World’s first floating wind farm opens in Scotland

The world’s first floating offshore wind farm was constructed and began delivering electricity to the grid in northern Scotland.

Image courtesy of Statoil.

Built by Norwegian oil company Statoil ASA and Masdar Abu Dhabi Future Energy Co., the Hywind project has five turbines floating 25 kilometers (16 miles) off the coast of Peterhead, near Aberdeen. The farm is capable of pumping 30 megawatts of clean electricity through the air, enough to power approximately 20,000 homes. The turbines of the Hywind project are a total of 253 meters tall, with 78 meters of that falling below the surface attached to the seabed by chains that weigh 1,200 tons.

The evident benefit of floating wind farms is, of course, the environments where they can be constructed.

“This marks an exciting development for renewable energy in Scotland,” said First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. “Hywind will provide clean energy to over 20,000 homes and will help us meet our ambitious climate change targets.”

Energy firms Statoil and Masdar partnered on the Hywind Scotland project with the plan to install a large, 1-MWh “Batwind” storage battery to better manage the farm’s output within the next year.

Currently, the U.K. is home to vast wind turbines and, following the Hywind project, is expected to welcome an even larger offshore wind farm in the future.

Source: Engadget