Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 38 (2020) 100646

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Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments

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A review on the historical development of the lift-type vertical axis wind T

turbine: From onshore to offshore floating application
⁎
Brian Hand, Andrew Cashman
Department of Mechanical, Biomedical and Manufacturing Engineering, Cork Institute of Technology, Cork, Ireland

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: This paper discusses the historical evolution of the lift-type vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) since its inception
Wind energy in the early 1930s. The VAWT received almost no development until the early 1970s when engineers in Canada
Vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) and the USA began to study the VAWT design as a source of generating electricity. Many curved-bladed VAWTs
Development were tested and are reviewed in this paper. Separately, the straight-bladed VAWT was developed by researchers
History
in the UK and is also discussed. This review highlights that the VAWT received very little engineering devel-
Offshore floating
opment in the 1990s due to dominance of the HAWT in the wind energy market. Although, the literature also
indicates that the VAWT has entered a Renaissance period whereby the VAWT is now being adopted for the
offshore floating wind turbine industry. The latest developments in the floating VAWT technology and attempts
to commercialise this technology have been documented.

1. Introduction These primitive windmills used drag forces to drive the mill. A
vertical axle was connected to either six or twelve radially-mounted
Wind energy is viewed as having huge potential in providing a clean vertical wooden sails [5]. In particular, the millstone was connected
and viable source of renewable energy, while also key to reducing directly to the vertical axle, without the need for an intermediate gear
harmful carbon dioxide emissions. Particularly, in the last decade, the to redirect the axis of rotation [6]. For nearly all of the 20th century,
wind industry has experienced rapid growth with the increased impetus wind turbine development experienced steady advancement, attributed
to position wind turbines offshore. It is reported by the Global Wind primarily to improvements in the scientific understanding of aero-
Energy Council, the total installed wind power capacity reached 591 dynamic lift from the aircraft industry [4]. In 1931, the French aero-
GW at the end of 2018 compared to 121 GW at the end 2008 [1]. nautical and military engineer Georges Jean Marie Darrieus patented
Modern wind turbines can be broadly classified into two distinct the lift-driven VAWT, which consisted of vertically orientated airfoil-
types, based on the orientation of the rotating axis (1) horizontal axis shaped blades which rotated around an axis orthogonal to the flow
wind turbines (HAWTs) and (2) vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs). In direction [7]. The patent describes a multi-bladed rotor with either
comparison to the HAWT, the VAWT has its generator and machinery fixed curved or straight blades as depicted in Fig. 2. The design philo-
located at the bottom of the turbine. There exists two main types of sophy behind the curve-bladed Darrieus configuration was to form the
VAWTs, which are the drag-type VAWT and the lift-type VAWT. This blades into a Troposkien shape and would theoretically be free of
paper reviews the development of the onshore lift-type VAWT through bending stresses induced by centrifugal loads [8,9].
to the latest advances in offshore floating VAWT technology [2].
2.1. The rise of the VAWT
2. VAWT background
It is apparent VAWT technology lay inactive and unexplored until
Harnessing the energy of the wind has been a quest of man for many the late 1960s, when engineers at the National Aeronautical
centuries. Vertical axis windmills were the very first type of windmill Establishment of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) dis-
developed and were built by the Persians in the 10th century AD to covered the patent by Darrieus [10,3]. The first exploratory experi-
automate the tasks of grinding grain and irrigation [3,4]. The simplicity ments of the Darrieus turbine were conducted at the NRC in 1972 with
of their construction and operation can be appreciated from Fig. 1. the objective of elucidating the turbine’s fundamental operating

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected] (A. Cashman).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seta.2020.100646
Received 6 December 2019; Received in revised form 26 January 2020; Accepted 27 January 2020
2213-1388/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
B. Hand and A. Cashman Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 38 (2020) 100646

Nomenclature NOVA Novel Offshore Vertical Axis

NRC National Research Council Canada
Acronyms MCAIR McDonnell Aircraft Corporation
MODEC Mitsui Ocean Development and Engineering Company
COE cost of energy RPM revolutions per minute
DOE Department of Energy SNL Sandia National Laboratories
EU European Union SKWID Savonius Keel and Wind Turbine Darrieus
HAWT horizontal axis wind turbine TSR tip-speed ratio
NACA National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics VAWT vertical axis wind turbine

Fig. 1. Persian vertical windmill views (a) elevation (b) plan (c) actual [4].

Fig. 2. Images from Darrieus’s patent showing the turbine with (a) curved blades (b) straight blades. Annotations refer to (a) blades (e) support structure (f) hub (g)
shaft [7].

performance as shown in Fig. 3a [11,12]. Centre in the early 1970s [20,21]. After, the US Department of Energy
The shock of the 1973 Arab oil embargo allowed interest in VAWT (DOE) (the successor to the Atomic Energy Commission) funded re-
technology to grow substantially as many governments intensively in- search programmes at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), Albu-
vestigated alternative energy sources to imported oil [4]. In 1977, the querque, New Mexico [18,22]. The SNL wind energy research division
NRC constructed the first grid-connected large-scale Darrieus turbine was one of the early pioneers in the development of the Darrieus tur-
rated at 230 kW and was installed at Magdalen Islands, Qúebec, Canada bine and still remains today a rich source of experience on the many
as shown in Fig. 3b [14,10,15]. aspects of VAWT technology [23]. Over the course of two decades, SNL
This Canadian research programme culminated with the world’s constructed and rigorously tested a range of Darrieus VAWTs in both
largest VAWT ever built in 1988, the 110 m tall, 64 m diameter (swept wind tunnel and open-site using a “build and test” approach, while an
area of 4000 m2 ) 3.8 MW Éole at Cap-Chat, Qúebec with a 880 tonne extensive suite of design codes were validated [24,15]. Initially, a small
rotating steel structure as shown in Fig. 4a [15,16]. 2-m [25,26] and 5-m [27,28] turbine was tested, albeit soon after su-
However, due to concerns regarding blade fatigue, the Éole’s power perseded by a larger 17-m [29–31] experimental VAWT. In the late
output was limited to 2.5 MW to extend its service life. The turbine 1980s, the SNL research programme reached its zenith with the in-
operated for just five years due to the premature failure of its bottom stallation of a much larger 34-m 500 kW turbine [32,33] at Bushland,
bearing in 1993, although its design life was stated to be thirty years Texas as can be seen in Fig. 4b. This VAWT was heavily instrumented
[19]. In the USA, VAWT research was initially undertaken at the Na- and introduced many technological innovations, such as tailored air-
tional Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Langley Research foils, variable-speed control and regenerative braking [23]. The SNL 17-

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B. Hand and A. Cashman Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 38 (2020) 100646

Fig. 3. VAWT development milestones (a) the first wind tunnel test (b) the first grid-connected turbine [4,13].

m turbine became the focus of the only commercially successful VAWT variable-geometry VAWT 450 shown in Fig. 5b which incorporated a
activity. Under the technical guidance of SNL, FloWind Ltd. blade reefing mechanism to feather the blades and control power
(1982–1997) designed, manufactured, installed and operated over 500 output at high wind speeds [40,41]. However, this design did have a
Darrieus VAWTs at two wind farms in California’s Altamont and Te- fundamental weakness, as when the blades were in their feathered or
hachapi Passes with a rated capacity of over 90 MW as shown in Fig. 4c horizontal position, high lift forces induced large bending moments on
[34]. the support arms [42]. After, the experience gained from the VAWT 450
In a separate activity funded by the US DOE, the aerospace manu- led to the construction of a larger 500 kW turbine, the VAWT 850 in
facturer McDonnell Aircraft Corporation (MCAIR) (now McDonnell 1990. Conversely, this turbine exploited passive dynamic stall regula-
Douglas) developed an alternative straight-bladed VAWT configuration tion rather than using the unduly complex and elaborate blade reefing
which incorporated variable-pitch control and was coined the system from its predecessor [43,37,44]. This fixed-geometry straight-
“Giromill”. Contrary to Darrieus’s design, the Giromill’s blades were bladed VAWT achieved a 20% cost reduction and became popularly
permitted to pivot continuously as they orbited the turbine axis of ro- known as the “H-rotor” configuration [45,16,46]. The VAWT 850 was
tation to maximise energy extraction from the wind [35,36]. Fig. 5a extensively tested and demonstrated the simplicity of H-rotor tech-
displays a 40 kW prototype which was built by MCAIR in 1980. nology was practical [45].
Although, the Giromill was able to achieve a remarkably higher More recently in Falkenberg, Sweden, a 200 kW H-rotor was in-
aerodynamic efficiency compared to any fixed-pitch VAWT and similar stalled by Vertical Wind AB in collaboration with Uppsala University as
to a modern HAWT (CPmax ≈ 0.5), it proved to be too expensive and shown in Fig. 5c. This turbine has been fully operational since 2010 and
technically unreliable for large-scale systems [16,4]. At the same time features a unique electrically controlled passive-stall control system to
in the UK, a more comprehensive investigation of the straight-bladed regulate power output (substituting mechanical pitch control). In other
VAWT was taking place and was spearheaded by British aeronautical words, the turbine’s rotational velocity and hence efficiency is con-
engineer Prof. Peter Musgrove of the University of Reading, who in- trolled by the applied electrical load [47,48]. This installation greatly
itially postulated the utilisation of large-scale VAWTs for offshore lo- improved the design of the H-rotor introduced earlier by Musgrove and
cations [39,40]. Musgrove’s most innovative prototype was the is regarded as an important stepping stone in the construction of large-

Fig. 4. (a) The world’s largest VAWT, the Éole (b) the SNL/DOE 34-m Test bed (c) Commercial FloWind wind farm in California [17,18].

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B. Hand and A. Cashman Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 38 (2020) 100646

Fig. 5. (a) The MCAIR 40 kW Giromill (b) the Musgrove VAWT 450 (blades shown in feathered position “arrowhead mode”) (c) Vertical Wind AB 200 kW H-rotor
[17,37,38].

scale offshore H-rotors [38,16]. The turbine is stated to have only one government funding was allocated to VAWT research [62,24]. Parti-
moving component and utilises a variable-speed direct-drive generator cularly after FloWind Ltd. became bankrupt in mid-1990s, VAWTs were
located at ground level [38]. The H-rotor is motor started by using an out of favour with the wind energy community [23]. These early
auxiliary stator winding in its generator. Table 1 provides a concise VAWTs primarily utilised multi-celled aluminium blades produced by
summary of the primary large-scale onshore VAWTs constructed since an extrusion process to minimise manufacturing costs as depicted in
its inception in the late 1970s. Fig. 7 [65].
At that time, the effect of fatigue loading on wind turbines was not
well understood and the poor fatigue properties of the extruded alu-
2.2. The decline of the VAWT minium material (grade 6063-T5) led to many premature VAWT fail-
ures. Forensic analysis conducted after by SNL engineers identified the
The VAWT received considerable support and engineering devel- extrusion process aligned large grains in the aluminium microstructure,
opment during the 1970s and 1980s [3], but interest began to wane which allowed intergranular fractures to develop in the blade material.
into the 1990s as depicted in Fig. 6 (observe the plateau region between Moreover, the blades were observed to shatter on impact and hence
1990 and 2005). were brittle in nature [65,23]. This material was particularly suscep-
Gradually, the emphasis began to shift in favour of the HAWT, as it tible to crack propagation at the blade connections inducing localised
was deemed to be more competitive than the VAWT and has since stress concentrations and created the misconception that VAWTs had
dominated the wind turbine market [62]. It is apparent a string of early inherent problems with fatigue failure [23]. It is therefore not sur-
accidents certainly delayed the deployment of the VAWT and was put prising the VAWT technical development lags significantly behind that
on the back foot when compared to the HAWT [9,37,16]. Indeed, of its horizontal axis counterpart.
possibly the most famous accident was the crash of the NRC Magdalen
Islands VAWT in 1978, where during unscheduled maintenance the
turbine unexpectedly self-started by itself with no brakes and even- 2.3. The VAWT renaissance
tually corkscrewed into the ground after reaching a run-away condition
[14,63]. At that time it was believed the VAWT was inherently not self- Fortunately, VAWT research was partially continued through the
starting (hence the decision to remove the mechanical brakes), while it 1990s in parallel with HAWT development and focused primarily on
is now known the VAWT can self-start if gusty wind conditions exist small-scale VAWTs (< 10 kW) for the peri-urban environment [66–68].
[64]. The successes achieved by the HAWT and coupled with the re- The VAWT represents the most suitable option for this niche installation
duction in oil prices allowed the VAWT to become sidelined, as most area [69], due to its superior performance in highly unstable misaligned
research programmes were terminated and subsequently very little flows [70,71], with low noise emissions (a consequence to its operation

Table 1
Chronological summary of large-scale VAWTs (by year commissioned).
Name Source(s) Year Type Rating (kW) No. of Blades Diameter (m) Region

NRC 24-m [49] 1977 Darrieus 230 2 24 Canada

SNL 5-m [27,50] 1977 Darrieus 3 2–3 5 USA
SNL 17-m [29,30] 1977 Darrieus 80 2–3 17 USA
NRC 11.2-m [10,51] 1978 Darrieus 50 2 11.2 Canada
Vestas Bi-blade [52] 1978 Darrieus 9 2 8 Denmark
Fokker 5.3-m [53] 1979 Darrieus 15 2 5.3 Netherlands
MCAIR [36] 1980 Giromill 40 3 17.7 USA
Fokker Pioneer I [54] 1982 Darrieus 100 2 15 Netherlands
FloWind [34] 1985 Darrieus 250 2 19.2 USA
Tema 2 [37] 1986 H-rotor 40 2 14 Italy
VAWT 450 [40,55] 1986 Variable geometry 130 2 25 UK
VAWT 260 [56] 1987 H-rotor 105 2 19.5 UK
NRC Éole [10] 1988 Darrieus 3,800 2 64 Canada
SNL 34-m [32,33] 1988 Darrieus 500 2 34 USA
VAWT 850 [43] 1990 H-rotor 500 2 35 UK
Heidelberg 300 [15,57] 1991 H-rotor 300 2 32 Germany
Vertical Wind I [58,59] 2006 H-rotor 12 3 6 Sweden
Vertical Wind II [60,61] 2010 H-rotor 200 3 26 Sweden

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B. Hand and A. Cashman Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 38 (2020) 100646

Fig. 6. Published journal and conference papers on the topic of VAWTs (data obtained from Scopus, keywords: Vertical axis wind turbine, VAWT, Darrieus).

Fig. 7. (a) Fabrication of the SNL 17-m Darrieus turbine blade (b) assembly of the SNL 17-m Darrieus turbine [9].

at low TSRs) [72] and aesthetically more appealing [73]. As a result, a environment [76]. Vertical axis turbines have been used to harness
large variety of small commercial VAWT designs are available for the hydropower from low-head rivers and other underwater currents
built environment, such as Turby (Netherlands), Quiet Revolution (UK) without the need for dams. These devices which are also known as
and Cleanfield Energy (Canada); See Fig. 8. cross-flow turbines, have the same operating principle as the VAWT but
A recent application, is the utilisation of VAWTs to recover energy instead are installed in rivers and estuaries [6]. The inventor Professor
from the wakes produced by high-speed vehicles on transport highways Alexander M. Gorlov of Northeastern University, developed a hydraulic
[75] Interestingly, VAWTs have even been designed for the Martian cross-flow turbine known as the “Gorlov turbine” [77]. The Gorlov

Fig. 8. Examples of small-scale VAWTs for the urban environment (a) Turby (b) Quite Revolution (c) Cleanfield Energy [17,74].

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B. Hand and A. Cashman Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 38 (2020) 100646

turbine evolved from the Darrieus turbine, but uniquely has blades scale model investigated the sensitivity of the turbine’s performance to
which are swept azimuthally along their span or in other words, each platform tilting during operation as shown in Fig. 11a [99,105]. It was
blade has a helical geometry as portrayed in Fig. 9a [78,79]. identified that tilting the Darrieus turbine reduces its aerodynamic ef-
A commercial Gorlov cross-flow system by the Ocean Renewable ficiency when compared to its untitled case [99].
Power Company in the USA is shown in Fig. 9b. The helical turbine As well, a floating Froude-scaled model was tested at the Maritime
reduces the magnitude of torque ripple and improves the turbine’s self- Research Institute Netherlands ocean laboratory under a controlled
starting ability when compared to the straight-bladed turbine [81]. environment and was also tested in real site conditions at Roskilde
Although, compared to the straight-bladed turbine, the helical turbine Fjord as shown in Fig. 11b and Fig. 11c, respectively [106]. The lateral
has a lower efficiency due to the increase spanwise flow on the VAWT’s force created by the rotating spar and subsea generator (a consequence
blades [82–84]. A primary advantage of the cross-flow turbine is it can of the Magnus effect) does impose some technical challenges for this
be packed more efficiently in arrays (rectangular form factor) compared concept. Furthermore, the viscous drag losses as a result of the rotating
to axial flow turbines and are less prone to cavitation [85]. The Gorlov spar in contact with seawater will deteriorate the overall power output
turbine was originally developed as a hydro turbine, but its helical [107]. Experimental studies conducted on the DeepWind spar found the
blade design has been also adopted for VAWTs as can be observed in resistant torque opposing rotation, under wave loading was found to be
Fig. 8a and Fig. 8b [16]. same order of magnitude as that in stagnant water [108]. It is important
The renewed interest in multi-megawatt VAWTs reappeared in the to highlight that the design and development of DeepWind demon-
mid 2000s after a twenty year hiatus, which can be observed in the strator gave a unique insight into the function of a floating VAWT.
growing upward trend in Fig. 6), fuelled by the emergence of un- Furthermore, it provided experience into the deployment, operation
precedented design challenges and the high cost of energy facing the and assembly of the device in an offshore environment [100].
offshore floating HAWT systems [16,86,87]. Indeed, where floating The EU FP7 also funded a separate project investigated by INFLOW
foundations become a necessity, the VAWT has clear advantages over [109], with the aim to demonstrate an innovative and cost-effective
the HAWT [23]. The fatigue issue which hindered the early VAWT in- solution to exploit offshore wind resources. The first INFLOW concept
stallations, can now be remedied with the technological advanced also known as the VertiWind concept was a 2 MW three helical-bladed
composite materials and production techniques available [86,16], the rotor mounted on a semi-submersible platform as illustrated in Fig. 10b.
better understanding of fatigue loads [23,19], a floating substructure A 35 kW onshore prototype was also tested [91,16]. Over time, this
with a compliant catenary mooring system [88] and the employed concept evolved to an optimised solution with two counter-rotating
control strategy [89]. It is clear the development of floating VAWTs is turbines on a single platform, each turbine with two straight blades as
still at an infancy stage and is vastly unexplored in the literature. So far, shown in Fig. 10c [109]. Nénuphar-Wind an INFLOW project partner,
several different concepts have been proposed by various research or- tested a 600 kW onshore prototype with helical blades and also with
ganisations as illustrated in Fig. 10 which indicates the relative novelty straight blades at Fos-sur-Mer, France, as displayed in Fig. 12a and b,
of this area and the need to expand this field. respectively.
It can be easily observed from Fig. 10 that there exists a large dis- At present, this prototype is the largest H-rotor ever built (swept
parity between the designs proposed. In some cases, onshore and early- area of 1250 m2 ), a record formally held by the UK VAWT 850 (swept
stage floating prototypes have been tested and will be discussed shortly. area of 850 m2 ) from 1990 [92,37,110]. Since October 2016, Nénuphar
It is expected the VAWT market will develop commercially in the near have been testing a third configuration with two straight blades as
future as these machines are suitable for deep offshore implementation shown in Fig. 12c. The Norwegian company Gwind introduced a con-
[98,99]. cept which utilises a helical blade configuration as shown in Fig. 10d
The DeepWind concept [100,90] was proposed by the DeepWind [93]. This design employs a gyro-stabilised floating VAWT for offshore
consortium (2010–2014) which consisted of 13 international organi- and near-shore applications. SeaTwirl AB, a Swedish renewable energy
sations and was funded by the European Union (EU) 7th Framework company also proposed a helical turbine design concept (Fig. 10e) [94].
Programme (FP7) for future emerging technologies [101,102]. The Both Gwind and SeaTwirl AB have experimented with preliminary
project was led by the Technical University of Denmark and its aim was near-shore floating prototypes as can be observed in Fig. 13a and
to develop a novel 5 MW floating VAWT which could reduce the cost of Fig. 13b, respectively.
offshore wind energy generation. The concept consists of a Darrieus The Savonius Keel and Wind Turbine Darrieus (SKWID) concept is a
rotor with two blades mounted on a deep draft rotating spar platform hybrid concept proposed by the Japanese industrial firm Mitsui Ocean
and is anchored to the seabed using a catenary mooring system as Development and Engineering Company (MODEC Inc.) and is illu-
shown in Fig. 10a [103,104]. A wind tunnel test campaign of a 1 kW strated in Fig. 10f [95]. It features a straight-bladed VAWT and a

Fig. 9. (a) The Gorlov helical turbine (b) commercial Gorlov turbine installation [16,80].

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B. Hand and A. Cashman Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 38 (2020) 100646

Fig. 10. Offshore floating VAWT concepts (a) DeepWind (b, c) INFLOW (d) Gwind (e) SeaTwirl (f) SKWID (g) Aerogenerator X (h) Spinfloat (images obtained from
[90–97]).

Fig. 11. DeepWind 1 kW scale model (a) wind tunnel test (b) ocean laboratory test (c) open sea test [99,101,106].

coupled submerged Savonius water turbine to allow energy to be pro- Unfortunately, due to unforeseen complications during installation the
duced simultaneously by wind and water currents [111]. The Savonius turbine capsized and subsequently sank. This research activity was later
turbine provides starting torque for the Darrieus turbine and also re- abandoned by MODEC Inc..
duces the reaction torque of the floating system, thus alleviating the The UK-based NOVA (Novel Offshore Vertical Axis) project at
tension in the mooring cables. The platform supports the 500 kW wind Cranfield University presented the Aerogenerator X concept depicted in
turbine and is stabilised by the ballast created by the Savonius water Fig. 10g [96]. This 10 MW VAWT has a radical V-shaped configuration
turbine [111]. In 2013, MODEC manufactured a full-scale SKWID as with two connected sail-wings and is half the height of an equivalent
shown in Fig. 13c to be situated at Saga Prefecture, Japan. HAWT [112,98]. The wind turbine has two extended arms to form a V-

Fig. 12. Nénuphar-Wind onshore 600 kW prototype at Fos-sur-Mer equipped with (a) three helical blades (b) three straight blades (c) two straight blades [92].

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B. Hand and A. Cashman Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 38 (2020) 100646

Fig. 13. Floating VAWT prototypes by (a) Gwind (b) SeaTwirl AB (c) MODEC Inc. [93–95].

shape with airfoils mounted on their ends, where the incident wind breakdowns as a result of the gearbox [118]. By employing direct drive
interacts with the airfoils. Its design philosophy was not necessarily to technology, the high maintenance gearbox is not required and permits
maximise aerodynamic performance but instead provide a stable and the direct coupling of the driveshaft to the generator. The direct drive
cost-effective design solution [113,104]. The Spinfloat [97] is a floating generator is heavier and larger when compared with a traditional
VAWT concept introduced by the French consortium EOLFI (shown in geared generator [62]. This is not a barrier as the position of the VAWT
Fig. 10h). The concept is comprised of a straight-bladed vertical axis generator gives greater design flexibility compared to the HAWT [115].
rotor on a tri-floater designed by GustoMSC [114]. Table 2 gives a
summary of the proposed offshore VAWT concepts with reference to 3.2. Offshore layout
their expected rated output, configuration, development status and
region. In an offshore HAWT wind farm, the wake created by the upstream
turbines adversely influences the efficiency of downstream turbines
3. Future outlook on VAWT technology through a velocity deficit and an increase in freestream turbulence in-
tensity [119]. These downstream HAWTs perform less efficiently than
3.1. Scaling in isolation due to the turbulent wake produced by upstream turbines.
Consequently, a very large HAWT spacing in the order of twenty tur-
One of the main reasons for moving the wind industry offshore, is bine diameters D is required to allow the flow to re-energise sufficiently
the potential to scale the wind turbine to a large rated power [115]. for downstream turbines to achieve performance levels comparable to
There is a growing trend towards the development of large-scale off- those in isolation. Despite this, a trade-off is usually taken between the
shore wind turbines as the system becomes more cost-effective with wind farm efficiency and its footprint, whereby HAWTs are positioned
increasing scale [86,44]. At present, the largest commercial offshore 6–10D in the streamwise direction and 3–5D in cross-streamwise di-
HAWT is the 12 MW Haliade-X developed by General Electric [116]. rection [120]. On the other hand, investigations have identified when
The HAWT’s blades experience cyclically reversing gravitational loads, VAWTs are positioned in counter-rotating array formations, synergistic
which requires continuous technology improvements concerning the aerodynamic interactions increase wind farm efficiency and can dis-
blade materials and manufacturing processes to obtain cost reductions sipate their wake more rapidly (analogous to the biomimetic fish-
for large turbines [16]. In comparison, the VAWT experiences oscil- schooling formation) [120–122]. As a result, the wind farm power
lating aerodynamic loads during operation, which has a more ad- density of counter-rotating VAWTs has the potential to be an order of
vantageous scaling behaviour than gravitational loads (i.e. the square- magnitude higher than that of an equivalent HAWT array and thus
cube law) [60]. It has been determined that the upper structural limit of demand less stringent spacing of offshore turbines [120,123]. Field
a VAWT is in the region of 30 MW [60], which highlights the huge experiments show the energy deficit in the VAWT wake can recover in
potential to achieve large power outputs using VAWTs [100]. Above all, only 4–6D [121]. Furthermore, the VAWT floating platform yawing
a floating VAWT employed with an effective mooring system, can motions (a consequence of the generator reaction torque) can be alle-
provide a COE reduction of over 20% compared to a current shallow viated by mounting two counter-rotating VAWTs mounted on a shared
water HAWT installation [117]. High reliability is extremely important single floating platform, therefore reducing the mooring and cabling
for the offshore wind industry due to the increased difficulty with system cost for each installation. It is expected offshore will have lower
turbine maintenance compared with onshore turbines. In particular, the operation and maintenance costs associated with a more accessible
wind turbine’s gearbox is a critical component with over 20% of HAWT drivetrain at sea level and this is particularly more important for larger

Table 2
Summary of floating VAWT concepts.
Concept Source(s) Rating Configuration Developer Status Region

DeepWind [101,100] 5 MW Darrieus curved blades DeepWind Prototype EU/USA

INFLOW I (VertiWind) [109,91] 2 MW Helical blades INFLOW Prototype EU
INFLOW II [109] 2 MW Two rotors with straight blades INFLOW Concept EU
Gwind [93] – Helical blades Gwind Prototype Norway
SeaTwirl [94] 1 MW Helical blades SeaTwirl AB Prototype Sweden
SKWID [95,111] 0.5 MW Hybrid Darrieus/Savonius MODEC Inc. Prototype Japan
Aerogenerator X [112,113] 10 MW V-shaped Wind Power Ltd. Concept UK
Spinfloat [97] 6 MW Straight blades EOLFI Concept France

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B. Hand and A. Cashman Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments 38 (2020) 100646

scale machines [23]. [15] Paraschivoiu I. Wind turbine design: with emphasis on Darrieus concept. Presses
Internationales Polytechnique; 2002.
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4. Conclusions bine for power generation I: assessment of Darrieus VAWT configurations. Renew
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