FLOVAWT: FURTHER PROGRESSES ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF A COUPLED MODEL OF DYNAMICS FOR FLOATING OFFSHORE VAWTS

Interest in potential wind farm sites in deeper waters and further offshore has substantially increased recently, and in parallel an increased interest towards floating, rather than bottom-fixed, offshore wind turbines: the Energy Technologies Institute (UK) recently announced a plan to invest £25m in offshore floating wind turbine projects. Furthermore, a recent document by the UK LCICG (Low Carbon Innovation Coordination Group), demonstrated that the “Development and demonstration of new concepts such as floating foundations for water depths>60m”, has a value in meeting emissions targets at low cost of up to £13bn. The present article is a follow on with the previous article presented at OMAE 2013 [1], in which the progresses on the development of an aero-hydro-servo-elastic coupled model of dynamics for VAWT are illustrated, calle