S4VAWT

TKI Wind op Zee

In large areas in the world, water depth will require floating wind energy, for which vertical axis wind turbines should be more cost-effective than horizontal axis turbines. An international consortium is designing an offshore wind farm using vertical axis turbines, for which an innovative semi-submersible floater is needed.

The S4VAWT project aims at developing a cost effective floating support structure for a vertical axis wind turbine. The ground-breaking technology is specifically designed for far offshore conditions and sets a new industry standard by combining a large scale floating VAWT with pitched blades mounted on a semi-submersible floater.

The Dutch consortium, consisting of GustoMSC, ECN, TUDelft, WMC and MARIN, will develop the semi-submersible floater for the vertical axis wind turbine and is supported by the French company EOLFI. This semi-submersible floater with vertical axis wind turbine will be a competitive concept for floating offshore wind power, because of the integral design approach for floater and mooring system. In the project the optimum size and shape is determined together with the estimation of weight and costs. In order to reach a safe, reliable and cost-effective floating support  structure, the performance of the design in combined wind and waves will be verified by state-of-the-art numerical simulations. To enable integral design and optimization of the support structure, the required tools for design and analysis of floating VAWTs will be developed, building on existing knowledge on floating horizontal axis wind turbines.

The innovative design aims towards a low steel weight of the floater, at least 15% reduction of steel weight-to-power ratio compared to floaters for horizontal axis turbines. The market potential of floating wind power is larger than for bottom-fixed offshore wind; the technology is intended to become an export product.