Ireland first to use ‘floating off-shore wind turbines’

Ireland plans to become the first country in the world to use “floating off-shore wind turbines” which it is envisaged will supply the national grid with green electricity within the next six years.

There are no commercially viable wind turbines in the world which are not firmly attached to the seabed, and the west coast is viewed as one of the best places in the world to use this emergent technology.

It is being developed by scientists at IMERC (Irish Maritime Energy Research Cluster) in Ringaskiddy, Co Cork, and UCC’s Beaufort Centre.

The seas off the west coast are too deep for conventional wind turbines to be concreted into the seabed.

Dr Ray Alcorn of the Beaufort Centre said an Australian company was also collaborating on the project.

He said it was important to harness the great wind generated off the coast before it gets to land, where it eventually loses power.

“We’re working on a floating structure at the moment. The wind turbines will probably be taller than normal and they will generate up to three times more power,” he said.

“We’re developing the turbine base and are involved with a company in Australia to develop a platform which will facilitate combined wind and wave power generation. We plan to be the first county in the world to hook such technology up to the national grid. We see the potential to sell this technology to a number of countries where they could harness off-shore wind power.”

Dr Alcorn said that South Africa, China, India, and the US could benefit in particular because their coasts are subject to a lot of wind activity. He said Taiwan would also be an obvious market as its population of 32m had no other natural resources to rely on.

Meanwhile, 30 high-end jobs are being created on the IMERC campus this year, according to IMERC director Val Cummins.

She said 10 of the positions were being created with nine start-up companies engaged in naval architecture, wireless communications at sea, marine drones, marine anchor technology, clean fuel projects and ocean engineering.

Ms Cummins said that Marine Renewable Energy Ireland (MaREI) was taking on another 20 graduates on the campus for a number of research projects focusing on developing off-shore wind, wave, and tidal technology.

Much of the work on wave energy technology will be tested in a special tank which will be developed as part of the €11m Beaufort Centre which is under construction on the IMERC campus.

“Around 150 construction jobs are being created by the building project. We expect the building to be completed by the end of this year or early 2015. When fully up and running it will house 135 researchers. This is evidence of the IMERC campus really taking off,” said Ms Cummins.

She said equipment was being developed to harness tidal power which would be anchored to the seabed.

This equipment will also undergo trials when the new Beaufort Centre tank is commissioned.