Hywind Scotland
Hywind Scotland is the world's first commercial wind farm using floating wind turbines, situated off Peterhead, Scotland.
The farm has five 6 MW Hywind floating turbines with a total capacity of 30 MW. It is operated by Hywind Limited, a joint venture of Equinor and Masdar.
Equinor launched the world's first operational deep-water floating large-capacity wind turbine, Hywind, in 2009. The tall tower with a 2.3 MW turbine was towed offshore into the Amoy Fjord in deep water, off of Stavanger, Norway on 9 June 2009 for a two-year test run.
In 2015, the company received permission to install the wind farm in Scotland. Manufacturing for the NOK2 billion project started in 2016 in Spain, Norway and Scotland. The turbines were assembled at Stord in Norway in summer 2017 using the Saipem 7000 floating crane, and the finished turbines were moved to near Peterhead. Three suction anchors hold each turbine. Hywind Scotland was commissioned in October 2017.
In its first two years of operation the facility has averaged a capacity factor in excess of 50%.
