Deep Water Wind
As Northeast Ohio continues to explore the viability of offshore wind in the relatively shallow waters off Cleveland (creating opportunities to develop lower cost foundations), Europeans are experimenting with a radically new design for deep water wind off the coast of Norway. From MIT’s Technology Review:
“The notion of floating wind turbines far offshore may have come a nautical mile closer to reality late last month, with the announcement of a collaboration between Norwegian oil and gas producer StatoilHydro and Germany’s Siemens, a major wind-turbine producer. The new partners plan to install what could be the world’s first commercial-scale wind turbine located offshore in deep water. StatoilHydro has allocated 400 million NOK ($78 million) to floating a Siemens turbine in more than 200 meters of water–10 times the depth that conventional offshore wind-turbine foundations can handle–atop a conventional oil and gas platform.”
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