Hywind Scotland Pilot Park: the world's first floating offshore wind farm | Photo: Statoil

The world's first floating wind farm will installed in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.

The Hywind Scotland Pilot Park will be located near Buchan Deep, approximately 25-30 kilometers off the coast of Peterhead. The structure will have five, 6MW floating turbines operating at a water depth of between 95 and 120 meters.

The wind farm project will generate power for around 20,000 households. Production start is expected in late 2017, and it will cover around four square kilometers. The average wind speed in this North Sea region is around 10 meters per second (20 knots).

"Statoil is proud to develop the world's first floating wind farm. Our objective with the Hywind pilot park is to demonstrate the feasibility of future commercial, utility-scale floating wind farms," underlined Irene Rummelhoff, vice president at Statoil.

The $236 million investment hopes to prove that wind power can be a lucrative business. If successful, the Hywind Scotland Pilot Park will generate electricity at below $155/MWh.

Each wind turbine is 258 meters high - 80 meters will stay underwater, and 178 meters will rise above sea level. In 2014, roughly 50 percent of Scotland's energy consumption was generated by green sources.

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