Statoil, the Norwegian oil and gas giant, is considering building a floating wind farm off the coast of Scotland, set to be the first of its kind in the world.
The company is already experimenting with alternative energy technology, having experimented with a floating wind turbine off Norway. Now it’s considering a farm made up of five 6-megawatt turbines off Aberdeen in a part of the North Sea where the water is about 100 meters deep, Oil Price reported.
Wind energy has met some stiff popular resistance, with many people objecting to their marring of rural landscapes. Even offshore turbines that are fixed to foundations have met opposition because they are restricted to waters of no more than 50 meters deep and thus tend to be near the shore and visible to those on land.
As a result, Statoil is exploring the possibility of using floating turbines farther out to sea to avoid the negative visual impact.
“This could be the first floating wind power park in the world,” Statoil spokesman Morten Eek said in Oslo.
If the company decides to build the floating wind farm off Aberdeen, the project would include turbines manufactured by the German company Siemens. Its turbines would include blades 75 meters long to make the most efficient use of the North Sea winds.
This is just some of the interest that countries and even oil companies have shown in wind energy. Like Norway, Portugal has been experimenting with floating turbines, and now is planning a wind demonstration farm with a capacity of 25 megawatts.
