World’s largest floating wind farm put into operation: Unrivaled in its field

Norwegian energy firm Equinor announced that power generation from the first wind turbine of its Hywind Tampen plant took place on Sunday afternoon. The wind farm will be fully operational in 2023.

Described as the world’s largest floating wind farm, Hywind Tampen managed to generate its first electricity at the end of last week. More turbines are planned to be put into operation before the end of the year. On the other hand, the Norwegian energy company Equinor, which is actually an oil company, is the founder of this facility.

While wind is a renewable energy source, the Hywind Tampen wind farm will be used to assist energy operations in the North Sea oil and gas fields. Equinor reports that the first energy produced by Hywind Tampen was also sent to the Gullfaks oil and gas field.

Hywind Tampen will have no rivals when completed

Hywind Tampen, which will meet half (47 percent) of the world’s floating wind capacity when completed, will consist of a total of 11 wind turbines, each generating 8.6 MW. In total, approximately 88 MW of capacity will be reached.

The wind farm is located about 140 kilometers off the Norwegian coast, at depths ranging from 260 to 300 meters. Seven of the turbines in the wind farm are scheduled to be commissioned in 2022 and the remaining four to be installed in 2023. Equinor said Hywind Tampen’s Gullfaks and Snorre sites are expected to meet about 35% of electricity demand. “This will reduce CO2 emissions from facilities by approximately 200,000 tons per year,” the company added. However, using a floating wind farm to power the generation of fossil fuels is somewhat odd.

On the other hand, Equinor said that the turbines in Hywind Tampen are built on a floating concrete structure with a common clamping system. An advantage of floating turbines is that they can be installed in deeper waters than fixed-bottom turbines. In this way, more intense winds can be accessed. Meanwhile, earlier this year, the White House said it’s aiming for 15 gigawatts of floating wind power capacity by 2035. Japan and Australia are also working in this area.