The Scottish government has granted consent for the world’s largest floating offshore windfarm to be developed off the coast of Peterhead.

 

Oil and gas giant Statoil will build a 30MW pilot park consisting of five floating 6MW turbines, which could power nearly 20,000 homes. The project will be the UK’s first ever floating windfarm development, with construction set to start next year.

 

Statoil’s executive vice president for new energy solutions, Irene Rummelhoff, said: “Floating wind represents a new, significant and increasingly competitive renewable energy source. Statoil’s objective with developing this pilot park is to demonstrate a commercial, utility-scale floating wind solution, to further increase the global market potential.

 

The development, known as Hywind Scotland, differs from conventional offshore windfarms by using turbines attached to the seabed by a three-point mooring spread and anchoring system. The turbines are interconnected by cables, one of which exports electricity from the pilot farm to the shore at Peterhead.

 

Research from the Carbon Trust has suggest that floating wind concepts could potentially reduce generating costs for offshore developments to below £100MWh, with larger concepts such as Hywind producing even lower costs of £85-95MWh. Currently the global average levelised cost of electricity for offshore projects is £112MWh.

 

Last month the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) released a report indicating that floating offshore wind could be a credible, cost-effective form of low-carbon energy for the UK by the mid-2020’s.

 

Swedish floating wind developer Hexicon also threw its support behind the cost competitiveness of floating offshore developments.

 

PHOTO: Construction on the UK’s first floating offshore windfarm is to begin in 2016.

CREDIT: Øyvind Hagen / Statoil ASA.