Offshore oil and gas technology aids deep-water wind turbine project

摘要

It is subsea technology that has already been extensively proven," comments Trelleborg Offshore's Gary Howland, as he describes his company's distributed buoyancy modules (DBMs), originally developed for deepwater support of umbilicals and risers in the oil and gas industry, and which now are helping to reduce project risk in the area of offshore floating wind turbines. "People see the tower and turbine, but forget that the expertise in designing the subsea portion is also critical, as ultimately it keeps the whole turbine afloat," he explains. Statoil's dynamic floating structure weighs 5,300 tons and is 165m tall; with just 65m of this showing above the sea surface. The 13km of power and communications cabling attached to this impressive structure further adds to its weight.