Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, officially opened what Statoil is calling the world’s first floating wind farm on October 18.
The 30MW Hywind Scotland, operated by Statoil in partnership with Masdar, is located 25 kilometers offshore Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, Scotland and will power approximately 20,000 households.
“Hywind can be used for water depths up to 800 meters, thus opening up areas that so far have been inaccessible for offshore wind,” said Irene Rummelhoff, executive vice president of the New Energy Solutions business area in Statoil. “The learnings from Hywind Scotland will pave the way for new global market opportunities for floating offshore wind energy.”
“Statoil has an ambition to reduce the costs of energy from the Hywind floating wind farm to € 40-60 €/MWh by 2030. Knowing that up to 80% of the offshore wind resources are in deep waters (+60 meters) where traditional bottom fixed installations are not suitable, floating offshore wind is expected to play a significant role in the growth of offshore wind going forward,” she said.
Linked to the Hywind Scotland project Statoil and partner Masdar will also install Batwind, a 1MWh lithium battery storage unit to smooth out intermittency.