The first floating Wind Farm ever built has finally started to produce electricity, which is being supplied to Scotland. This was announced by Statoil, a Norwegian gas, and oil company which helps to operate Hywind Scotland. The project is being officially opened today, October 19th, by the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon.

More information regarding Hywind Scotland

The Hywind Scotland facility is located 25 kilometers (15.53 miles) off of the coast of the town of Peterhead, which is located in the council area of Aberdeenshire. It will be able to power around 20,000 homes by producing a power equivalent to 30 megawatts into the electric grid.

The wind farm can also operate at water depth up to 800 meters (0.49 miles) deep.

According to information from the country's government, Scotland is the location of one-fourth of Europe's offshore wind resources. This is what made it the perfect location for the floating wind farm, especially since their government says Scotland already provides almost 60,000 jobs in areas involving low carbon and Renewable Energy.

How Hywind Scotland was built

It costs an estimated $253 million dollars to build and set-up Hywind Scotland according to Business Insider. The wind farm consists of five massive turbines that took six months to build in Norway. They then had to be towed across the North Sea by tugboat to be set up.

Each turbine is about 260 meters (853 feet) tall, which 80 meters (262 feet) submerged underwater. The three blades on them are about 75 meters (246 feet) long, and in total the whole turbine weighs 11.5 million kilograms (11,5000 tonnes). They sit on the water's surface and are held in place by anchors to the seabed, with long cables carrying the electricity back to the shote.

The wind farm is operated by the aforementioned Statoil in partnership with Masdar. Masdar Institute is a research-driven institute that works on advanced energy and sustainable technology. It is a part of Khalifa University of Science and Technology located in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Future plans for the wind farm

While offshore wind farms will not be viable everywhere on Earth, this represents an important first step towards using more renewable energy. According to Engadget there are already plans in place by Statoil and Madar to install a massive 1MWh “Batwind” storage battery in order to better manage Hywind Scotland's output.
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