Bret Williams reports for Hydrogen Fuel News
WindFloat Atlantic, the largest offshore floating wind turbine in the world, went online New Year’s Day and has been harvesting energy ever since. The massive structure is connected to the grid off the Portuguese coast of Viana do Castelo.
The floating turbine stretches over 98 feet high.
There is also approximately 164 feet of space between each column. While this is certainly not the largest turbine in the world, it is the largest of the floating variety, which is an engineering feat within itself, as raising a floating structure is different compared to turbines built into the ground.
The floating structure was connected to the grid by a 20 kilometer (12.4 mile) long cable.
The WindFloat Atlantic platform, on which the turbine has been erected, is anchored to the ocean floor with chains at a depth of an estimated 300 feet. This allows the turbines to be located farther out to sea than traditional offshore wind farms that are fixed to the bottom of the sea.
The consortium behind the wind farm project says that it is the world’s first “semi-submersible floating wind farm in the world,” Popular Mechanics reports.
