TouchWind has installed a floating wind turbine prototype at Fieldlab Green Economy Westvoorne in the Netherlands, marking the start of the in-water testing phase of the POWER demonstration project.
The installation at the test site enables the POWER project consortium to begin operational trials under real conditions, according to TouchWind.
The POWER project (POsitive Wake Effects of turbines with tilted Rotors) is designed to investigate how tilted rotor configurations can influence wake behaviour by redirecting airflow and accessing higher-energy wind layers, to increase wind farm power density.
The floating turbine is anchored using a mooring system composed of steel and polyester lines connected to concrete deadweight anchors. The anchors are equipped with 3D-printed reef structures developed by Coastruction to support local marine ecology. Load shackles integrated into the mooring lines are being used to measure operational forces acting on the system. A floating meteorological mast, installed in April 2025, is also at the site and uses a similar mooring configuration.
Installation of the prototype was carried out by TouchWind and Duc Marine, with crane operations provided by Peinemann, which lifted the turbine into the water. MARIN supported the mooring process by monitoring load data to ensure correct line tensioning.
The test campaign will run throughout 2026 and will collect data on turbine performance, platform behaviour and mooring loads. In addition to offshore testing, the consortium will also conduct nearshore wake interaction studies using multiple TouchWind turbines positioned close to the test facility.
The POWER consortium consists of TouchWind, MOL, TNO, MARIN, Nidec and We4Ce, and the project is supported by funding from the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO).