Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder and yet the oft quoted objection against wind turbines is that they are an eyesore. Norwegian company Statoilhydro wants to remove this argument from the discussion on turbines. For this it has developed Hywind: ‘the first full scale offshore floating wind turbine.’ These wind turbines are supposed to be located way offshore where no body would have a cause for concern. Capable of generating power to the tune of 2.3MW the Hywind would be installed on Spar-buoy (floating platform) and would be tethered to the sea floor using three anchor moorings. Standing tall at 65m and having a rotor diameter of 82.4m, the Hywind will make use of the powerful winds out at sea. Also the diameter of the platform would be as small as 20 feet and the sea depth that these could be located on range from 400 to 2,300 feet. The concept is under testing and Siemens has been assigned the production of a prototype. An investment of 400 million krone and considerable experience in offshore oil drilling installations on the part of Statoilhydro bode well for the success of the project. We’d be watching closely the test results that come out from Karmoy in Rogaland County, the testing site located 10km off Norway’s western shore.
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