Hywind Scotland, touted as the first floating wind farm in the world, has started delivering electricity to the Scottish grid. Today, the first minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, officially opened the wind farm.
The 30 MW project, operated by Statoil in partnership with Masdar, is located 25 kilometers offshore Peterhead in Aberdeenshire. It is expected to power approximately 20,000 households.
“Hywind can be used for water depths up to 800 meters, thus opening up areas that so far have been inaccessible for offshore wind,” says Irene Rummelhoff, executive vice president of the new energy solutions business area at Statoil. “The learnings from Hywind Scotland will pave the way for new global market opportunities for floating offshore wind energy.”
The onshore operations and maintenance base for Hywind Scotland is located in Peterhead, while the operations center is located in Great Yarmouth. Statoil and partner Masdar will also install Batwind, a 1 MWh Lithium battery storage solution for offshore wind energy. The solution has the potential to mitigate intermittency and optimize output, the partners say.
Mohamed Al Ramahi, CEO of Masdar, adds, “Hywind Scotland is showing that floating wind technology can be commercially viable wherever sea depths are too great for conventional, fixed offshore wind power. This opens up a number of new geographies, and we are already looking at future opportunities with our partners, building on our existing international portfolio in onshore and offshore wind energy and solar power.”
Thank you and good luck to all involved with the Hywind Scotland floating wind farm project. I have suggestions for integrating wind farms into the electricity grid so as to provide power on demand whatever the weather. First this system design tool I have published. Wind, storage and back-up system designer http://scottish.scienceontheweb.net/Wind%20power%20storage%20back-up%20calculator.htm?wind=30#wind Peak demand, wind and back-up power / energy usage and storage capacity calculator< For the specification and design of renewable energy electricity generation systems which successfully smooth intermittent wind generation to serve customer demand, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 52 weeks a year. Adopting… Read more »