The Anonymous Widower

World’s First Floating Wind Farm To Undergo First Major Maintenance Campaign, Turbines To Be Towed To Norwegian Port

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

This is the sub-heading.

The world’s first commercial-scale floating wind farm, the 30 MW Hywind Scotland, officially entered the operations and maintenance (O&M) phase in October 2017. After a little over six years of operation, the wind farm’s Siemens Gamesa wind turbines are now due for some major maintenance work.

And this is the first paragraph.

While offshore wind farms undergo turbine maintenance work more than once during their lifespans and tasks such as major component exchange are nothing uncommon, this is the first time a campaign of this kind will be done on a floating farm.

Hywind Scotland has a web site, where this is said on the home page.

The world’s first floating wind farm, the 30 MW Hywind Scotland pilot park, has been in operation since 2017, demonstrating the feasibility of floating wind farms that could be ten times larger.

Equinor and partner Masdar invested NOK 2 billion to realise Hywind Scotland, achieving a 60-70% cost reduction compared with the Hywind Demo project in Norway. Hywind Scotland started producing electricity in October 2017.

Each year since Hywind Scotland started production the floating wind farm has achieved the highest average capacity factor of all UK offshore windfarms, proving the potential of floating offshore wind farms.

This news item from Equinor is entitled Equinor Marks 5 Years Of Operations At World’s First Floating Wind Farm, says this about the capacity factor of Hywind Scotland.

Hywind Scotland, located off the coast of Peterhead, Scotland, is the world’s first floating offshore wind farm and the world’s best-performing offshore wind farm, achieving a capacity factor of 54% over its five years of operations. Importantly, Hywind Scotland has run to high safety standards, marking five years of no loss time injuries during its operation.

Any capacity factor over 50 % is excellent and is to be welcomed.

Maintaining A Floating Wind Farm

One of the supposed advantages of floating wind farms, is that the turbines can be towed into port for maintenance.

This first major maintenance of a floating wind farm, will test that theory and hopefully provide some spectacular pictures.

January 15, 2024 - Posted by AnonW | Energy | Engineering, Equinor, Floating Wind Power, Hywind Scotland, Masdar, Offshore Wind Power, Wind Power