The five-machine 30MW Buchan Deep project, set to be anchored off Peterhead by 2016 in more than 100 metres of water, could be a commercial launchpad for a sector that saw its maiden full-scale prototype — the developer’s own Hywind 1 — switched on less than five years ago off western Norway.
For if the trials of the grid-connected quintet — consisting of bottle-shaped spar-buoy foundations topped with 6MW turbines — are successful, it would clear the way for Statoil to begin serial production for wind developments of over 500MW by 2020.
“Buchan Deep has a lot to recommend it as a demonstration site [for the second-generation Hywind],” states Statoil’s head of floating wind business development, Trine Ingebjørg Ulla.
