The Scottish government has approved Statoil plans for the 30MW Hywind 2 floating offshore wind project some 25km off Peterhead.

The Norwegian company was issued with a marine licence to build five Siemens 6MW turbines on spar foundations.

Statoil is due to start onshore works in 2015-16 with offshore construction to follow in 2016-17 with final commissioning before end-2017. It is expected that the farm could power up to 19,900 homes.

The Hywind machines will be attached to the seabed by three-point mooring spread and anchoring system. Power will be exported to an onshore substation.

Statoil vice president for new energy solutions Irene Rummelhoff said:

“Statoil’s objective with developing this pilot park is to demonstrate a commercial, utility-scale floating wind solution, to further increase the global market potential.” Then added :

“We are proud to develop this unique project in Scotland, in a region that has optimal wind conditions, a strong supply chain within oil and gas and supportive public policies.”

The Carbon Trust believes that floating wind concepts have the potential to reduce generating costs to below £100/MWh in commercial deployments, with the leading concepts such as Hywind producing even lower costs of £85-£95MWh.