Self-installed floater for offshore wind

The Buoyant Tower Wind (BT Wind) has been designed by Wison Offshore & Marine (WOM) to meet the growing demand of the next generation cost-effective deepwater offshore wind farm developments. With the rapid maturing of shallow-water wind farms, the renewable energy industry is exploring deep-water wind turbine technology and the BT Wind is a patented system that uses a truss buoyant tower for supporting a large wind turbine. This concept stems from Wison’s proprietary Buoyant Tower technology, which has been successfully applied to offshore oil and gas projects for more than 6 years.

The buoyant tanks supporting the tower are coupled with the solid ballast at the bottom and provide the Buoyant Tower with permanent stability. The anti-rotation design of the suction can foundation provides further in-place stability and analysis has shown that the tower demonstrates excellent motion performance at greater water depths.

The BT Wind technology has made it possible to self-elevate a wind turbine offshore and this eliminates the need for expensive installation vessels. “We are very confident that BT Wind technology is well suited for the next generation of offshore wind projects, many of which will be in water depth greater than 100m.” commented by Dr.Weimin Chen, General Manager of WOM’s Engineering Centre.

The buoyant tower is a self-installed floater. The concept eliminates the transport and installation processes needed for conventional free-standing turbine towers. In addition, with some greater water depths, more savings could be expected as its weight (hence the cost) is insensitive to the water depth. For example, at a water depth of 150m, engineering, procurement and construction of a buoyant tower might cost as much as 50% less of that for a seabed mounted turbine. Ying Cui, the CEO of Wison Offshore & Marine said, “While further building up our position as a leading floating LNG and power solutions provider, Wison is also dedicated to developing more innovative solutions for the offshore upstream industry with our proprietary technologies. The launch of new buoyant tower solution would demonstrate our commitment to help bring the installation costs of deepwater wind by offering economical alternatives.”