Floating wind power plants make a breakthrough

Dusseldorf It was the world’s largest auction for floating wind power plants to date. A few days ago, Shell, Iberdrola, Vattenfall, Orsted and Baywa, among others, secured the rights to build so-called “floating offshore” plants off the Scottish coast for almost half a billion euros. The successful bidders will invest an amount in the double-digit billions for the construction of the wind farms.

“The successful award of around 15 gigawatts of floating capacity to various bidders from around the world leaves no doubt that the industry is ready to fully tackle the expansion of floating offshore wind energy,” said the Managing Director of the World Association Offshore Wind, Gunnar Herzig.

In fact, this could mean the breakthrough for the new wind platforms. The vast majority of wind turbines in the sea are still standing on a ten-meter-wide steel tube that is anchored to the seabed with a weight of 1,600 tons. But the “XXL monopiles”, as they are called in technical jargon, have competition.