Article content

The world’s first floating offshore wind farm started delivering electricity to the grid in the north of Scotland.

The Hywind project, built by Norwegian oil company Statoil ASA and Masdar Abu Dhabi Future Energy Co., has five turbines floating 25 kilometres off the coast of Peterhead, near Aberdeen. The project has a capacity of 30 megawatts and cost about $263 million U.S. to construct.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or The world's first floating offshore wind farm begins operating Back to video

“This marks an exciting development for renewable energy in Scotland,” said First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. “Hywind will provide clean energy to over twenty thousand homes and will help us meet our ambitious climate change targets.”

Wind turbines have been installed on seabeds since the 1990s. Taking them offshore typically increases wind speeds and reduces complaints from neighbours, but it has also been limited to relatively shallow seas. Floating turbines are expected to open the industry up to new markets like Japan, the U.S. west coast and Mediterranean, where seabeds drop off steeply from the coast.