Back in March, Dutch company Blue H Technologies announced that they intend to install the first U. S. floating deep water wind farm off of Martha’s Vineyard. The 420 MW wind farm will be constructed mostly on land and then floated out into position for the final work. This method of construction lessens the ecological impact.
What makes this unique is the lack of mooring that other floating wind farms have to keep them in place. Blue H took a page out the oil industry’s playbook to design a floating platform similar to some floating oil rigs.
Another unique feature of the Blue H floating deep water wind farm is that it will use a two blade turbine. The two blade designs lost out over 10 years ago to the three blade design for onshore turbines, but is preferred by Blue H because of the higher rotational speeds and more stability in the surging ocean waters.
In December 2007, Blue H also placed a prototype of a submerged deepwater platform off the coast of Italy, a first in the industry. Now, headed for the Western Isles of Scotland are approximately 90 semi-submerged Blue H wind turbines said to create over 400 MW of power.
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