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Offshore: More windmills on floating platforms off the coast of Scotland
Author:Mariusz Dasiewicz
The world's first floating wind farm, in which windmill foundations are not permanently attached to the seabed, has been working since the end of last year off the coast of Scotland. The second such offshore wind farm will also be built on the Scottish coast. The first windmill, which is part of it, has already begun producing energy, writes the portal gramwzione.pl.
For several days off the coast of Scotland, energy has been produced by the first floating wind power plant to form part of the Kincardine Offshore Windfarm wind farm. This is a turbine with a 2 MW unit power, which was supplied by the Danish producer MHI Vestas. Soon, much larger turbines will join it.
This wind farm will eventually include 7 more wind turbines with a much larger unit capacity of 8.4 MW. The windmills will provide Japanese-Danish producer MHI Vestas, using the V164 platform for this purpose.
All turbines are to be launched in 2020 and should then be the world's largest offshore wind farm, consisting of windmills not fixed to the seabed.
The project is implemented by Kincardine Offshore Windfarm Limited owned by Spanish company Cobra Wind International.
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The investor assures that the experience gained from the implementation of this project will allow him to implement further such wind farms, with much more power, located further from the shores and at greater depths.
Kincardine is the world's second floating wind farm. The first was launched at the end of last year also off the Scottish coast.
Hywind offshore wind farm is located 25 km from the Scottish town of Peterhead. It consists of six Siemens-Games turbines with a total capacity of 30 MW to produce energy in a quantity corresponding to the demand of 20,000 households.
The Hywind project is supported by Norwegian fuel company Equinor and the Arab Masdar fund. Equinor owns 75 percent shares and Masdar owns 25 percent.
The Norwegian fuel company stated that in the winter months, when the best conditions for wind energy production prevail, the level of power utilisation from offshore windmills is usually about 45-60 percent. Meanwhile, during the first three months of operation, between November 2017 and January this year, the capacity utilisation rate on the floating wind farm of Hywind was 65% on average.
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Power plants at the Kincardine offshore wind farm will be placed on triangular floating platforms provided by American producer Principles Power.
On the same platforms, turbines will work on another commercial wind farm that will be built off the coast of Portugal.
WindFloat will include turbines with a total power of about 25 MW. The wind farm will be built at the height of Viana Do Castelo, located in the north of Portugal.
The cost of this project is estimated by the main investor – the Portuguese energy company EDPR – at EUR 115 million, one of the most expensive elements of CAPEX, as indicated by the Portuguese, is the installation and connection of a 17 km long undersea cable. The construction of the infrastructure to be transferred to energy is expected to cost up to €48 million, according to current estimates.
Previously, the WindFloat project off the coast of Portugal carried out pilotage, testing from December 2011 the operation of a single 2 MW turbine. The construction of this turbine cost EUR 20 million.
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EDPR notes that during the five-year tests the floating wind power plant demonstrated resistance to wind, whose speed was more than 100 km per hour, as well as waves whose height was 17 metres.
The construction of floating wind farms is intended to reduce the investment costs in offshore wind energy by eliminating the costs of building foundations.
In addition, floating windmills can be placed on much deeper waters where the construction of traditional offshore wind turbines would be unprofitable or simply technically impossible.
Equinor adopted the objective of reducing the cost of energy from floating wind farms to EUR 40-60/MWh by 2030. The Norwegian fuel company estimates that 80% of locations under offshore wind farms are characterised by depths above 60 metres, where the installation of traditional turbines is not possible.
