Engie has said floating wind farms are ready for gigawatt-scale deployment, while Germany's EnBW has raised doubts over the costs compared to fixed-base wind turbines. Engie, which already owns a quarter of the WindFloat Atlantic floating project, said scale was a prerequisite to cutting costs. The European Commission is also looking at whether offshore windfarm operators should be required to pay royalties on their electricity sales and how much they would have to contribute towards decommissioning costs, Julian Brown, UK country manager for MHI Vestas, whose 8.3MW turbines sit atop the WindFloat Atlantic turbines, said floating wind still has questions to answer over its ability to gear-up its manufacturing supply supply chain for cost-effective mass deployment, but added: “Once those problems are cracked – the rate of deployment, fabrication, tooling up for manufacturing, this is really going to go.” according to an EU document Despite its cost concerns, EnBW agreed floating would be a good prospect even with a small premium.
Engie has said floating wind farms are ready for gigawatt-scale deployment, while Germany's EnBW has raised doubts over the costs compared to fixed-base wind turbines. Engie, which already owns a quarter of the WindFloat Atlantic floating project, said scale was a prerequisite to cutting costs. The European Commission is also looking at whether offshore windfarm operators should be required to pay royalties on their electricity sales and how much they would have to contribute towards decommissioning costs, according to an EU document Despite its cost concerns, EnBW agreed floating would be a good prospect even with a small premium.