Six innovative ways to float skyscraper-sized wind turbines

Record-tall Wind Turbine Towers with 3D-printed Concrete Bases were in the news a few years back. Today, here are six innovative ways to float skyscraper-sized wind turbines. These enormous turbines can reach up to 240m tall—about the size of a skyscraper. Since they are so tall, strong winds far above the sea surface tend to cause the turbine to tilt, so platform designs focus on minimising this tilt while still being cost-competitive with other forms of energy.

Yes, you read that right – float. You may have seen a wind turbine in the sea before, but chances are you were looking at a “fixed” turbine – that is, one that sits on top of a foundation drilled into the seabed. For the new frontier of offshore wind power, the focus is on floating wind turbines. In this case, the turbines are supported by floating structures that bob and sway in response to waves and wind and are moored with chains and anchored to the seafloor.

This is becoming the focus of the sector for the simple reason that most wind blows above deep water, where building fixed platforms would be too expensive or simply impossible. Designing these new floating platforms is a true engineering challenge, and is a focus of my academic research.

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