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Floating wind turbine

External video
A video describing the WindFloat.

A floating wind turbine is an offshore wind turbine mounted on a floating structure that allows the turbine to generate electricity in water depths where bottom-mounted towers are not feasible. Locating wind farms out at sea can reduce visual pollution while providing better accommodation for fishing and shipping lanes. In addition, the wind is typically more consistent and stronger over the sea, due to the absence of topographic features that disrupt wind flow.

Floating wind parks are wind farms that site several floating wind turbines closely together to take advantage of common infrastructure such as power transmission facilities.

The concept for large-scale offshore floating wind turbines was introduced by Professor William E. Heronemus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1972. It was not until the mid 1990s, after the commercial wind industry was well established, that the topic was taken up again by the mainstream research community. As of 2003, existing offshore fixed-bottom wind turbine technology deployments had been limited to water depths of 30 metres. Worldwide deep-water wind resources are extremely abundant in subsea areas with depths up to 600 metres, which are thought to best facilitate transmission of the generated electric power to shore communities. Two-thirds of the North Sea is between 50 and 220 meters deep.

In June 2013, the University of Maine made history with its VolturnUS 1:8, a 65-foot-tall floating turbine prototype that is 1:8th the scale of a 6-megawatt (MW), 450-foot rotor diameter design. VolturnUS 1:8 was the first grid-connected offshore wind turbine deployed in the Americas. The VolturnUS design utilizes a concrete semisubmersible floating hull and a composite materials tower designed to reduce both capital and Operation & Maintenance costs, and to allow local manufacturing throughout the US and the World. The VolturnUS technology is the culmination of collaborative research and development conducted by the University of Maine-led DeepCwind Consortium. U.S. Senators Susan Collins and Angus King announced in June 2016 that Maine’s New England Aqua Ventus I floating offshore wind demonstration project, designed by the DeepCwind Consortium, has been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy to participate in the Offshore Wind Advanced Technology Demonstration program.


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