How futuristic floating wind turbines might ride the waves
The Block Island wind farm, from Montauk Point on Long Island, New York, on April 16th, 2021. | Photo by Mark Harrington / Newsday RM via Getty Images
GE shared some new details today of a concept that might advance the development of futuristic floating wind farms. Floating turbines are engineering marvels — or nightmares, depending on how you see it — that could make massive swathes of deep ocean available to offshore wind development.
While they hold a lot of potential, the floating behemoths have so far been too costly to deploy at commercial scale. And because they’re floating, they also face a barrage of technical challengesthat turbines fixed to the seabed don’t have to weather. GE hopes to solve some of those problems through advanced turbine controls that it’s developing alongside consulting firm Glosten. They’re...
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