b'Dr. Habib Dagher and the potential of US offshore wind poweryou control the pitch and power generation of theturbines, you can adapt current fixed turbine turbine is very important because if the turbinetechnology. Does that include the new generation base is moving, you have to account for that in theof 12 and 15MW turbines?control center. So, the controls of the turbine areDagher: Yes. When we started in this being adapted to the hulls and the hulls are beingbusiness, we were doing two megawatt turbines. adapted to the turbine controls.The one that were designing today, that were Does that mean that you couldnt design aputting off the coast of Monhegan Island in Maine, better turbine thats specifically optimized foris 11 megawatts. And weve been able to adapt the home? Thats a whole other question. Youour designs, our current turbines, to that. We are could. But is it worth it? Is it worth it to go out andalso looking at 15 and 20 megawatt turbines as reinvent the industry? You can argue one way orwe speak and looking at adaptation. At least going the other.from two to 11 [megawatts], it has been possible. AJOT: What are some other ways to design aCan we go from 11 to 15 and 15 to 20 [megawatts] turbine? cost effectively? Going from 11 to 15, Im very Dagher: Right now, the most common designoptimistic. Thats very doable. Going from 15 to 20, is the horizontal axis turbine. Thats called anI think Ill reserve judgment. upwind turbine. Vertical axis turbines have beenAJOT:In terms of commercial adaptation of looked at for floating technologies as well. Thesefloating wind, were still talking 2028, 2029, at the are turbines that we call downwind turbines.earliest, and thats probably being generous. Does AJOT:Please explain the difference. it frustrate you that adaptation is taking so long? Dagher: Upwind, the wind always hits theIs there a way to speed it up or is this just the way turbine before it hits the tower. Theres a yawthings are? mechanism. If you think of the blades, they alwaysDagher: There are technology developments see the wind first before it gets to the tower. Thatsthat are needed, physical infrastructure, called an upwind turbine. A downwind turbinedevelopment of port facilities that are needed actually has the blades on the other side of thefor the industry. Finally, there are permitting wind, so the wind hits the tower first and thenrequirements. Youve got technology, youve got goes to the blades. That design can have a yawport facilities and youve got permitting. These are system, but you can have the whole hull yaw. Thethree different, separate issues, that really result whole hull actually yaws back and forth, so thatin the schedule youre talking about. But the good the turbine is always optimized to the wind. Thesenews is that back in 2013, we actually put the first designs have a single mooring system, so thatfloating turbine off the US coast. Weve learned a instead of yawing just the turbine itself, yourelot since then and now were in the middle of doing yawing the whole hull.one thats full-sized, bigger than the Washington AJOT: Are engineers investigating otherMonument.innovations for offshore wind turbines? AJOT: You mentioned the need for advances in Dagher: There are some designs that areport facilities. Why cant we utilize existing facilities [fig 1.] looking at putting the generator down at the base.or the ones now under development for fixed Source: U.S. EnergyAJOT: Youve said that with floating wind Information Administration, Hourly Electric Grid MonitorDaily U.S. electricity generation from selected sources (Jul 1, 2021Apr 10, 2022)million megawatthours6 Mar 29, 2022natural gas5 31%4 wind19%3 nuclear2 19%coal1 17%all other sources0 14%Jul 2021 Oct 2021 Jan 2022 Apr 202220'