SWAY AS

The offshore wind energy resources over deep water regions around the globe, and in particular in harsh environment areas, are vast and theoretically sufficient to supply several times the world’s entire electricity need.

SWAY, in Bergen, Norway is a technology company which develops cost effective solutions for the application of wind energy converters on deep water in open ocean environments. The company is based on a three-year successful research and development project on a new floating foundation wind turbine system also called SWAY.

Strong industrial partners and utility companies like Lyse Energi in Stavanger, Statkraft Development, Shell Technology Norway and Inocean are supporting the development in addition to the Norwegian Research Council.

SWAY AS has also entered into an understanding with a wind turbine supplier and a full scale 4-5MW turbine pilot project was started in the third quarter of 2007. The offshore installation of the pilot is scheduled to take place in 2010/2011.

The system

The SWAY® system is a patent pending floating wind turbine for deep water offshore locations in 80 – 400m+ water depths. It enables vast amounts of electricity to be produced and exported to land or to nearby offshore petroleum installations.

The wind turbine is anchored to the seabed with a tension-torsion leg to control the yaw motions. The tension leg is a common concept for the offshore oil and gas industry today. SWAY® makes it possible, at any water depth, to place large wind turbines far offshore at areas with high average wind velocities, exploiting the untapped energy. By using a downwind mounted rotor designed for very high wind velocities behind an aerodynamic tower, the energy output is increased compared to a typical onshore site, because wind velocities increase far offshore.

The feasibility of the system has been verified through extensive dynamic simulations over the last five years. System dynamic behaviour, fatigue life and extreme loading conditions are documented and within allowable limits. A grid connection study, including cost estimates, has been carried out by Statnett, the Norwegian state grid company.

Production costs are expected to be reduced compared to existing offshore wind power technology in shallow water (at 15-25m water depth). This is because the concept offers typically 10-30% higher energy yield because of the higher average wind velocities further offshore in deeper waters while the total capital expenditure is comparable to that which is used in projects involving shallow water wind parks.

In addition to the exportation of electrical power to the onshore market the SWAY® system opens up the potential to electrify 60-70% of the offshore petroleum installations in the North Sea with wind power, without a land cable, without the need of tapping the strained onshore electricity market and at a cost below the electricity market price onshore if green certificates are included.

The potential to produce low cost clean energy in harsh offshore environment is vast. Only 0.5% of the offshore Norwegian economical zone would be required to produce 100% of the country’s total electricity consumption today (120 TWh/year).

W: www.sway.no