It is worth saying: a wind of news is coming for the renewables of the future.
The Norwegian start-up Wind Catching Systems, established in 2017, has in fact designed an offshore wind turbine with an innovative floating wind power technology at competitive prices, which will make its debut in 2026.
The visual impact is impressive: the Windcatcher grid, a giant vertical net, over 324-metre high, whose meshes are hundreds of mini-wind turbines connected one another, arranged on a floating platform moored on the ocean floor.
The target is revolutionizing the technology for the offshore wind catching, a system competitive enough to operate without incentives, maximizing the energy production.
According to Wcs start-up, only one of these wind turbines might offer the double of the area exploited by the biggest standard wind turbines in the world and the smaller rotors can work much better even with wind speeds included between 40 and 43 km/h (27 mph). The overall effect, Wcs affirms, is the 500% rise of the yearly energy production.
Actually, each of these plants might replace five big single-turbine plants.
Wcs affirms these plants are ready for a service life of 50 years, compared to 30 years of a single large turbine.
Speaking of economic aspects, the plant is expected to supply offshore wind energy with the same cost as grid energy. In Norway, the average is currently about 86 Euros per megawatt hour and for their debut, in approximately 5 years, the price might even be around 80 Euros.
