The Anonymous Widower

BP And EnBW Hire Kent For 2.9 GW Scottish Offshore Wind Project

The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.

This is the sub-heading.

Engineering and design service provider Kent has been awarded a contract by EnBW and BP to carry out pre-Front End Engineering Design (FEED) studies for the 2.9 GW Morven offshore wind project in Scotland.

Morven offshore wind farm would appear to be on its way.

According to Wikipedia’s list of UK offshore wind farms, the water depth  in the Morven wind farm is between 65-75 metres.

• Total power is given as 2907 MW, which indicates that 14 MW turbines could be used.
• Siemens Gamesa 14 MW turbines have a blade length of 108 metres and their 10 MW have a blade length of 94 metres.
• This would seem to indicate that the wind turbine will be as much as 160 to 185 metres above the sea-bed.

A radical design of fixed foundation will be needed.

In Entrion Wind Wins ScotWind Feasibility Deal For Its 100-Metre Depth Foundation Tech, I look at technology that might work.

I also say this about work I did in Cambridge in the early 1970s.

The structures, I mathematically-modelled were for a company called Balaena Structures, that had been started by two Cambridge University engineering professors. The structures were about a hundred metres high and perhaps thirty metres in diameter.

They would have been built horizontally in the sort of dock, where you would build a supertanker and would have been floated into position horizontally. Water would then be let in to the cylinder and they would turn to the vertical. From that position, they would be lowered to the sea-bed by adjusting the water in the cylinder. They had a method of holding the Balaena to the seabed, which relied mainly on the weight of the structure and what they called the gum-boot principle.

Sadly, they never sold any platforms and the company folded.

Until recently, you could find the expired patents on the Internet.

I believe that a development of the Balaena design could be the solution to deep water fixed foundations.

April 13, 2023 - Posted by AnonW | Energy | Balaena Structures, EnBW BP, Morven Wind Farm, Offshore Wind Power, ScotWind Leasing, Wind Power