#hywind

Hywind Scotland, The world's first floating wind farm, has started delivering electricity to the grid on 18, 10, 2017.

The 30 megawatt (MW) wind farm, which is operated by Norway-based energy firm Statoil and UAE partner Masdar, is set 25 kilometers offshore Peterhead in Aberdeenshire and will power around 20,000 households.

The world’s first floating wind farm is expected to be completed by the end of August 2017, as the pioneering £200mil Hywind project begins securing floating wind turbines in place.

The project, which was covered in Materials World January 2017, is unusual on two parts: firstly, the wind turbines are not planted to the seabed directly but float on the water’s surface, kept in place by underwater ballast and mooring lines. And, perhaps more significantly, the Hywind project is not developed by a traditional renewable energy company but Norway’s Statoil.

Elin Isaksen, spokesperson for Statoil, told Materials World in January, ‘The industrialisation of floating wind as a key opportunity for companies with skillsets from the oil and gas business. As a large operator in offshore installations in the O&G area, Statoil will leverage this knowledge in the wind industry.’

Statoil chooses Kongsberg EmPower for Hywind Demo

[featured][/featured]Statoil has been awarded a grant from ENOVA to test the condition monitoring capabilities of the Kongsberg EmPower system for the floating wind turbine Hywind Demo. Statoil will monitor the condition of the turbine using the EmPower system, and evaluate its functionality to discover early signs of fault, and calculate remaining lifetime for main components. This will…