World’s largest floating wind farm given go ahead

The Scottish government has granted a marine licence that will see the creation of the world’s largest wind farm development off the coast of Peterhead.

Norwegian energy company, Statoil, plan to develop a pilot park of five floating 6MW turbines to be located around 25Km miles off the coast of Peterhead and will be capable of generating 135GWh of electricity per year.

It is hoped that that the Hywind Scotland development could provide power for up to 19,900 homes.

Unlike conventional turbines, Hywind turbines will be attached to the seabed by a three-point mooring spread and anchoring system.  An inter-array of cables will connect the turbines and an export cable will carry electricity from the pilot park to shore at Peterhead.

Deputy First Minister John Swinney said: “Hywind is a hugely exciting project – in terms of electricity generation and technology innovation – and it’s a real testament to our energy sector expertise and skilled workforce that Statoil chose Scotland for the world’s largest floating wind farm.

“The momentum is building around the potential for floating offshore wind technology to unlock deeper water sites. The ability to leverage existing infrastructure and supply chain capabilities from the offshore oil and gas industry create the ideal conditions to position Scotland as a world leader in floating wind technology.”

Statoil’s Executive Vice President for New Energy Solutions Irene Rummelhoff commented: “Floating wind represents a new, significant and increasingly competitive renewable energy source. Statoil’s objective with developing this pilot park is to demonstrate a commercial, utility-scale floating wind solution, to further increase the global market potential.

We are proud to develop this unique project in Scotland, in a region that has optimal wind conditions, a strong supply chain within oil and gas and supportive public policies.”

The Carbon Trust believe that floating wind concepts could potentially reduce generating costs to below £100/MWh in commercial deployments, with the leading concepts such as Hywind, with even lower costs of £85-£95MWh.

Statoil plan to commence onshore construction in 2015/16, and offshore construction in 2016/17. Final commissioning of the pilot park will be approximately 2017.

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