Technology As fast as T
he war in Ukraine has put a sharper focus on the Western world’s dependency on rogue states for fossil fuel. The reality of buying oil and gas from Russia will inevitably precipitate a faster transition to renewables than many in European governments or industry had anticipated. From there, it follows that wind will play an increasingly important role in accelerating that transition. Harnessing energy more efficiently from precious offshore acreage requires innovative, disruptive technology that can operate in deeper – and windier – waters.
One concept from Norway-based Wind Catching Systems (WCS) is designed to do just that. The
the wind
Floating offshore wind offers great potential over its fi xed counterparts, able to harness energy from higher winds that occur far out at sea. However, current models have huge blades up to 115m long, maxing out speeds of around 11m per second, which limits the amount of energy that can be produced. Andrew Barnett speaks with Wind Catching Systems CEO Ole Heggheim and vice president of industry and government affairs Daniel Engelhart-Willoch to hear about a platform the company is developing, which will contain over 100 rotors with 15m-long blades stacked vertically within a 300m-high frame. Due to their smaller size, they should be able to harness higher wind speeds, generating more energy at a cost that could compete with fossil fuels.
company’s Wind Catcher product attracts the eye as well as the wind. The almost 300m2
multi-rotor
floater platform system uses 126 individual 30m-wide 1MW turbines, a radical departure from traditional monopile turbines.
WCS CEO Ole Heggheim says the design offers improved efficiency in addition to impressive reductions in operation and maintenance costs. The concept has the potential to produce five times as much power as a single 15MW turbine. “Standard turbines will pitch up at around 12m per second and hold speed up until about 25m per second, but then they will then pitch out and stop production,” Heggheim says. “Because we have much
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World Wind Technology /
www.worldwind-technology.com
Wind Catching Systems
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