BW Ideol has announced the operational results from its 5-year-old Floatgen demonstrator, showing a capacity factor of nearly 60% over the last three months and a production of 25GWh since its 2018 commissioning.
The floating wind turbine delivered an average capacity factor of 59.2% over a 3-month period ranging from November 2022 to January 2023. The 25 GWh-milestone was reached just after the major Atlantic storm Gerard in late January. The Floatgen turbine, mounted on BW Ideol’s Damping Pool foundation, handled wind speeds up to 37.30 metres per second (equivalent to 134 km/h) and up to 5.5 metres of significant wave height (equivalent to around 10.5 metres maximum wave height). Floatgen is a 2 MW demonstrator equipped with a concrete hull. It has been operating in 33 metres of water depth off the coast of Le Croisic (Western France) since 2018. The prototype is owned, operated, and maintained by BW Ideol.