Some people thought we were crazy when we put a giant wind turbine on top of a floating spar structure and towed it out to sea. But it turned out to be the future, and the future is now. This year we made a giant leap forward as we installed and started producing electricity from the world’s first floating wind farm.
image/text credit: Statoil
The 30 MW Hywind Scotland pilot park will demonstrate the feasibility of future commercial floating wind farms that could be more than four times the size.
This will further increase the global market potential for offshore wind energy, contributing to realising Statoil’s ambition of profitable growth in renewable energy and other low-carbon solutions.
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At 176m from the water’s surface to the tip of the blade – and extending another 78m under water.Hywind is situated in water depths of close to 130m, whereas farms directly fixed to the seabed are found in depths of up to 50m.Costing close to $200m, the 30MW farm sits around 15 miles from Peterhead and is large enough to generate power for around 20,000 homes.
