05/15/2014
Seatower turbine platform
The Seatower turbine platform could help encourage offshore wind farming by providing a cheaper and easier to install alternative.
While offshore wind farms have many benefits, their platforms are expensive to install and require huge, specialized equipment for set-up. The Seatower foundations, in contrast, can be mass-produced on land and easily transported. They are hollow, and so will float easily--allowing them to be towed to their installation site with a reasonably small boat. Once another pair of boats helps to set the foundation in position, a valve in the base is opened to allow it to fill with water and sink to the sea floor. From there it is anchored and filled with a sand slurry to meet the target weight, and the turbine base set atop it. The foundation can also be removed by basically following the same steps in reverse.
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