NEW BEDFORD — As giant barges carry even more giant wind turbine parts to a site 15 miles offshore, small boats from a community boating center towed a tiny turbine on Monday into the middle of Clark’s Cove.
Just offshore from West Beach floats the prototype wind turbine. Though its blades are spinning in the wintry winds, it’s not sending any power to land. It is there, temporarily, to collect data.
The structure, a 27-foot prototype for a 350- to 400-foot turbine, will stay in the cove for two to three months. Over the coming weeks, its designer, T-Omega Wind, will study how it performs and feed the collected data into computer models for development of the full-scale version.
With its four legs forming a pyramid, the T-Omega turbine is different in design from those New Bedford has seen towering above Route 18 since the summer.
“Our turbine will ride on the waves and embrace being in the water,” said Brita Formato, CEO of T-Omega Wind, a Boston-based startup. “It will weathervane like a ship at anchor, moving in the direction of wind and currents.”
The turbine’s power-generator — the nacelle — also differs from the typical design. Instead of sitting fixed and at the top of the turbine, the nacelle is disc-shaped and designed to move with the turbine.
The design is by Andy Myers and Jim Papadopoulos — engineers and co-founders of the company. Their previous prototype was tested in a lab pool with significant wave loads. This is the design’s first test in open water, Formato said.
Floating wind turbines will be adopted off the California coast, and maybe in Maine, where the waters are too deep for fixed-bottom turbines. For T-Omega Wind, the “steel in the water” in New Bedford is the next step towards a commercial-scale product that it hopes to have on the market by 2028, when the floating wind projects off the West Coast are slated to start.
The prototype, fabricated in Concord, weighs about 1,500 pounds. The planned full-scale turbine, possibly 10 megawatts, would weigh significantly less than currently available floating turbine designs, said Formato and Dave Forbes, chief commercial officer at the company.
“We believe around 10 megawatts could be a good size,” Formato said. “We don’t believe bigger is necessarily better.”
As reference, the Vineyard Wind turbines being installed south of Martha’s Vineyard are 13 megawatts.
T-Omega Wind is using the turbine’s lighter design as a selling point. Because it uses less steel, they say, it would cost less to produce. That could help the nascent U.S. wind industry, which has faced strong economic challenges in recent months due to inflation and supply chain issues.
Formato says the turbine’s lighter components will also allow it to be deployed with existing port infrastructure and vessels. Currently, specialized vessels and ports that can handle giant turbine parts have been high in demand, but are few in number or still under construction.
Renderings for the full-scale T-Omega turbine show a vessel towing it, fully assembled, out to sea, in part due to its light weight. Formato said the design would help make wind energy more accessible in more places.
The company has a permit with the New Bedford Port Authority to use its mooring in the cove through early 2024. Gordon Carr, executive director of the Port Authority, said it’s important to encourage early research on floating wind turbines, particularly on how developers can minimize impacts to marine life and commercial fishing.
“The industry is testing out many different turbine models and structures for [floating wind], so it’s exciting that we’ll have one of those potential structures here in New Bedford,” said Jennifer Downing, executive director of the New Bedford Ocean Cluster. “It’s an opportunity to test new technology and educate the community about wind and where wind is moving.”
T-Omega Wind has worked with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the National Science Foundation, and the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, winning grants that have helped fund its work.
But now, the company is in a capital-raising stage and working on developing the full-scale turbine. Formato said the company has had discussions with wind developers and turbine manufacturers, but did not share more.
The company is hosting a community information session at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 7, at the New Bedford Wastewater Treatment Plant. A sign will soon be placed onshore with more information about the project for onlookers walking along West Rodney French Boulevard.
Email Anastasia E. Lennon at alennon@newbedfordlight.org.
