27 September 2023
FLOATING WIND ENERGY SOLUTIONS - FINAL RESULTS OF THE ARCWIND PROJECT
Last month of June took place the final workshop and meeting of ARCWIND project. This final event was hosted by IST - Instituto Superior Técnico, in Lisbon.
ARCWIND Project - Adaptation and implementation of floating wind energy conversion technology for the Atlantic region, financed by INTERREG Atlantic Area, aims to contribute to drive the floating wind energy forward such that it can become a major contributor of green energy in the Atlantic Area. The project has contributed with developments in four concepts of floating wind turbines, the identification of possible locations for economically viable wind farms and the design of some wind farms, hoping that these studies can provide investors and funding agencies technical support for decisions.
This workshop was an opportunity to present the major achievements of the project. The following topics were presented:
- Presentation of the multicriteria methods developed to identify feasible areas for farm locations in the Atlantic Area implemented in a GIS system;
- Presentation of the four platforms adapted for a 10 MW turbine and tested in hydrodynamic laboratories, with the comparison of the numerical models with the experimental results;
- Presentation of the design of the farms in the Atlantic Area based on four floating wind turbine platforms;
- Presentation of the moorings designed for selected farms and the corresponding installation;
- Presentation of maintenance aspects that can be applied to offshore wind farms;
- Presentation of the study of the economic feasibility of the FOW farms in the selected areas.
The welcome and opening of this final event was made by the Professor Carlos Guedes Soares, from Instituto Superior Técnico, Project Leader of ARCWIND project, who presented the project overview.
One of the main novelties introduced by the project is not only the study of four different designs of floating wind farms, but also an innovative approach to determining the location of the wind farms based on the satellite images, estimating the wind speed and direction, and innovative mooring and installation logistics.
R&D Nester, as a part of the WP7, related to array design, installation logistics and maintenance planning, contributed to study of the impact in the electric grid, in order to analyze the effects of the offshore wind farm in the connection point, taking into consideration the wind farm's output characteristics (load profile) and based on real network data, using a nodal capacity calculation tool.
During the presentation discussing the maintenance planning of offshore wind arrays, the aspects of wind farm connection were presented by WP Leader, highlighting the maximum installed capacities of the wind farms in six specific areas identified within the project scope.
The ARCWIND project, financed by INTERREG Atlantic Area, aims to contribute to the development of floating wind solutions. Different areas of knowledge are addressed, including the analysis of potential of wind resource, design and testing of prototypes of floating wind platforms, network impact and economic viability studies.
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