paragons you syndrome «NIMBY» («not in my backyard»that is “not in my garden”), offshore wind turbines do not always have good press in France, where the resorts are constant against their facilities off our shores.
Not in my ocean – but in a distant and invisible open sea, why not. Unfortunately, the installation of conventional wind turbines (the “HAWTs”, i.e. «horizontal axis wind turbine» in English) becomes more complicated as one moves away from the coast.
Stowing them to the deepest seabed is often impossible or too costly, and floating their colossal mast and the heavy components it supports (giant like those of the Haliade-Xgenerator, orientation system, management, etc.) condemns them to sink, or to inefficiency.
Then comes the concept of “vertical axis wind turbines” (VAWT), which we sometimes already find on our land, around us. Alone, they are less efficient than conventional wind turbines and their vertical blades.
But VAWTs are also smaller, can harness wind from any direction without the need for heavy equipment, and can be grouped in large numbers in tight spaces without getting in each other’s way.
A Norwegian start-up nicely named World Wide Wind to wish to explore this dimension of verticality to create a maritime windmill which she presents as revolutionary. Presented by New Atlas in particularthe thing was designed to be able to be deployed in groups and in numbers in the oceans.
Named “contra-rotating vertical turbine” (CRVT), placed on a buoy including ballast, rotor et stator and allowing him, like a sailboat, to bend to the desire of the wind, his machine includes two counter-rotating turbines. One is connected to the rotor, the other to the stator and they each turn in one direction, which according to the small company doubles the electricity production of the whole.
400 meters
World Wide Wind’s ambitions are not modest. As New Atlas explains, the most powerful turbine in the world is the work of Chinese MingYang Smart Energy. Presented in 2021, it towers over the world at an altitude of 242 meters and is supposed to be able to reach a power of 16 MWh.
According to World Wide Wind, its design could eventually tolerate crazy heights approaching 400 meters. At this scale, each unit installed could reach the staggering power of 40 MW.
As for production costs, they would be lower than anything that currently exists. The Norwegian firm speaks of a price of 50 euros per megawatt produced, the operation and maintenance of its CRVT being facilitated by the installation in the buoy of some of its most precious elements.
When could we see these machines settle in our seas and begin to illuminate our futures? According to World Wide Wind and a interview given to Rechargefast enough: a model capable of a power of 3 MW could be ready as early as 2026, the firm aiming for 2029 for the giant version whose miracles it boasts.
As New Atlas notes however, if the concept is attractive on paper, in interviews and in the press release, the company has so far shown nothing very concrete: we will have to wait a little longer to find out if these wild promises are a solid hope for a decarbonized future, or if they are just the dream of overly optimistic engineers.