Floating offshore wind farm proposed for Scotland

Buchan Offshore Wind comprises the German renewable energy firm BayWa r.e, which is part of the BayWa AG group; Elicio, an experienced Belgian offshore wind developer, owner and operator; and BW Ideol, a floating wind technology firm based in La Ciotat, a coastal town in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region of southern France.

The floating wind farm is estimated at generating up to 1GW of electricity from 70 turbines in a development that is projected to cost around £900 million (€1 billion).

The Buchan project will use BW Ideol’s Damping Pool technology for its turbines, which it says is optmised for all meteocean conditions with its central pooling offering stability to counteract external wave motion.

It is compatible with all 15MW+ wind turbines on the market, BW Ideol says – though whether that is true of a 26MW turbine recently unveiled in China is another matter.

The Damping Pool has limited dimensions of 54 metres and a shallow draft of less than 12 metres.

“It can be easily scalable to the next 20 MW+ wind turbines when available,” BW Ideol says. 

Other advantages include scalable manufacturing and the possibility of replicating it on different port structures.

BW Ideol has also unveiled its manufacturing line blueprint, easily scalable and replicable on multiple port infrastructures, for the mass production of concrete floating foundations. 

The application that has been submitted is for offshore consent, and Buchan Offshore Wind has already been given seabed development rights from the Crown Estate Scotland.

The plan is to build a manufacturing centre at a former oil and gas fabrication yard on the Moray Firth, and the hunt is on for a suitable port for the wind farm’s operations and maintenance hub.

If it all goes ahead, the turbines, some 75km off the coast of Aberdeenshire, could be connected by 2033.