Hywind Scotland is the world's first commercial wind farm using

floating wind turbine A floating wind turbine is an offshore wind turbine mounted on a floating structure that allows the turbine to generate electricity in water depths where fixed-foundation turbines are not economically feasible. Floating wind farms have the poten ...

s, situated off

Peterhead Peterhead (; , ) is a town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It is the council area's largest settlement, with a population of 19,060 at the 2022 Census for Scotland, 2022 Census. It is the largest fishing port in the United Kingdom for total landi ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

. The farm has five 6 MW Siemens direct-drive turbines on ''Hywind'' floating monopiles, with a total capacity of 30 MW. It is operated by Hywind (Scotland) Limited, a joint venture of

Equinor Equinor ASA (formerly Statoil and StatoilHydro) is a Norwegian multinational energy company headquartered in Stavanger, Norway. It is primarily a petroleum company, petroleum company operating in 36 countries with additional investments in renew ...

(75%) and

Masdar Masdar (Arabic: مصدر‎), also known as the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, is an Emirati state-owned renewable energy company. It was founded and chaired by Sultan Al Jaber in 2006 as a subsidiary of Mubadala Investment Company. The compan ...

(25%). Equinor (then: Statoil) launched the world's first operational deep-water floating large-capacity wind turbine in 2009, the 2.3 MW

Hywind Hywind was the first MW-class floating wind turbine concept, developed by StatoilHydro (now Equinor). It has a rated power of 2.3 megawatts (MW), and is mounted on a Spar (platform), spar foundation derived from oil platforms. The basic develo ...

, which cost 400 million

NOK Nok is a village in Jaba, Nigeria, Jaba Local Government Area of Kaduna State, Nigeria. The village is an archeological site. Archaeology The discovery of terracotta figurines at this location caused its name to be used for the Nok culture, ...

(US$71 million, $31/W). The tall tower with a 2.3 MW Siemens turbine was towed from the

Åmøy Åmøy is an island in Stavanger Municipality in Rogaland county, Norway. The island lies just north of the Stavanger (city), city of Stavanger in a group of islands. The islands of Sokn and Bru, Rogaland, Bru both lie to the west of Åmøy an ...

fjord and offshore into the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

in deep water, off of

Stavanger, Norway Stavanger, officially the Stavanger Municipality, is a city and municipalities of Norway, municipality in Norway. It is the third largest city and third largest metropolitan area in Norway (through conurbation with neighboring Sandnes) and the ...

on 9 June 2009 for a two-year test run, but remains working at the site while surviving wind speed and 19 m waves. In 2015, the company received permission to install the wind farm in Scotland, in an attempt at reducing the cost relative to the original Hywind, in accordance with the Scottish Government's commitment for cost reduction. Manufacturing for the project, with a budgeted cost of NOK2 billion (£152m), started in 2016 in Spain, Norway and Scotland. The turbines were assembled at

Stord Stord is a municipalities of Norway, municipality in Vestland counties of Norway, county, Norway. It is located in the Traditional districts of Norway, traditional district of Sunnhordland. Stord is sometimes called "Norway in miniature" since i ...

in Norway in summer 2017 using the

Saipem 7000 ''Saipem 7000'' is the world's third largest semi-submersible crane vessel, after the and the . It is owned by the Italian oil and gas industry contractor Saipem S.p.A. History Construction The vessel was designed by Gusto Engineering during ...

floating crane, and the finished turbines were moved to near Peterhead. Three suction anchors hold each turbine, measuring 16 metres in height, 5 metres in diameter, and weighing 300 tonnes each. Hywind Scotland was commissioned in October 2017. While cost was reduced compared to the very expensive Hywind One at $31m/MW, it still came with a final capital cost of £264m, or £8.8m/MW, approximately three times the capital cost of fixed offshore windfarms. Measured by unit cost, Hywind's

levelized cost of electricity The levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) is a measure of the average net present cost of electricity generation for a generator over its lifetime. It is used for investment planning and to compare different methods of electricity generation on a ...

(LCoE) is then £180/MWh ($248/MWh), about three times the typical LCoE of a fixed offshore wind farm at £55/MWh ($75.7/MWh). The high cost is partly compensated by £165.27/MWh from Renewable Obligation Certificates. In its first 5 years of operation the facility has averaged a

capacity factor The net capacity factor is the unitless ratio of actual electrical energy output over a given period of time to the theoretical maximum electrical energy output over that period. The theoretical maximum energy output of a given installation is def ...

of 54%, sometimes in 10 meter waves. By shutting down at the worst conditions, it survived Hurricane Ophelia, and then

Storm Caroline A storm is any disturbed state of the natural environment or the atmosphere of an astronomical body. It may be marked by significant disruptions to normal conditions such as strong wind, tornadoes, hail, thunder and lightning (a thunderstorm) ...

with wind gusts at and waves of 8.2 metres. The subsequent 88 MW Hywind Tampen (with concrete floating foundations) became operational at the Snorre and

Gullfaks oil field Gullfaks is an oil and gas field in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea operated by Equinor. It was discovered in 1978, in block 34/10, at a water depth of 130-230 meters.Petterson, O., Storli, A., Ljosland, E., Nygaard, O., Massie, I., and Ca ...

s in Norway in 2023 at a cost of NOK 8 billion or £600m (£6.8/MW). In May 2024 all 5 turbines were to be towed back to Norway for several months of the heavy maintenance of replacing the main bearings. All turbines were operating again by October 2024.

References

{{Electricity generation in Scotland 2017 establishments in Scotland 2017 in technology Equinor Wind farms in Scotland Offshore wind farms in the North Sea Floating wind turbines Energy infrastructure completed in 2017

See also

References