“In order to test the latest research results, we are constructing a 1MW test platform in the Bay of Biscay off the north of Spain,” says Matthias Hofmann at SINTEF Energy Research. "This will be ready in three years and help us to close the energy gap and take the step from small-scale testing to a full-scale offshore installation.”

The point is that a floating deepwater wind-turbine needs to be designed quite differently from its land equivalent. Challenges will emerge in rotor blade and control system designs and the new units need to be able to operate as independently as possible.

“It is not enough to simply have wind turbines offshore; operating and maintaining them will involve challenges, such as simply reaching them. When seas are high, for example, it will be difficult to get “on board” for trouble-shooting and maintenance,” adds Hofmann’s colleague Harald Svendsen.

Plenty of power
As well as developing a concept for a 10–20MW turbine,  project members look at how the huge floating wind-farm units far out to sea can be interconnected and connected to the electricity grid ashore.

The advantages of locating wind-turbines offshore are well known. First, a better wind regime, it simply blows harder out at sea. Then larger schemes can be built; a single North Sea block of 60 x 60 km is capable of producing more electricity than all Norway’s hydropower plants combined, while ten blocks could supply enough electric power for the whole of Europe.

The problem: how to do it? Wind-turbines already stand in UK and Denmark shallow waters. But coastal sites are going to become more crowded, and both environmental and resource considerations will mean these installations  have to be located further from the coast.

SINTEF participation
Scientists from SINTEF will work on two of the project’s ten work-packages. One deals with connection to the grid, and how to transfer power from the turbine to the onshore grid. The challenges here are about minimising energy losses and meeting strict quality requirements regarding the supply of power. Among other things wind-farms will help to stabilise supplies in the event of a grid failure.

According to the scientists, this work-package will be a combination of desk studies and small-scale experiments in SINTEF/NTNU’s own “renewables laboratory.”

The other work-package assembles all the information that is generated by the project and designs a route map based on such information. For example, what are the individual steps involved in building a 10MW floating wind-turbine? What market and logistics challenges are likely to emerge? This will involve all the companies that are members of the project, and will gather information through workshops and meetings.

Facts about HiPRWind:

• The HiPRWind project has a total budget of €19.8m
•  Offshore wind technology and floating offshore turbine consortium have 19 European partners, include ABB, Technip, Idesa and Wölfel.
• Fraunhofer Gesellschaft is project manager.
• Project duration: 2010 – 2015
• Both SINTEF and NTNU are porject members

Wind energy in Norway
Three potential concepts for wind energy generation are currently under development in Norway: Hywind & Sway  based on turbines mounted on monotowers moored to the seabed, while Wind-Sea has three rotors mounted on a floater in the form of an equilateral triangle.

Hywind has been in operation since 2009, while the other two are still at the model stage. Hywind is moored off Karmøy in southwestern Norway, but as it is owned by Statoil it cannot be used for tests by research institutes.

SINTEF can boast  high level of expertise in wind-power, including offshore, and some ten researchers at SINTEF Energy Research work full-time in this field. When the Research Council of Norway set up eleven centres of research on environmentally friendly energy, SINTEF Energy Research was allocated the management of the Nowitech and Cedren centres.

Nowitech focuses on offshore wind technology, while Cedren’s contribution is to the development and dissemination of environmentally friendly designs.

As a result, Nowitech,Trondheim and Norcowe, Bergen were given funding last year to build a floating test turbine that will gather data and test a number of designs. They will also build a floating station for measurements of wind and waves.