New wind energy testing could have turbines floating on water

While wind turbines are efficient, placing them in the ocean can become expensive and frustrating between the cost to fasten them to the ocean floor and the views from the mainland that can become blocked. A new design from scientists at Texas A&M University may help change their more negative aspects.

Using a new type of structure, wind turbines installed in the deep water of the ocean will float on the surface of the water instead of locking to the ocean floor, Maritime Systems Engineering associate professor at Texas A&M, Bert Sweetman, told Daily Fusion.

Stabilizing large wind turbines in deep water is the cause of a significant amount of their overall installation cost, as keeping the blades stable to steady their motion is currently ideal. If larger motions of the turbines were found to be acceptable without ruining their efficiency, Sweetman believes they could become much less expensive.

With a grant from the National Science Foundation, Sweetman’s team at Texas A&M have begun to create predictions of how much electricity turbines could generate and how they would react to the natural environment of the open ocean. Using this information, the team could more effectively create a design for floating platforms to save heavily on cost.

Could bring a “technical revolution”
Sweetman and his team are confident about the changes their research could bring on. “This cost-effective wind turbine concept could begin a technical revolution,” he told the news source. “These structures could satisfy valid concerns about excessive coastal development, while enabling economic development of wind farms in very challenging deep water offshore locations.”

In addition to turbines, the mathematical models being built could improve cars and airplanes’ mechanical systems designs, as they reduce computer power further than expected.

World’s largest wind energy farm
The breakthroughs being made at Texas A&M come as Britain opens the largest offshore wind power plant in the world, the London Array, located about 12 miles off the country’s southeast coast, according to The Energy Collective.

Harnessing enough power to provide 500,000 households in the country, the wind farm has a total energy capacity of around 630 megawatts from 175 turbines and may reduce the country’s annual CO2 emissions by nearly 900,000 tons.

More projects in the country expected to be built in coming years are predicted to add an additional 15 gigawatts to the country’s total wind energy output as they hope to reach 18 gigawatts overall by 2020.

Continued component testing will reduce the cost of wind turbines as well as help them achieve longer lifespans and lower overall maintenance costs.