Vestas, one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of wind turbines, has announced that it will be working in collaboration with WindPlus to deploy a unique wind turbine that uses a first-of-its-kind floating platform technology. Now, floating turbines have been deployed before, namely off the coast of Italy and Norway; in 2007, aBlue H floating wind turbine was deployed 70 miles of Italy for a year, while in 2009 Statoil (the oil company!) launched Hywind in the North Sea. So what is different about the WindPlus/Vestas turbine? Read on to find out.
The turbine is attached to a WindFloat, which is a platform designed and patented by Principle Power. The platform is what makes the new turbines unique as it is able to decrease wave and wind-induced motion which allows for the turbines to be deployed in depths of over 50m.
The Vestas and WindPlus venture also includes the EDP Group, Principle Power, and several other energy companies, all of whom are aiming to install and commission a Vestas V80-2.0MW wind turbine for an offshore wind power project off the coast of Portugal.
The floating turbine is expected to be finished in 2011 with Vestas acting as a “technology reference for the project” as well as supporting “the integration of the wind turbine and the WindFloat platform.”
If the platform yields great results after a year, it could lead the way for similar turbines to be deployed in deeper waters where the wind resources are much greater.
Click here to watch a video of the WindFloat platform.
+ Vestas
Via Clean Technica
