The largest floating wind turbine in the world – a 10MW monster – could be turning off Norway by 2022, with the €25m Iberdrola-led EU Flagship project now formally launched.

The record-setting unit will mate a semisubmersible concrete design called the OO-Star, developed by Norwegian engineering outfit Dr Techn Olav Olsen, with an as-yet-unnamed turbine for a battery of tests at the MetCentre off Karmøy, situated on the Nordic country’s west coast.

“It is good to finally start the project,” said Dr Techn Olav Olsen managing director Olav Weider. “We have developed the OO-Star since 2010 and finally we can move forward from a concept on the drawing board to a real product.

“Within end-of-2022 the world’s largest floating wind turbine shall be installed and operating [and] we expect that the testing will confirm the robustness, scalability, feasibility and the cost-effectiveness of the concept and pave the way for worldwide deployment.”

Flagship, being developed as part of the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme with an eye on developing the 500MW arrays deemed needed to cut the levelised cost of energy (LCOE) of floating wind to €40-60/MWh ($44-66/MWh) by 2030, will involve a 12-member international consortium that includes developer EDF, consultancy DNV-GL and contractor Kvaerner.

The OO-Star is one of several concrete platforms hatched for the rapidly emerging floating wind market, with France’s Ideol and the US’ University of Maine also both development designs using the tried-and-test construction material.

WindEurope chief Giles Dickson said earlier this month that Europe could build as much as 7GW of floating wind off its shores this decade as part its ratcheting-up of its decarbonisation ambitions.

Norway was the first country in the world to install an industrial floating wind turbine, the 2.3MW Hywind Demo – which was further developed as the basis for the landmark 30MW Hywind Scotland array, brought online in 2017, but has seen scant progress in the field since, although the next-generation TetraSpar design from Stiesdal Offshore Technologies is edging toward installation as a 3.6MW prototype at the MetCentre.

Now, however, with the climate crisis heightening pressure on the Norwegian government to speed up the steps to reach carbon neutrality and revenues from its biggest industrial sector dwindling due to a coronavirus-collapsed crude market, the country’s government recently vote through a tender that opens up two vast swathes of water in the North Sea to development with up to 4.5GW arrays, much of which would require floating units due to water depths.

Recent market analysis from UK-based international low carbon advisory body the Carbon Trust calculates over 70GW of floating wind could be turning by 2040 – a near-1,000-fold expansion of the current global fleet – as international supply chains take shape to support development of commercial-scale projects around the world.

The forecast sees up to 10.7GW of floating wind globally by 2030, before the market mushrooms, with a total project value approaching £200bn ($250bn) by the end of next decade. DNV GL, in its latest Energy Transition Outlook, forecasts some 260GW of floating wind turning by 2050, but hinges on the sector reducing LCOE from current levels of over €120/MWh.

Technology

'World's largest floating wind turbine' by 2022 off Norway as Iberdrola-led project launches