Wind farms are getting an upgrade after borrowing a concept from the dirty energy sector, and developers have reportedly only begun to tap into the promising new frontier.
As detailed by the Guardian, floating offshore wind farms are gaining traction to provide abundant, low-cost energy in places like the United Kingdom.
Inspired by the floating oil rigs of the 1960s, the extraordinary floating farms give the technology a modern twist, enabling developers to situate them in much deeper waters.
Whereas traditional offshore wind turbines need their foundations secured to the seabed, the floating farms can be tethered with cables, allowing them to be installed in waters nearly 200 feet deep. This opens up a new realm of possibilities, with oceans covering around 71% of the planet, per National Geographic. Â
"Floating offshore wind is the future for offshore wind," Jane Cooper, the director for offshore wind at the trade association Renewable UK, told the Guardian. "... It has the potential to enable the U.K. to take a giant step forward by building the next generation of projects further out to sea, in deeper waters where wind speeds are even higher."Â
Meanwhile, Rovco chief executive Brian Allen believes the future of the industry might be even grander and nearer than the average person realizes — even though various floating projects elsewhere have garnered buzz, from solar panel farms to wildlife-protecting radar systems.
"Even though the U.K. is literally the world leader in developing offshore wind, people genuinely have no idea," the surveying and robotics company executive told the Guardian. "It's coming like a freight train, but people are blind to it."
According to the International Energy Agency, the U.K. is already off to a great start in transitioning its grid to cleaner energy sources, cutting harmful pollution by 50% compared to 1990.Â
However, as the Guardian highlights, some challenges lie ahead if it is to widely adopt floating wind farms to reduce pollution even further while bringing down rising energy costs, which are still significantly higher than before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.Â
For one, floating wind farms are more expensive. However, Equinor, a leading developer based in Norway, indicated that those costs are expected to be in line with traditional projects by 2040.
Secondly, the ports in the U.K. aren't designed to handle the dimensions of the floating equipment, meaning it would need to spend billions to upgrade its facilities.
According to Cooper, tackling these challenges is doable and would continue the U.K.'s push as a leader in the clean-energy transition.
"We need to attract £4bn [$5.3 billion] of public and private investment in new port infrastructure to accommodate floating wind by the end of this decade," Cooper told the Guardian. "This would drive £18bn [$24 billion] of wider economic activity throughout the U.K., and by 2040, the floating wind industry could support 45,000 jobs."
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