POWER May 2020 - 25

WIND ENERGY
tion under a program called the Gigastack
project, led by ITM Power and supported
by the UK government. The program is
designed to deliver hydrogen via " stackable "
5-MW electrolyzers produced in
gigawatt-scale factories for large-scale
generation. Hornsea 2 will feature 165
Siemens Gamesa 8-MW turbines.
Freedman
said
4. Hywind Scotland is the world's first commercial offshore project using floating turbines. The
30-MW wind farm is located at Buchan Deep, 25 kilometers offshore Peterhead, Scotland, and
provides renewable energy to the mainland. Courtesy: Øyvind Gravås / Woldcam / Statoil
world's market share. The company
last year introduced the SG 10.0-193
DD, which the company calls " a turbine
evolved from five generations of proven
offshore direct-drive technology. " The
10-MW turbine is the largest of several
Siemens Gamesa models launched over
the past half-dozen years, ranging in size
from 6 MW to 10 MW.
" The largest international wind turbine
original equipment manufacturers (OEMs)
all have large offshore turbine machines in
development and/or for commercial sale, "
noted Garrett Moran, wind generation
senior manager at ICF, a Virginia-based
consulting and technology services company.
" GE is prototyping its new HaliadeX
12MW-220m machine, and Siemens
Gamesa Renewable Energy (SGRE) just
recently announced its SG 11MW-200m
direct-drive offshore machine. A key factor
in offshore wind is the robustness and
lifetime of the offshore machinery. "
Moran noted offshore turbines come
with different issues than their land-based
counterparts. " Given that O&M [operations
and maintenance] costs are significantly
higher offshore due to the obvious
access issues, OEMs have designed offshore
turbines to be efficient, robust, and
long-lived. A lot of the OEMs targeting
offshore wind have designed larger machines
and rotors with direct-drive generators.
These direct-drive machines do
not utilize a traditional gearbox, which is
one of the most expensive and time-consuming
components to replace in wind
turbines. Direct-drive technology is less
complex than gearboxes and less prone
to failure, which improves O&M costs
critical for offshore machines in maintaining
favorable project economics. "
Fracaroli said floating wind farms also
will spur offshore growth. " Floating platform
technology, in particular, will be essential
to the delivery of offshore wind
in deeper water depths, which also will
be key to the development of the indusMay
2020 | POWER
try on the [U.S.] West Coast. Automation
and drone technologies will help reduce
O&M cost in the industry by supporting
the ability to monitor and inspect assets
remotely. As the industry grows, the
more technologies will advance. "
The world's first commercial project
using floating turbines is Hywind Scotland
(Figure 4), a wind farm developed by
Statoil (now Equinor) with five 6-MW Siemens
Gamesa turbines located about 18
miles off Peterhead, Scotland. The project
is operated by Hywind (Scotland) Limited,
a joint venture of Equinor and Masdar.
Potential Growth
Growth in offshore wind also could be
helped by the move toward hydrogen as
an energy source. Belgium earlier this
year said electricity generated by Belgian
offshore wind farms will be used for
electrolysis to split water into oxygen and
hydrogen, with the hydrogen available as
an energy source in a variety of applications.
Belgium at present has more than
1.5 GW of operating offshore wind capacity,
with a goal of having about 4 GW
online by the end of the decade.
Shell and Gasunie in February disclosed
plans for what the group has said
will be Europe's biggest green hydrogen
project, powered by up to 10 GW of
offshore wind in the North Sea. The oil
and gas infrastructure group said it will
advance the NortH2 project in conjunction
with Groningen Seaports, with a
large hydrogen electrolyzer sited in Eemshaven
in the Netherlands. The partners
want the first hydrogen production by
2027, from 3 GW to 4 GW of offshore
turbines, with the fleet as large as 10 GW
by 2040, with output of 800,000 metric
tons of green hydrogen annually.
Ørsted's 1.4-GW Hornsea 2 project,
which will be the world's largest offshore
wind farm when it starts commercial operation
(expected in 2022) in the North
Sea, will power green hydrogen producwww.powermag.com
both
floating
wind
farms and hydrogen production are " significant "
achievements for the sector. " I
think in terms of the turbines, it's happening, "
he said. " It's really turbine technology
that I hear the most about. In particular
on the West Coast, where you have very
deep water, the floating turbines, I think
that is a significant technology development.
Green hydrogen has been sort of
a side discussion, and that's something
that could be beneficial. So now we have
dual efforts, we have power, and we have
green hydrogen as well. "
Williams of the BlueGreen Alliance
said there is " serious interest " in the potential
of offshore wind for bulk and costeffective
production of green hydrogen.
" This is where we start to see the future
clean economy really interacting with itself, "
he said. " It's quite hard to produce
goods without using a fuel feedstock that
is not a fossil fuel ... as well as electrifying
shipping and aviation. Creating hydrogen
as a fuel is incredibly important.
Locate a hydrogen production facility at
a port, creating the jet fuel of the future
or the fuel to run America's steel mills.
We could see a whole domestic clean
economy, all without greenhouse gas
emissions, all made in America. Hydrogen
is a big part of that effort. "
Bond, like Freedman, noted how advancements
in turbines, and production
of hydrogen, are " the two biggest technological
advances that are out there ...
the increasing output of the turbines,
which continue to jump significantly every
couple of years, as well as 'green hydrogen'
development. Green hydrogen is
a potential new business line that would
further enhance the viability and longevity
of the offshore wind market for the
U.S. and other countries. "
He continued: " Being that offshore
wind is a proven technology in many parts
of the world, we need to find a way to
maximize all outputs of the technology in
a way that is thoughtful yet effective and
make sure the U.S. leads the conversation
on any new fronts. I would hope that our
goal is to not play catch-up but [to] lead
the conversation for future generations. " ■
-Darrell Proctor is associate
editor for POWER.
25

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POWER May 2020

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