The long-time planned project of a commercial scale floating wind turbine is finally seeing its first unit installed. Siemens and StatoilHydro have successfully transported and installed the first floating wind turbine to be used for testing the new technology. Located 12 km from Karmøy in Norway, and floating at the sport where the ocean depth reaches about 220 m, the Siemens SWT-2.3 MW wind turbine now represents the first floating unit at the Hywind facility developed by StatoilHydro. The unit will be used for gathering data about the new technology's performance, and is expected to start generating electricity and feeding into the power grid in mid-July.

The world's first large-scale floating wind turbine is located approximately 12 km south east of Karmøy in Norway at a water depth of about 220 meters. (Image credit: Siemens)

Hywind is designed to suit water depths from 120-700 meters, which represents a very interesting development, enabling development of wind farms much further away from shore, where wind energy is more abundant. Deep water anchored wind turbines are very expensive to install due to high costs of foundation construction. StatoilHydro supplied the floating base structure, which consists of a steel floater filled with ballast to provide stability in rough sea conditions. The floating element reaches to about 100 m below sea surface and is attached to the seabed using three anchor wires. The two companies have jointly developed a special control system, which takes advantage of the wind turbine's ability to partially dampen wave induced motions of the floating system.

Computer rendered conceptualization of the floating turbine. (Image credit: Siemens)