Turbine designs for floating wind units must begin to look beyond conventional three-bladed models if the sector is to accelerate its industrialisation and produce power optimally from far offshore sites in the future, the project lead on French utility EDF’s sector flagship said today (Wednesday), striking a light for new-look deepwater concepts coming into the market.

Joanna Kluczewska-Bordier said EDF’s experience building one of the four floating wind demonstrator arrays set to be moored off France in the near future, the 25MW Province Grand Large, led her to believe topmost among tests facing the industry now was developing wind turbines “specifically adapted” to floating hulls.