Farwind Energy designs and tests the first sailboat capable of large-scale energy production from wind on the high seas

FARWIND ENERGY is a Centrale Nantes spinoff. It aims to develop and market energy production solutions from wind energy on the high seas, using energy ship technology. This project was inspired by a simple observation:
 

• Wind energy alone would suffice in meeting all of humanity's needs if we were able to harness it where it is at its most abundant, i.e. on the high seas. Offshore wind turbines cannot do this because, in the very high seas, their anchoring and connection costs would be prohibitive.

FARWIND ENERGY offers the first technology capable of harnessing this resource. Produced on an energy ship, the energy supplied has three major advantages:
 

• it does not cause any conflict of use (with fishing in particular);
• it exploits a resource located in international waters with minimal geopolitical risk;
• since these vessels are mobile, it is possible to guide them in real time towards the areas where the conditions for exploitation are best and thus increase their load factor. This increase in load factor has the advantage of increasing the utilisation rate of energy conversion equipment (electrolysers, power to liquid installations) and thus optimising the cost of the energy produced.

The tests were carried out on a prototype built on a 1:14 scale. It is a catamaran equipped with a hydrogenerator and a Flettner rotor. The Flettner rotor is a particularly efficient cross-wind rotary sail system, which is now being used on more and more commercial vessels in the context of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from maritime transport. The prototype is curently remotely controlled from an accompanying vessel. In a wind of about 8 knots consistent with the size of the demonstrator, FARWIND ENERGY - with the assistance of Centrale Nantes as part of a Weamec project supported by the Pays de la Loire region - validated the remote control performance, the manoeuvrability of the vessel, and its capacity to produce energy. The results confirm that for a full-scale vessel (80m long) the electrical power supplied would be more than 2MW in normal wind conditions. Given the load factor of this equipment, the electrical energy produced annually (10GWh) would allow for example the production of green hydrogen at a very competitive cost.
 

VIDEO OF THE TESTS