Floating Wind Farms Are The Future Of Energy?
A floating wind farm is being used in Norway to power oil production facilities and poses great applicability for the future, however, its current purpose has birthed controversy amongst world leaders at the COP27 climate summit.
With global warming increasing every year, alternative ways of producing energy are evolving quickly. One of the main ways energy companies are developing greener energy is by harnessing the wind. Wind and solar power are fast becoming the benchmark of environmentally friendly energy. A facility called the largest floating wind farm in the world opened this weekend.
It is the first of its kind for Norway, located 140 kilometers from its coast. The engineering behind the floating system that the wind farm sits on contains a large concrete base with a joint mooring system. This farm can be moved into deeper waters to produce a higher energy level, making it more flexible than historical wind farms that are fixed in one place.
The owner of this wind farm, Equinor, stated that a portion of the wind turbines was turned on Sunday afternoon but by the end of 2022 seven turbines will be working to produce energy. This farm is expected to expand even more in 2023. Once fully functional, it will have a capacity of over 88 megawatts.
The wind farm, named Hywind Tampen, was installed in Norway as it will be used to assist the oil and gas fields in the North Sea, the first wind farm to do this. It will produce around 35% of the energy needed for Gulfaks and Snorre oil and gas fields. Using wind power will reduce these facilities’ CO2 emissions by up to 200,000 tonnes a year.
While using greener alternatives to produce energy is a step in the right direction, using the energy to help produce fossil fuels could cause many debates globally. The use of fossil fuels is under great scrutiny as the COP27 climate change summit was only last week. Within the conference, the UN blamed fossil fuels as one of the main drivers of climate change since the 19th century.
Many warnings were issued at the conference stating that humanity is losing the war against climate change and that things have to change now before the damage to the planet is irreversible.
Many other countries and energy companies have moved into wind power, with the White House stating that it is developing a floating wind farm to produce 15 gigawatts of energy by 2035. Along with creating a high level of energy, this new wind power installation will cut the production costs of floating wind farms by over 70%. President Biden stated that wind power would harvest new opportunities for green energy off the coasts of many states like California and Oregon.
With the point of no return regarding climate change looming closer and closer, building floating wind farms and harnessing wind power is a step in the right direction. It is time to put energy into developing ways of producing energy that does not cost us our planet’s health. The days of continuously burning fossil fuels are over, and green energy is the future. It is great to see global companies finally taking the leap into environmentally friendly technology.
