Wind power: How the UK could help floating turbines achieve a breakthrough



By Nick Nuttall *this article appeared first in Climate Table







The dream of generating even larger and cheaper amounts of green energy by harnessing higher wind speeds further out at sea has recently received a major boost.



The UK government has announced a 15-year contract for a project called Green Volt in its latest renewable energy auction in early September.



This is the world's first large-scale commercial floating wind farm. The new €2.9 billion project, which will be built at a depth of 100 to 150 meters 80 kilometers off northeast Scotland, is expected to be completed by 2029.



With up to 35 floating turbines, it will generate an output of 400 megawatts (MW).



"This is definitely an important milestone", said Erik Dugstad from Norwegian wind power company Vårgrønn, which is developing the farm together with Edinburgh-based Flotation Energy.



Industry experts believe that the Green Volt project can pave the way for the commercialization of ever-larger floating wind farms in the UK, Europe and around the world.





The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) estimates that a number of floating wind power projects with a total capacity of 244 gigawatts (GW) are currently awaiting approval worldwide. The potential of floating wind energy is conservatively estimated at 13 terawatts (TW) in deep waters worldwide, according to the agency.



Flotation Energy's technology has already been successfully tested in recent years with a 50 MW project off Kincardine, Scotland. Unlike conventional offshore wind turbines, which require foundations to be sunk into the seabed, floating wind turbines can be anchored to the sea surface or below the waterline using cables.



This allows developers to cost-effectively exploit ever deeper areas further offshore with higher and more predictable wind speeds.



Green Volt will be built close to an existing but declining oil and gas operation so that it can be connected to an existing interconnector back to shore and into the grid.



The Crown Estate, an independent government agency that leases the seabed for wind energy in the UK, has announced plans for even more floating wind turbines. When the Crown Estate completes its next bidding round in early 2025, floating wind turbines will also be built in the relatively undeveloped Celtic Sea off southwest England and Wales.





Floating wind turbines have so far only been realized in smaller projects:

• Norway currently has three smaller projects with a total of 94 MW,

• The UK is in second place with 80 MW from two projects,

• Portugal is in third place with a 25 MW project,

• China ranks fourth with 23 MW from three projects,

• Japan in fifth place with five MW from two projects

• and Spain and France in sixth place with two MW each.

Jane Cooper, Executive Director of Offshore Wind at industry association RenewableUK, explained that floating wind farms still face challenges.



In Europe, for example, renewable energy developers face delays of up to ten years or more in connecting to the grid. "As with any new type of technical infrastructure, there are challenges to

overcome. If we can solve these, floating wind could account for well over half of the UK's offshore wind generation by 2050. Some of this energy can be used to produce green hydrogen, increasing the flexibility of the energy supply", says Cooper.