.<\/p>\n

The W2Power concept, which has gone through several incarnations\u00a0since being launched in 2009<\/a>\u00a0as a hybrid offshore wind-wave power design, is engineered to ultimately support a pair of \u201coff the shelf\u201d 6MW turbines, giving each unit a 12MW nameplate capacity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to show that our concept, with its two turbines, can be built on a light, robust platform … [and that] there is high value in generating high power from this design, which includes some real innovations in terms of the weathervaning and the leaning towers that allows [the rotors] to reach-out beyond the base of the platform,\u201d says EnerOcean president Pedro Mayorga.<\/p>\n

SeaTwirl<\/h2>\n

Sweden-based SeaTwirl stands apart from other concepts now floating out by being a vertical-axis design. It is engineered to rotate as one unit, from blade-tip down the length of its axle, turning a direct-drive permanent-magnet generator, with seawater drawn into the structure through the shaft by centrifugal force, and then released during low-wind periods to maintain the turning momentum \u2014 like a figure-skater pirouetting \u2014 so that the turbine works as a flywheel.<\/p>\n

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Floating wind pioneer SeaTwirl sets seal on $7.5m investment<\/div>\n

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In 2018, SeaTwirl\u00a0inked a deal<\/a>\u00a0to supply electricity to Norwegian regional utility Haugaland Kraft for power from its planned first \u2018S2\u2019 unit, a 1MW prototype, and last year, it picked up fresh tailwinds with a\u00a0long-term collaboration deal<\/a>\u00a0with engineering giant Siemens and\u00a0the appointment<\/a>\u00a0of former MHI Vestas CEO Jens Tommerup to the company board.<\/p>\n

Having first\u00a0launched the concept<\/a>\u00a0in 2011, SeaTwirl appears to at last be approaching its breakthrough, in April 2019 adding SKr70m ($7.5m) to its war-chest from Belgium\u2019s Colruyt Group and Norway\u2019s Norsea,to finance development and installation of the company\u2019s flagship off Norway this year.https:\/\/www.rechargenews.com\/wind\/2020-vision-five-floating-wind-power-technologies-to-watch-this-year\/2-1-736157<\/a><\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”justified” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid”] Though today still a fledgling sector by almost any measure, floating wind power is fast approaching industrial lift-off, with arrays in development in all major maritime regions and over 20GW of commercial-scale projects in early planning. Many analysts in fact see floating wind as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":754,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ege-windturbines.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ege-windturbines.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ege-windturbines.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ege-windturbines.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ege-windturbines.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=821"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ege-windturbines.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":822,"href":"https:\/\/ege-windturbines.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821\/revisions\/822"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ege-windturbines.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ege-windturbines.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ege-windturbines.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ege-windturbines.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}