The ELICAN project is a first-of-its-kind telescopic wind turbine, developed by Spanish engineering company ESTEYCO, that takes offshore wind turbine technology to the next level. It is more efficient, faster, and cheaper to build and install into the marine environment because it doesn’t require costly and scarce heavy-lifting vessels. The entire structure, foundation, turbine, and blades are assembled onshore.
The structure consists of a gravity-based foundation configuration that acts as a floating platform with an integrated auto-lift telescopic (made up of tubular sections designed to slide into one another) tower. All the parts are made of prefabricated concrete panels. The wind turbine is installed atop the tower as the final step before the entire structure is towed to its position out at sea.
When they are towing the wind turbine out, the telescopic configuration of the tower in its collapsed position brings down the center of gravity. This also allows the bottom foundation to act as a self-stable floating barge temporarily. Once towed to location, the foundation is lowered and ballasted to rest on the seabed. The tower can then be pulled out to its final position utilizing cables and conventional heavy-lift strand jacks lifting the sections one level at a time. The entire process is carried out from a single access platform.
It took three years from design to completion of the project. It was co-financed by the European Commission under their Horizon 2020 program for Research and Development, which aims to innovate and design greener types of energy. The program helps finance ground-breaking ideas such as the ELICAN project – ones that will help the EU reach its target to go carbon-neutral by 2050.
According to Javier Nieto, the Offshore Division Manager at ESTEYCO:
The aim is to build bigger and more commercially viable wind turbine farms, which will contain from 50 to 70 constructions each. This target is still a long way off, but the hope is that Europe can lead the way as an innovator on environmental policies and inspire other nations and continents to start going green, sooner, rather than later.
The installation costs are reduced by 35% compared to conventional offshore wind turbines, which require all the parts to be assembled at the final location. And the system can be easily scaled up to meet the needs of installing giant next-gen offshore wind turbines, such as the 12MW, when it arrives.
