Norway’s World Wide Wind has a radically different take on offshore wind power. These floating, vertical-axis wind turbines (VAWTs) feature two sets of blades, tuned to contra-rotate – and they promise more than double the output of today’s biggest turbines.
Taking wind farms way offshore can certainly help make them less obtrusive, and open up a lot more opportunities – but as the ocean gets deeper, conventional horizontal-axis wind turbines (HAWTs) begin making less and less sense. HAWTs need to hold a lot of heavy components – drivetrains, gearboxes, generators and their colossal blades – right up the top of a long pole, so mounting them on floating platforms that don’t want to tip over is a huge challenge – not to mention maintaining the business end of a turbine so far above the ground.
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