POWER August 2018 - 44

WIND POWER
the globe. Ørsted, EnBW, SgurrEnergy, and
Equinor, amongst others, are already looking
to transfer their knowledge to overseas markets,
including Taiwan, Japan, China, and the
United States, " he said. No longer an exercise
in research and development, FOW technology
has rapidly advanced to such an extent
that it's now migrating into the mainstream.
Proving Performance
It's no surprise that the first FOW farm
was built in Scotland. The water depths of
the North Sea are ideal for the application,
and estimates show that more than half the
area is suitable for deploying floating wind
power. Energy produced from turbines in
deep waters could meet the EU's electricity
consumption four times over, according
to estimates from the European Wind Association.
A combination of high wind speeds,
abundant near-shore deepwater sites, and the
ability to leverage existing infrastructure and
supply chain capabilities from the offshore
oil and gas industry create ideal conditions to
position Scotland as a world leader in floating
wind technology.
Hywind's five 6-MW turbines (Figure 2)
float above waters that are 328 feet deep-
and despite experiencing a hurricane and
wave heights up to 8.2 m during its first three
months in operation, it's already performed
better than expected, according to Beate
Myking, Equinor's senior vice president of
offshore wind operations. While the typical
capacity factor for a fixed offshore wind
farm during winter months in the North Sea
is between 45% and 60%, Hywind achieved
65.1% during November, December, and
January 2018.
" Hywind is an engineering masterpiece but
it faces many challenges, both in O&M, serial
production, and deployment, in order to
overturn the success of monopile and jacket
foundations in Europe, " said Pucacco. " Maintenance
of these offshore wind farms are not
without their challenges. If you consider tow2.
Ready for action. Three of the Hywind
Scotland wind turbines are shown here
after having been mounted on spar-type floating
foundations in Stord, Norway. The assembled
units were towed one by one to the
installation site off the coast of Peterhead in
Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Courtesy: Arne Reidar
Mortensen / Equinor
ing the structure to port for major component
replacement, you need to disconnect the cables
both for power and tether. This is costly,
time consuming, and vessel intensive, and you
can often lose out on the economics of multiple
changeouts that conventional offshore
jackets allow, " said Pucacco.
Far-shore sites also pose additional challenges
for installation, O&M, and higher
foundation costs as they move into deeper
water. This is already particularly evident in
Scotland, where existing projects are being
developed in water depths greater than 40 m
and in complex seabed conditions. Floating
offshore wind could circumvent a number of
these challenges, unlocking deepwater sites
close to shore that would support conventional
high-voltage alternating current transmission,
port-based O&M strategies, and
lower installation and major repair costs by
removing the need for expensive heavy-lift
installation vessels. Floating substations are
also being developed to further support this
nascent sector.
Test Trials in France and Japan
As Hywind proves out its technology, French
developers, in partnership with GE Renewable
Energy, and with the backing and support
of the government, are rapidly taking
the next steps toward commercializing other
FOW technologies. Following decades of dependence
on nuclear power, France now aims
to generate 33% of its energy from renewables,
with a heavy reliance on both BFOW
and FOW. One of the initial test sites is in the
Bay of Biscay, an area known for its omnipresent
high winds and stormy seas. To help
power this transition, in conjunction with the
French naval shipbuilding and energy company
DCNS, GE Renewable Energy is developing
a floating wind turbine system to be
topped by its massive Haliade-X turbines.
As announced earlier this year, GE will
be investing $400 million to develop gargantuan
12-MW turbines with a rotor diameter
of 722 feet, roughly double the average, featuring
blades more than 351 feet long. GE
says each Haliade-X will produce about 67
GWh annually, " enough clean power for up
to 16,000 households per turbine, and up to
1 million European households in a 750 MW
windfarm configuration. " The first units are
expected to ship in 2021.
Financing a wide variety of FOW projects
is the Australian-based Macquarie Capital
that long ago decided to get in on the ground
floor of cutting-edge renewable energy technology.
It has forged a strong relationship
with the French-based Ideol to develop the
first utility-scale commercial floating offshore
wind farm in Japan.
Founded in 2010 with the goal of devel44
www.powermag.com
oping,
testing, and proving out economically
feasible floating solutions for the offshore
wind industry, Ideol has been conducting
advanced trials of its 2-MW Floatgen floating
project in France, which produced its
first electricity in December 2017. At the
end of April, the Vestas turbine mounted
on Ideol's Damping Pool base was towed
to the Centrale Nantes SEM-REV offshore
site and connected to the national electricity
grid. It arrived just in time to experience an
episode of severe weather (5 m waves and 15
m/second winds) that proved its seakeeping
performance and confirmed some of Ideol's
simulation models.
Ideol is also about to commission a 3-MW
FOW pilot project off Japan using the Damping
Pool floating foundation technology,
which could open the door to full-scale commercial
construction as early as 2023. " Our
technology is particularly compatible with tomorrow's
very large wind turbines, " said Paul
de la Guérivière, CEO of Ideol. With Macquarie's
backing, " we are now ready for the next
stage: commercial-scale deployment. "
Floating Ideas in California
Other near-term projects include the ReaLCoE
endeavour. Part of a consortium led by
German turbine manufacturer Senvion, the
group is working to develop what it calls
next-generation 10+ MW-rated, robust, reliable,
and large offshore wind energy converters
for clean, low-cost, and competitive
electricity. Over the next three-and-a-half
years, the consortium expects to develop,
install, demonstrate, operate, and test a technology
platform for the first prototype of a
double-digit rated capacity turbine in a realistic
offshore environment, hoping to trigger
hundreds of millions in investments into the
European clean-tech sector.
One of the partners in ReaLCoE, EnBW,
which has been developing wind farms since
2011, recently took several additional steps
to develop FOW arrays, including engaging
in a joint venture (JV) with Seattle's Trident
Winds to build what could become the first
U.S. floating offshore wind farm. Located
off the coast of central California, the group
plans a 650-1,000 MW FOW project with a
grid connection in Morro Bay. The initial focus
of the JV is to obtain a site lease from the
Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and
secure the grid connection, which became
available following the shutdown of the Morro
Bay power plant. ■
-Lee Buchsbaum (www.lmbphotography.
com), a former editor and contributor to
Coal Age, Mining, and EnergyBiz, has
covered coal and other industrial subjects
for nearly 20 years and is a seasoned
industrial photographer.
POWER | August 2018
http://www.lmbphotography http://www.powermag.com
POWER August 2018

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of POWER August 2018
