From floating turbines to "washing line" designs, offshore projects get funding boost

An innovative new wind turbine design that resembles a giant washing line was one of four new technologies to receive development funding yesterday from the recently established Energy Technologies Institute (ETI).

The 144m high V-shaped structure would be mounted offshore and is expected to generate up to 9MW of electricity, roughly three times more power than a conventional turbine of equivalent size.

It works by rotating on a vertical axis, like a garden washing line, as opposed the the horizontal axis design adopted by conventional wind turbines.

The design is the brainchild of the Nova team, a UK-based consortium led by Guildford-based energy specialists OTM Consulting and including representatives from three UK universities – Cranfield, Strathclyde and Sheffield – as well as wind energy firm Wind Power, offshore engineering consultancy James Ingram Associates and UK research organisations CEFAS and QinetiQ.

Nova joins three other innovative offshore energy projects in sharing out £20m of funding from the ETI, provided by the institute's private sector partners BP, Caterpillar, EDF Energy, E.ON, Rolls-Royce and Shell.

The Deepwater Turbine consortium led by engineering firm Blue H Technologies is to use the funding to assess the feasibility of plans for a 5MW floating wind turbine that could be installed in deep waters of up to 300m, while the Helm Wind consortium, led by E.ON Engineering, is working on a new offshore wind farm design that it says will help overcome many of the maintenance difficulties associated with offshore wind projects.

Completing the funding round, the UK-based ReDAPT consortium led by Rolls-Royce to install and test a new 1MW tidal turbine off the coast of Orkney.

Lord Hunt, minister for sustainable development and energy innovation, said the announcement is a key milestone for the government-backed Energy Technologies Institute.

"The UK has pledged to increase dramatically our use of renewable energy to further secure our energy supplies and help fight the damaging effects of climate change," he said. "In order to meet these challenges we need to turn the best innovative ideas in wind and marine power in to reality.

"The Energy Technologies Institute is an excellent example of the government working with the private sector to achieve a quantum leap forward in these vital low-carbon technologies."

ETI chief executive David Clarke said that as well as helping the UK meet its target of generating 15 per cent of energy from renewables by 2020, the new technologies would also help create numerous new jobs through the manufacturing, maintenance and support infrastructure that will be created to support new offshore technologies.

For example, Nick Winser, National Grid's executive director for transmission and co-chairman of the UK Energy Research Partnership, said it would be investing £850m this year alone to prepare the grid to receive power from offshore projects.