The UK registered energy firm Blue H was poised to anchor its floating wind turbine prototype 12 miles off the coast of southern Italy earlier this month. The company is one of several in a race to build floating wind turbines that rest in deep water far from land, assembled for commercial use. The prototype has been is set to float on the market as a functioning wind turbine that an benefit from powerful winds, but avoid many of the issues which are afflicting the production of wind farms.

Blue H have plans to build the device off Scotland and the northeast coast of America. Neal Bastik, CEO of Blue H, said the Italian prototype would be “virtually invisible” from the shore, and that the firm has set plans to build a full scale floating 90 megawatt wind farm in the same region.
The floating windmills would be more economic to install than existing offshore turbines, which sit on fixed foundations in the seabed. Bastik said that they could minimise problems with planning, as well as having less impact on shipping, military radar and coastal seabird populations. The electricity harvested would be sent ashore using out-of-sight undersea cables.

The companies noted as being involved in the race to release the first commercial floating turbine have sited Britain as a key market for such technology due to the consistent winds around its cost. And with EU 2020 renewable targets in sight, these out of view turbines propose a helpful solution to the 7,000 sea set wind turbines the UK government need to meet their goals.

The Blue H prototype will float a turbine platform on the sea surface and position it using heavy duty chaining linked to heavy weights that lie on the sea bed. Adjusting the length of the chains could allow the prospective turbines to operate in water depths between 50m and 300m – enough to fix a farm out of sight in the deep ocean.

Two more forerunners involved in production are Norwegian companies Statoil and Statkraft, who are also developing windmill prototypes. “We need some new industrial thinking on the technology. Up to now, people have just focused on taking onshore wind turbines and putting them offshore. That has caused a lot of hassle and mistakes,” says Carl Erik Hillesund, vice president for Statkraft’s offshore development.
Stratkraft has also been reported as being involved in bidding to build new wind farms in British waters, but at the moment the company forecast their first full scale commercial prototype to be working by 2011.

Another design is being worked on by another Norwegian company called Sway. It mounts its turbine on an elegant elongated floating mast, the length of which sits below the water. Connected to the seabed by metal tubing, the turbine has been conceived to sway with the wind and the waves, and is set to be launched 2010 in time for EU deadlines.

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