HiPRWind is dedicated to creating and testing at the megawatt scale novel, cost effective approaches to floating offshore wind turbines. In order to gain real sea experience and data, a fully functional floating MW-scale wind turbine will be deployed within the five-year effective duration of the project at a European ocean test site. Current planning is for a site offshore Norway, coordinated with the Norwegian national research infrstructure project FlexWT. This research and testing installation is scaled to allow measuring many types of data representative of the future 10-MW or greater power commercial systems anticipated. Following a philosophy of “open architecture, shared access", results of general interest will be shared within the broader R&D community working on future offshore wind energy solutions.
As a world‘s first large scale real sea research & testing facility offering shared access, the HiPRWind project will allow researchers to address critical issues of deep offshore wind technology such as innovative floater designs, efficient installation methods, advanced control engineering solutions and grid integration aspects of floating wind turbines. R&D in the project addresses the need for extreme reliability in particular of the power electronic components, new concepts for large rotors and condition and structural health monitoring. Innovative engineering methods will be applied to selected key development challenges such as rotor blade designs, structural health monitoring systems, reliable power electronics and control systems. Built-in active control features will reduce the dynamic loads on the floater in order to save weight and cost compared to existing designs.
