Energy company AREVA and Norwegian renewable energy company SWAY have announced a partnership to provide technology for the use in deepwater, offshore wind development. AREVA, via its German subsidiary, AREVA Multibrid, is currently delivering turbines to the first German offshore test field, Alpha-Ventus.
AREVA-Multibrid was recently awarded a memorandum of understanding for the delivery of 80 wind turbines to the Global Tech I wind farm. The Multibrid M5000 turbine has a capacity of 5 MW and is designed solely for offshore installation.
The turbine will be adapted to enable downwind turbine operation on SWAY's tower solution.
‘Our aim is to demonstrate that deepwater wind power is commercially attractive within the next four years,’ says Eystein Borgen, SWAY's founder and CEO.
SWAY has been granted a license from the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate for building a floating wind turbine plant for offshore wind power approximately seven kilometers outside Karmoy on the west coast of Norway. The prototype construction is conditional on financial support from a recently established Norwegian financial support program for marine renewable energy.
The purpose of the project is to test a full-scale SWAY wind power plant and collect sufficient operational experience for both SWAY and the customer for building future floating wind power facilities offshore.
The demonstration plant will consist of a SWAY floating tower and an AREVA-Multibrid wind turbine. The tower is 188 meters high – 84 meters above water and 104 meter underwater. Heavy ballast is placed at the bottom of the tower, and it is anchored to the seabed with a tension leg and a suction anchor.
SOURCE: SWAY
