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19 September 2011

Ship on Rally car suspension could help solve £3bn challenge to access offshore wind turbines. Carbon Trust’s worldwide search finds best ways to reach wind turbines in stormy North Sea

Article from Bloomberg by Sally Bakewell and Alex Morales – Sep 18, 2011

Dakar rally race cars and a robotic arm could help deliver a 3 billion-pound ($4.7 billion) boost to Britain’s offshore wind industry.

They’re among 13 designs shortlisted today by the Carbon Trust in a competition two-thirds funded by wind developers such as EON AG and Dong Energy A/S to help engineers access windmills in rough seas up to 300 kilometers (186 miles) from shore. The designers will get as much as 100,000 pounds each.

The Carbon Trust is a U.K. government-funded company that advises corporations on cutting emissions, saving energy and advancing low-carbon technologies.

The project aims to increase the availability of offshore wind farms for power generation by 4 percent by making turbines easier to access and minimizing the time they are shut down, the trust said today in an e-mailed statement. The U.K. has put the technology, among the most expensive of renewable power sources, at the heart of its plan to meet a European Union goal of getting 15 percent of energy from clean power by 2020.

“Future wind farms will be much larger, in deeper water, and with worse weather conditions,” Jan Matthiesen, manager of the offshore wind accelerator program at the trust, said in a phone interview. “This is a key component in bringing costs down. Every minute the turbines are not turning is lost revenue.”

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