First Floating Offshore Windfarm Powers Up in Scotland

Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--Scotland has announced that power is being generated at the world's floating offshore windfarm located in deep waters 25 kilometres (km) offshore Peterhead in Aberdeenshire.

The 30-megawatt (MW) Hywind project, developed by Norway's oil and gas giant Statoil ASA (NYSE:STO), has been officially opened by Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. Capable of powering up to 20,000 homes, the floating windfarm is located in water depths of 800 metres, opening the possibility for future windfarms to be located much further from shore, benefitting from more stable winds. Industrial Info reported in June that the turbines for the windfarm had been installed on their floating foundations in Stord, Norway, before being towed across the North Sea to Scottish waters. For additional information, see July 6, 2017, article - Norway Floating First Offshore Turbines to Scotland.

The project is using five 6-megawatt (MW) turbines from newly formed company Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (Zamudio, Spain).

"Hywind can be used for water depths up to 800 metres, thus opening up areas that so far have been inaccessible for offshore wind," said Irene Rummelhoff, executive vice president of the New Energy Solutions business area at Statoil. "The learnings from Hywind Scotland will pave the way for new global market opportunities for floating offshore wind energy. Through their government's support to develop the Hywind Scotland project, the U.K. and Scotland are now at the forefront of the development of this exciting new technology. Statoil looks forward to exploring the next steps for floating offshore wind."

She added: "Statoil has an ambition to reduce the costs of energy from the Hywind floating wind farm to 40-60 euro per megawatt-hour (MWh) by 2030. Knowing that up to 80% of the offshore wind resources are in deep waters (+60 metres) where traditional bottom fixed installations are not suitable, floating offshore wind is expected to play a significant role in the growth of offshore wind going forward."

Sturgeon commented: ""I am delighted to open Hywind Scotland--the world's first floating windfarm. Hywind will provide clean energy to over 20,000 homes and will help us meet our ambitious climate change targets. This marks an exciting development for renewable energy in Scotland and coupled with Statoil's Battery Storage Project, Batwind, puts us at the forefront of this global race and positions Scotland as a world centre for energy innovation."

Linked to the Hywind Scotland project, Statoil and Abu Dhabi-owned green energy company Masdar will also install Batwind, a 1-MWh Lithium battery storage solution for offshore wind energy.

Industrial Info is tracking the upsurge in floating offshore windfarm projects in Europe. There are five proposed and at various stages of construction:

• Hywind Scotland--30 MW--Scotland, 2017
• Kincardine--48 MW--Scotland, from 2018
• Dounreay Tri--2 x 5 MW--Scotland, 2018
• WindFloat Atlantic--30 MW--Portugal, 2018-2019
• Atlantis/Ideol project--100 MW--U.K., 2021

Industry body WindEurope said that the sector has "vast potential for growth" considering that 80% of all the offshore wind resource is located in waters 60 metres and deeper in European seas, where traditional bottom-fixed offshore technology is too expensive to deploy.

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