Читать книгу Energy - Группа авторов - Страница 44

It is another major technology in the offshore wind energy sector. In this technology, turbines are rooted in the seabed by monopile or jacket foundations, and these are restricted to waters which are <60 m deep. The spar‐buoys, spar‐submersible and tension‐leg platforms are three main designs for turbines which are under development and have been tested (IRENA 2019a). Under this technology, turbines are installed in water depths of up to 40 m and these are about 80 km away from the shore. If one looks at the largest potential markets for offshore wind sector i.e. Japan and the United States (US), then they have less shallow water sites, which makes current floating foundations as the limiting technology. On the basis of recent advances which are taking place across various regions, floating wind farms can contribute 5–15% in total offshore wind capacity installed worldwide (~1000 GW) by 2050 (IRENA 2019a). Along with the ease of turbine set‐up, floating foundations also come with environmental benefits such as less invasive activity on the seabed during installations as compared with fixed bottom designs.