Floating wind turbines on the high seas

In the Euro­pean ener­gy mix, wind is one of the most impor­tant sources of renew­able ener­gy. But the expan­sion of onshore wind pow­er plants is reach­ing its lim­its. Only a few sites are still avail­able. Off­shore wind farms are there­fore becom­ing increas­ing­ly impor­tant. In par­tic­u­lar, float­ing wind farms that can har­vest the vast wind resources far out at sea in deep­er waters are there­fore com­ing into focus to ensure the con­tin­ued growth of the indus­try. But the tech­nol­o­gy is not yet mature. The EU is now fund­ing the Hori­zon 2020 project “FLOATECH” with four mil­lion euros over three years.

The aim is to use the com­bined exper­tise of nine Euro­pean research and indus­try part­ners to bring the envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly tech­nol­o­gy of these plants to matu­ri­ty and to increase cost effi­cien­cy. The project is coor­di­nat­ed by the Depart­ment of Exper­i­men­tal Flu­id Mechan­ics at TU Berlin.

“The use of wind ener­gy is of cru­cial impor­tance for many of the next envi­ron­men­tal and ener­gy pol­i­cy goals. Europe is a leader in this tech­nol­o­gy and has devel­oped its wind ener­gy sec­tor into an impor­tant indus­try with hun­dreds of thou­sands of jobs.”

- Dr.-Ing. Chris­t­ian Navid Nay­eri, Project Man­ag­er at TU Berlin

Aerodynamic design and intelligent control in wave conditions

In order to be able to opti­mize the design of the tur­bines and thus increase their eco­nom­ic effi­cien­cy, the indus­tri­al-grade design tool “QBlade-Ocean” is first being devel­oped and exper­i­men­tal­ly val­i­dat­ed. It sim­u­lates the com­plex inter­ac­tions between aero­dy­nam­ics, hydro­dy­nam­ics, mechan­ics and con­trol of float­ing off­shore wind tur­bines with unprece­dent­ed effi­cien­cy and accuracy.

A sec­ond goal is the devel­op­ment of inno­v­a­tive con­trol meth­ods to make opti­mum use of waves and plat­form move­ments (“Active Wave-based Feed-For­ward Con­trol” and “Active Wake Mix­ing”). This should lead to a reduc­tion of the wake effect, the tur­bu­lent wind tail in the slip­stream of the blades, and thus to a net increase in the annu­al ener­gy pro­duc­tion of float­ing wind farms.

No piles in the seabed — protecting wildlife

The envi­ron­ment and bio­di­ver­si­ty will also ben­e­fit from the tar­get­ed design opti­miza­tion. Less mate­r­i­al and space will be used and there will be no noise as no piles need to be anchored in the seabed, wildlife habi­tat will be protected.

“I expect FLOATECH to con­tribute to the advance­ment of float­ing off­shore wind ener­gy tech­nol­o­gy by cre­at­ing a deep­er knowl­edge base,” said Chris­t­ian Nay­eri. “The project will also train many engineer*s with state-of-the-art float­ing wind exper­tise. By involv­ing rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers, the results of the project can then be fed direct­ly into the mar­ket. All in all, the project is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to strength­en the lead­ing posi­tion of Euro­pean wind ener­gy tech­nol­o­gy and to fur­ther estab­lish TU Berlin as a com­pe­tence leader in this field.”