Floating Wind Turbines - Overview of main challenges, expectations and future project solutions

摘要

Floating wind is considered as the breakthrough to overcome foundations costs related to offshore wind in deep locations (either near or far shore). Due to the harsh environment but also the maturing technology, the main challenge to overcome for floating wind is hydrodynamic stability. Different support structures types are currently being tested: 1. The ballast-stabilised “Spar” 2. The mooring-line stabilised or Tension Leg Platform “TLP” 3. The buoyancy-stabilised or semi-submersible “semi-sub” Out of the thirtyish, mainly European and Japanese, concepts currently identified from concept to full-scale pilot, to date, only 4 full-scale (2-MW range) pilots and quite a number of smaller scale prototypes are deployed offshore. However we have seen the pace of development picking up lately, as there are a number of other (2-MW range but also up to 7MW) pilots about to be deployed and as the first pre-commercial arrays in the range of 30-MW are coming up for 2017. In addition to this, to overcome installation costs, the industry is even developing floating transmission solutions. In Europe and the US, over 50 GW of offshore wind projects in deep waters between 40 and 60 meters are in planning, with permits submitted or approved. Taking into account the rest of the world, the opportunities are more than ten times higher. But to date, what is the return on experience, how does the industry foresee installation and O&M, what has been done to overcome specific challenges such as acceptable accelerations, fatigue, electrical connection etc.? Are there other challenges that have not yet been investigated and, last but not least, what could floating wind bring to Asia?