USA: Nautica Windpower’s Advanced Floating Turbine Reduces Costs of Offshore Wind Energy

Nautica Windpower LLC intends to produce electricity offshore at 7 cents per kilo-watt hour – a rate competitive with new fossil fueled power plants. This week Nautica Windpower LLC (NWP) was awarded Department of Energy (DOE) funding to spur offshore wind energy through innovation.

NWP’s Advanced Floating Turbine (AFT) utilizes a U.S.-pioneered rotor and foundation system wholly different from any commercial technology on the market. The resources DOE awarded will be used to conduct further engineering analysis and design confirmation on the AFT.

The AFT generates its cost of energy improvement via a novel structural design and systems approach, which together increase energy capture, reduce element cost, and ease deployment and maintenance. NWP’s patented Advanced Floating Turbine’s (AFT) design takes a “compliant” approach to work with nature’s forces of wind and waves. Rather than complete rigidity, this compliant design moves much like a palm tree can. It also weighs less than one fourth of alternate designs based on floating oil platforms. Reduced weight cascades directly into reduced costs throughout the system not only for materials and manufacturing, but also for deployment and maintenance. Also, no special vessels, ports, or large cranes are required, further reducing costs.

Out of sight from shorelines, producing in water depths out of reach for current technologies, the AFT is poised to be known as a “breakthrough” technology, one that transforms the industry. Working in partnership with the wind turbine component supply chain, NWP expects to bring the AFT to market within five years.

Nautica Windpower LLC is a U.S. company formed in 2007. Its management and technical team possesses extensive experience in business formation, project management, high-tech product development and commercialization. The team includes engineers from the former DOE/NASA/industry team that developed the world’s first multi-megawatt wind turbines.

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Source: prlog, September 13, 2011;