FLOATING WIND TURBINES WHY THE PACE OF PROGRESS
MIGHT COME AS A SURPRISE The world’s largest floating offshore windfarm is Japan’s Fukushima Forward project
Operational since 2013, it now includes three turbines with a total capacity of 14MW. This accounts for nearly half of the approximately 30MW global capacity.
Considering the average European grid-connected fixed offshore windfarm weighs in at 380MW, you’d be forgiven for thinking floating offshore wind is a drop in the ocean.
However, in the UK alone, Statoil is installing the 30MW Hywind demonstration project this year – itself equal to current global capacity. By the end of 2018, Kincardine pilot and Hexicon development projects could have added 48MW and 10MW respectively, taking the UK’s total to 88MW.
That rapid increase will not be confined to the UK and owes a debt to the huge technical strides already made in the oil & gas and fixed turbine offshore wind industries. The market opportunity for floating wind is huge and a lot of people might be surprised by the speed of its progress.
WHY FLOATING WIND? Offshore wind has been one of the biggest renewable energy success stories. In 2016, in Europe alone, there were 3,589 grid-connected wind turbines, with an average capacity of 4.8MW.
Europe has led the way, at least partially, because it benefits from large areas of shallow seabed. On average, those
turbines are in waters just 29m deep. This has made Europe an ideal nursery for the fledgling industry, but once you get to depths greater than 50m, fixed- foundation structures increase in cost and complexity. As a result, advanced economies with deeper coastal waters, such as the US and Japan, have fewer suitable sites for fixed-foundation windfarms. Access to offshore wind energy for such sites will depend heavily on floating structures to support turbines in such deeper waters.
FLOATING’S ADVANTAGE Far more goes into a floating offshore windfarm than the turbine design itself. First, you need the technology to make it float, then you need to tether the floating structure to the seabed – both elements of which must withstand extreme offshore environments. Then you need high-performance cabling – both for intra-array power collection or distribution as well as export cabling for transmission back to shore.
Fortunately, these are industries that many global engineering firms have already spent decades perfecting in the oil & gas and fixed turbine spaces. For example, floating production, storage and operation platforms in oil & gas have already largely solved issues around stable flotation and seabed tethering and have applied that expertise in countless real-world applications.
Similarly, cable manufacturers have developed innovative 66kV ‘wet design’ cables, which offer weight and endurance benefits. Conventional cable designs require heavy metallic barrier layers at this voltage, which can have significant reliability or cost
implications when used in a dynamic floating cable configuration. 33kV dynamic cables – which can withstand the movement and stress of a non-fixed platform – are already proven in floating oil & gas applications and 66kV are not far behind for floating wind. These technologies are already out there, proving themselves in the field for both oil & gas and fixed turbine offshore wind. From a cable, mooring system and floating structure perspective, floating wind doesn’t pose any fundamental new engineering problems to solve. Combine that with the fact that the demand is clearly there and you have a compelling reason to think that the floating wind industry could scale at a far faster rate than its fixed-base precursor.
James Young, Chief Technology Officer JDR
68
www.windenergynetwork.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77
