After being announced as imminent on several occasions in 2013, the construction of the floating wind turbine prototype Winflo has still not commenced. For this reason, DCNS and Nass & Wind have decided to reconsider the project.
Initially, the developers were planning to deploy a small-scale demonstrator with a 1MW turbine, while the final device planned by manufacturers would have a capacity of about 5 MW.
After testing the prototype on the SEM-REV site off the coast of Croisic, a full-scale pilot wind farm (four to six machines) would have been installed by 2016 off the island of Groix.
The aim was to start with the construction once all technical validations and assurance of an adequate energy production had been acquired.
Since some projects have already emerged, such as WindFloat off Portugal in 2011, and others are now emerging, like the demonstrator Alstom wants to install in 2015 off Cornwall, it turns out that the area of floating wind technology is picking up speed.
Compared to this, the Winflo project has long been overdue, forcing DCNS and Nass&Wind to rethink their project in order to be able to keep up.
Under these circumstances, it is questioned whether the Winflo developers should kick start the project with a turbine ranging from 5 to 7 MW. If this would be the case, sea trials cannot be carried out off the coast of Croisic due to the excessive size of the turbine.
[mappress]
Offshore WIND Staff, February 6, 2014; Image: DCNS