Technology
shorter blades, we will increase production after rated power, which occurs between 17–18m per second, taking out the exponential energy in the wind as it goes up, following the Betz limit [the theoretical maximum efficiency for a wind turbine].” While standard turbines start pitching at around 700W per metre squared, the company’s Wind Catchers continue to take advantage of the exponential increase, harnessing energy up to 2,000W per metre squared. Additionally, the swept area of one Wind Catcher is 89,000m2
area of 44,500m2
, compared with an average 15MW turbine , further magnifying production.
One Wind Catcher has the potential to produce 331GWh in a place like Utsira in Norway. In other geographical areas, where there are better winds – such as California or in the Gulf of Lion between France and Spain – it promises to deliver up to 400GWh annually. Compared with traditional monopile turbines, the advantages are clear.
Birth of a new concept Heggheim and WCS co-founder and Wind Catcher inventor, Asbjørn Nes, moved into renewables from the oil and gas industry, where large floating structures are a staple. As early as 2014, they recognised that wind would need to play a critical role in achieving the renewables targets set down by the European Union and other major economies. “In Norway at the time, we’d already had a big discussion on the use of onshore and coastal wind power because of environmental reasons and so forth,” says Heggheim. “This being Norway, we already had so much renewable energy, so people were asking, ‘Do we really need this? Do we want these windmills among our nature?’”
These early question marks over the use of turbines on land led to the realisation that the future of wind power was offshore. Even then, nature imposed limitations. “The areas where you can do bottom fix are very scarce,” says Heggheim. “We have been blessed with a lot of areas between Norway and the UK where we have very good wind and very shallow areas.” Unfortunately, there are fewer areas across the world that meet those requirements. “Where you have a good wind, it’s [often] too deep,” he says. Heggheim and Nes turned their attention to floating wind platforms, a natural progression given their background. However, monopile turbines have obvious limitations compared with floaters. “Eventually, at some point, if you build a larger and larger turbine – it gets higher and higher,” says Heggheim. ”It scales, of course, but at a certain point it’s not going to pay off anymore.”
Resilient, modular and long-lasting The solution Heggheim and Nes devised was a multi- rotor turbine on a floating platform. WCS approached the Norwegian engineering company Aibel and the
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www.worldwind-technology.com 23
Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) – the Norwegian Institute for aerodynamics – to test their concept. The positive feedback inspired further development, with patents and formal company registration following in 2017. “We did a lot of rounds to mature the technology with Aibel and IFE, and funded it to a certain scale,” says Heggheim. By 2020, the potential was clear and the company needed major backers to move it forward. Norwegian companies Ferd and North Energy were brought in as investors and co-owners to inject capital, while Aibel and the IFE were retained as technology suppliers.
Further de-risking in collaboration with Aibel and the IFE, followed and, after logging some 20,000 engineering hours, WCS is now moving into commercialisation. The business model will see WCS provide and oversee the technology, while the engineering, design, construction and installation for customers will be overseen by partners via energy performance certificate contracts.
The resilient nature of the system should appeal to commercial operators with design goals oriented to longer product life cycles that are easier to maintain than monopile turbines, while at the same time generating less waste. Daniel Engelhart-Willoch, vice-president of industry and government affairs at WCS, says the modular
Opposite: Two of Wind Catching Systems’ Wind Catchers, each equipped with 126 individual turbines, in a design that is a far cry from traditional monopile turbines.
UK to invest £60m in floating offshore wind projects
On 25 January 2022, the UK government announced plans for £60m of public and private investment in fl oating offshore wind projects to develop new technologies that will enable turbines to be located in the windiest parts around the UK’s coastline. The 11 successful projects will each be awarded up to £10m, with the UK government putting forward £31.6m to boost the amount of clean renewable energy generated in the country. In addition to this, industry will match the investment and bring the total to over £60m. The move is intended to further research and development in fl oating offshore wind, with projects across the UK set to receive funding that will accelerate the deployment of turbines to sea. Research will focus on areas such as how turbines are moored to the seabed, undersea cabling and developing foundation solutions. The UK is already home to the world’s largest deployment of offshore wind – however,
fl oating turbines, which can be deployed in deeper waters than conventional turbines, will boost energy capacity even further by allowing wind farms to be situated in new areas around the UK coastline where wind strengths are at their highest and most productive. With global gas prices at record highs, the UK is determined to strengthen energy security further by deploying home-grown renewable technologies to reduce its dependency on volatile fossil fuels. “We are already a world leader in offshore wind and fl oating technology is key to unlocking the full potential of the seas around Britain,” said UK Energy Minister Greg Hands in a press statement. “These innovative projects will help us expand renewable energy further and faster across the UK and help to reduce our exposure volatile global gas prices.”
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