By Ameya Paleja
A Norwegian yards group, Westcon, has put in place an agreement with Sweden-based company SeaTwirl to deploy 1MW vertical axis wind turbines in the North Sea by next year, Recharge News has reported. This commercial scale vertical axis turbine could kick off a new era in offshore wind farms delivering cost competitiveness very soon.
As the world pushes for a shift towards renewable energies, there is a lot of interest in tapping the potential of ocean winds. Different methods have been attempted to harness this energy, but the conventional wind turbine is the one that has been making much of the headlines.
The recently operational Hornsea 2 project off the coast of the U.K. is currently the world’s largest offshore wind farm. However, as turbines used in such projects get bigger, the cost-effectiveness of the platform is expected to drop since the construction costs will balloon as we go deeper into the seas.
The vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs) offer a slew of advantages over conventionally used horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWTs). The latter relies on sophisticated instruments that tell them in which direction the breeze is flowing in and where to point themselves for maximum power generation. The turbines of a VAWT can harness power from all directions, so they can work without such equipment.
Since all the components of a HAWT need to be assembled together atop, towers that hold them need to be strong and built with huge counterweights. Going forward, this requirement will only increase, further increasing the costs of making them. The turbines create minimal wake effect downwind and, therefore, can also be placed closer together in the wind farm.
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