Offshore staff
STAVANGER, Norway – Equinor has commemorated five years of operation of Hywind Scotland in the UK North Sea.
The complex offshore Peterhead, northeast Scotland, is the world’s first floating offshore wind farm and has delivered a capacity factor to date of 54%, with loss time injuries.
Five turbines on spar substructures generated 30 MW, to power the equivalent of 34,000 homes.
William Munn, plant manager, said, “Because of its location and the harsh weather conditions it encounters, Hywind Scotland has exposure to higher wind speeds than we typically see on a fixed-bottom wind farm, but also has to withstand large waves, while continuing to produce power with wave heights of 10 m. Due to the environment, unique operations and maintenance methods have been required, such as a high-performance crew transfer vessel [CTV] that can continue operations in higher-than-standard transfer conditions.”
Equinor’s proprietary floating wind turbine motion controller is in action at Hywind Scotland, contributing to "world-leading" capacity factor performance despite the added motion experienced by floating offshore wind substructures, the company said.
The company’s second floating offshore wind project, Hywind Tampen in the Norwegian North Sea, should become fully operational in 2023.
Additional projects and initiatives
Steinar Berge, head of Floating Wind at Equinor, said, “We are advancing plans to develop additional projects, including in South Korea, Australia, France, Spain, California, the UK’s Celtic Sea and Norway."
In addition, the company is working with the Scottish Government Directorate, Marine Scotland, to evaluate how fishing crews can operate safely around and within floating offshore wind farms.
Other initiatives include the installation of an autonomous SailBuoy to map fish presence and biomass quantity with acoustic sensors and testing a new method of analyzing environmental DNA (eDNA) at Hywind Scotland.
01.03.2023
