Siemens Gamesa has installed five 6MW turbines on floating foundations in Stord, Norway, at the 30MW Hywind Scotland project. 

From the deep fjord outside Stord on the west coast of Norway, the wind turbines will be transported to Scottish waters.

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The 30MW Hywind farm is claimed to be the world´s largest floating wind project. 

It is located 25km off the coast of Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, at water depths between 90m and 120m.

In 2015, the Scottish Government gave its approval to Hywind Scotland project. After this, Statoil announced its final investment decision to build the project, reported Cleantechnica.com. 

Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy offshore CEO Michael Hannibal said: "Siemens Gamesa views the floating windfarm market area the same way as we did with offshore windfarms in the early beginning: it is a very interesting area that is initially a niche market.

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“This niche may, however, develop over time into a large market. It is a niche in which we would like to build a strong position for this reason."

"Concepts need to be more cost-competitive with bottom-fixed foundations to develop into a bigger market."

The floating foundations are ballast-stabilised and anchored to the seabed with mooring lines.

Due to their lightweight nacelles, the wind turbines are particularly suited for floating foundations.

In 2009, Statoil and Siemens Wind Power successfully installed a 2.3MW Siemens Wind Power turbine at a full-scale floating wind turbine project, Hywind Demo. At that point of time, Siemens Gamesa gained experience on the particular requirements with regard to the control parameters of a moving wind turbine under offshore conditions.

For the floating installation, new controller algorithms for rotor pitch and yaw drive regulation have been developed.

In the Scottish pilot project Siemens Gamesa and Statoil have been collaborating on building a concept for commercial and large-scale offshore windparks that is not only cost-efficient but also comes with low-risk.

Siemens Gamesa offshore CEO Michael Hannibal said: "In Siemens Gamesa we don't expect significant challenges in developing a working concept for floating foundations. But concepts need to be more cost-competitive with bottom-fixed foundations to develop into a bigger market."

Commissioning of the Hywind project is planned for fourth quarter of 2017.