The US Department of Energy has announced up to USD 28 million in funding for a new Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) programme to develop new technologies for floating offshore wind turbines using the discipline of control co-design (CCD).
Mainly, floating wind turbines are being designed to be large and heavy to be similar to onshore wind turbine dynamics, maintain stability, and survive storms.
However, this design limits how inexpensive floating turbines can ever become.
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The programme ATLANTIS (Aerodynamic Turbines, Lighter and Afloat, with Nautical Technologies and Integrated Servo-control) aims to design floating wind turbines by maximizing their rotor-area-to-total-weight ratio while in the meantime it will increase of keep the turbines’ generation efficiency.
Moreover, the ATLANTIS programme aspires to construct a new generation of computer tools to make the design of the wind turbines easier and to be able to collect real data from full lab-scale experiments to validate the floating turbine designs and computer tools.
Control co-design (CCD) methodologies bring together diverse engineering disciplines to work concurrently while designing a device, instead of in sequential steps. The CCD approach enables project teams to develop new ways to build FOWTs that would not be possible using a traditional design approach.
The US offshore wind energy is estimated at more than 25 quads annually, with nearly 60% of it blowing across waters more than 200 feet deep.
The energy harnessed by floating wind turbines could cover the entire US annual electricity consumption.
Concluding, the ATLANTIS programme encourages cooperation, and urges scientists, engineers, and practitioners from different disciplines, technology sectors, and organizations to form diverse and experienced project teams.
