Last Friday, Johan Sandberg, service line leader for offshore renewable energy at DNV GL, held a presentation about a global vision for floating offshore wind power in 2050 at the University of Maine campus at the Advanced Structures and Composite Center.
Sandberg said: “As the industry began in 2000, Germany built a turbine that started in very shallow water with a very simple concrete foundation, and it was actually quite a low cost.”
“The price started to increase, and that is why we are working towards an offshore approach in deeper waters.”
He has taken a lead in cutting edge offshore wind sector, and worked in areas such as identifying synergies between offshore wind and offshore oil & gas operations, and in the development of a large scale sustainable energy system along the coastline of Japan.
Sandberg believes the renewables will soon dominate as the main source of power.
The topic was very interesting for The Advanced Structures and Composite Center as they worked with Cianbro, an engineering company, on the floating wind turbine, VolturnUS 1:8, that features a unique semi-submersible platform that uses a lower cost concrete foundation in addition to a lighter weight composite tower.
The prototype was deployed last year off Castine and Monhegan to collect data which will be used to optimize the design of UMaine’s VolturnUS system.