THE world's first full-scale floating wind farm is to be formally opened by Nicola Sturgeon on Wednesday.
Power will be brought to 20,000 homes from the wind farm, known as Hywind, moored 25km off the coast of Peterhead
The technology being trialled allows wind power to be harvested in waters too deep for the existing conventional turbines.
Manufacturer Statoil has installed a 30 MW wind turbine farm on floating structures at Buchan Deep.
The firm hopes to capitalise on a boom in the technology, particularly in Japan and the west coast of America, where waters are deeper.
The First Minister said the floating windfarm showed Scotland was at the cutting edge of promoting renewable energy.
Sturgeon said: “Scotland has developed an international reputation for modern, renewable energy technologies, and Hywind Scotland – the world’s first floating wind farm – is testament to that.
“Last month I set out our Programme for Government which made firm commitments to create a cleaner and greener Scotland and the development of renewable energy is vital to achieve this.
"This pilot project underlines the potential of Scotland’s huge offshore wind resource and positions Scotland at the forefront of the global race to develop the next generation of offshore wind technologies.
“In addition to the green benefits of renewable energy, it also has a very significant contribution to make to our economy.
"I’m pleased Scottish suppliers have contributed to the Hywind project from the development through to the production phase and are still involved to investigate long term potential for floating wind."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel