Statoil has made the final investment decision to build the world’s first floating wind farm: The Hywind pilot park offshore Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.<\/p>\n
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This marks an important step forward for offshore wind technology, and potentially opens attractive new markets for renewable energy production worldwide.<\/p>\n
The decision triggers investments of around NOK 2 billion, realizing a 60-70 percent cost reduction per MW from the Hywind demo project in Norway.<\/p>\n
Statoil will install a 30 MW wind turbine farm on floating structures at Buchan Deep, 25 km offshore Peterhead, harnessing Scottish wind resources to provide renewable energy to the mainland. The wind farm will power around 20,000 households. Production start is expected in late 2017. <\/p>\n
“Statoil is proud to develop the world’s first floating wind farm. Our objective with the Hywind pilot park is to demonstrate the feasibility of future commercial, utility-scale floating wind farms. This will further increase the global market potential for offshore wind energy, contributing to realising our ambition of profitable growth in renewable energy and other low-carbon solutions,” says Irene Rummelhoff, Statoil’s executive vice president for New Energy Solutions.<\/p>\n
The pilot park will cover around 4 square kilometres, at a water depth of 95-120 metres. The average wind speed in this area of the North Sea is around 10 metres per second.<\/p>\n
Rummelhoff adds: “We are very pleased to develop this project in Scotland, in a region with a huge wind resource and an experienced supply chain from oil and gas. Through industry and supportive policies, the UK and Scotland is taking a position at the forefront of developing offshore wind as a competitive new energy source.”<\/p>\n