In total five Siemens Gamesa 6MW turbines are being installed at the Peterhead wind farm, known broadly as Hywind, which will provide power to 20,000 homes.
Norwegian oil and gas giant Statoil has produced the turbines and hope that the floating foundations will enable turbines to be installed in many viable sites that are currently too deep for monopiles.
Leif Delp, project director at Hywind said: “This is a tech development project to ensure it’s working in open sea conditions. It’s a game-changer for floating wind power and we are sure it will help bring costs down.”
The floating foundation uses a spar-type substructure, which once at the destination site, is tethered to the seabed 95 to 120m below the surface.
One particular innovation is the computer control of the blades that twist to dampen the motion of the sea to keep the towers upright.
The floating tower is 100m with each blade spanning 75m. The complete structure weighs 11,500 tonnes.
