Norway’s Innowind and Sweden’s Hexicon are collaborating on a unique floating 60 MW wind farm concept, which is now under review by the UK’s renewable energy industry research giant Garrad Hassan.
Innowind; which makes these novel turbines, is located in Stavanger, Norway, in what is fast becoming a global center of the new renewable energy sector.
They believe that they can improve upon the efficiency of the traditional “17th century” three blade model, by utilizing more of the wind’s potential.
Their argument is attractive – that about nine tenths of the energy in the traditional model goes to waste.
“A planned windmill with a diameter of 150 meter occupies alone 17,662 square meters… the blades alone are not more than approximately 1,125 square meters – for all 3.
This means that at all time when the wind is blowing, 16,530 square meters of potential kinetically brake energy is wasted.”
That these 14 round turbines would produce 60 MW means that each round turbine is supplying a whopping 4.28 MW per turbine. While the largest turbine in the world is a 7 MW turbine, standard GE turbines used in most US wind farms are in the 1.5 to 2.5 MW range.
Hexicon is collaborating with Innowind (as well as regular turbine manufacturers) to provide a stable platform for multiple-turbine-platform modules to build off-shore wind farms.
Their stable hexagonal platform would make repairs and maintenance at off-shore wind farms easier, because they are accessible. Work crews could be docked by boat and helicopters could land on the rigs.
In addition, wave energy underneath could also be accessed under these floating platforms.
You must be logged in to post a comment.