New wind turbine models, vessels and equipment, and project updates were the most read topics on offshoreWIND.biz in 2024. In this overview, we are bringing the ten most popular news in 2024.
In January 2024, Siemens Gamesa received a EUR 30 million grant from the EU for a project called Highly Innovative Prototype of the most Powerful Offshore Wind turbine generator (HIPPOW).
According to the EU document on the grant award, the project involves the installation, operation, and testing of “the world’s most powerful wind turbine prototype” at the Østerild National Test Centre in Denmark to validate new technological developments and obtain necessary certifications before starting full-scale production.
At the end of the year, it was reported that Siemens Gamesa was transporting a wind turbine nacelle to the Østerild test centre and that the turbine was a new 21 MW prototype.
In April, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) cancelled three offshore wind projects with a combined capacity of over 4 GW that were provisionally awarded capacity in 2023, citing ”technical and commercial complexities between provisional awardees and their partners” .
NYSERDA said that GE Vernova’s offshore wind turbine product pivoting away from the initially proposed 18 MW Haliade-X turbine platform to a 15.5/16.5 MW platform caused material changes to projects proposed into the solicitation and, given these developments, no final awards would be made.
New York later opened the fifth offshore wind solicitation which saw two of the previously cancelled projects re-entering the process.
On 30 August 2024, Mammoet launched the SK6000 ring crane, said to be the world’s strongest land-based crane, at its Westdorpe facility in the Netherlands.
According to the company, the new crane supports the continued constructability of next-generation offshore wind turbines and foundations. It has a maximum capacity of 6,000 tonnes and can lift components of up to 3,000 tonnes to a height of 220 metres.
Also in August, one of the already installed wind turbine blades at the Dogger Bank A offshore wind farm, under construction in the UK, sustained damage and failed. Following an analysis of the blade event, GE Vernova, whose turbines are making up the wind farm, said the failure was not caused by an installation or manufacturing issue but happened during the commissioning process .
For the US-based wind turbine manufacturer, this was the third blade event in 2024. In May, another blade on an installed turbine at the Dogger Bank A offshore wind farm sustained damage, which the company concluded was a consequence of an installation error. In July, a blade on one of GE Vernova’s Haliade-X wind turbines at the Vineyard Wind 1 offshore wind farm in the US broke, with the company’s preliminary investigation showing this was caused by a manufacturing deviation .
Mingyang Smart Energy launched OceanX, a 16.6 MW floating wind platform featuring two MySE8.3-180 hybrid drive wind turbines, in July 2024.
The floater is 219 metres tall and 369 metres wide, has a single-point mooring system and was designed to withstand typhoons with 360° load considerations, Mingyang says.
The platform was towed to the Qingzhou IV offshore wind farm site in Yangjiang in August and was put into operation in December 2024 .
In October, Dongfang Electric Corporation (DEC) rolled a 26 MW offshore wind turbine nacelle off the production line in Fuzhou, Fujian Province, China.
The company said the offshore wind turbine was tailored for areas with wind speeds of 8 m/s and above and had strong resistance to typhoons and corrosion.
The wind turbine’s rotor diameter exceeds 310 metres, making a swept area equivalent to 10.5 standard football fields. With average winds of 10 m/s, a single unit could generate 100 GWh of clean energy annually, enough to power 55,000 homes, according to DEC.
Ørsted and the US shipbuilder Edison Chouest Offshore (ECO) officially christened the first-ever US-built service operations vessel (SOV), ECO Edison, at the Port of New Orleans on 11 May 2024.
The construction of the vessel started in March 2022 at ECO’s shipyard in Louisiana, where ECO marked a 50-per cent completion milestone in April 2023.
ECO Edison will be deployed for the operation and maintenance (O&M) of Ørsted’s offshore wind farms in the US under a long-term charter agreement the developers signed with ECO in 2020.
In April 2024, the installation vessel Orion , owned and operated by DEME, sailed out of Invergordon in Scotland to the United States, signalling the imminent start of major offshore construction work on the 2.6 GW Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project, owned by Dominion Energy.
The vessel installed the first CVOW monopile in May and by the end of the first installation season in early Now, 78 monopile foundations and four pin piles for an offshore substation jacket foundation were in place.
In July 2024, German clean energy asset manager, Luxcara, signed a preferred supplier agreement with Mingyang Smart Energy for the wind turbines for the Waterkant offshore wind project in the German North Sea.
The reservation agreement covers the supply of 16 of the “world’s most powerful offshore wind turbines” with up to 18.5 MW capacity each, for installation in 2028.
According to Luxcara, the Mingyang wind turbines were selected after an international tender, launched in late 2023, and a due diligence exercise, covering the supply chain, ESG compliance with the EU taxonomy, and cyber security supported by DNV and KPMG.
In 2024, the world’s first commercial-scale floating wind farm, the 30 MW Hywind Scotland, underwent wind turbine maintenance work.
While offshore wind farms undergo maintenance work multiple times during their lifespans, this was the first time a campaign of this kind was done on a floating farm.
The work was performed in the Gulen Port in Norway, where the wind turbines were towed in and returned to the site off Scotland after maintenance.