World’s first semi-submersible floating offshore wind farm still smashing its own power records

Published

4 weeks ago

October 7, 2024

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Portugal’s WindFloat Atlantic – the world’s first semi-submersible floating offshore wind farm – is now four years old and still breaking its own power output records.

The 25 megawatt (MW) WindFloat Atlantic, which came online in July 2020, was also continental Europe’s first floating offshore wind farm. Its majority shareholder is Ocean Winds, a 50-50 joint venture between Spanish renewable company EDP Renewables and global energy firm ENGIE.

WindFloat Atlantic’s electricity production has steadily increased, reaching 78 GWh in 2022 and 80 GWh in 2023. In July 2024, it recorded a total cumulative production of 320 GWh, providing power annually to over 25,000 households in Viana do Castelo, north of Porto, while preventing more than 33,000 tons of CO2 emissions and creating 1,500 direct and indirect jobs.

The offshore wind farm sits 20 km off the Portuguese coast. It comprises three 8.4 megawatt (MW) Vestas wind turbines that sit on semi-submersible, three-column floating platforms anchored by chains to the seabed. A 20 km-long (12.4-mile) cable connects it to an onshore substation.

Here’s how the semi-submersible floating platform works:

Each triangular floating platform is semi-submersible and anchored to the seabed. It consists of 3 vertical columns, interconnected/solidary to each other, and one of them is attached the base of the wind turbine tower.

The lateral distance of the platform (between the center of the columns) is about 50m. Its stability is reinforced by a system of gates that are filled with water at the base of the three columns, associated with a static and dynamic ballast system.

This active ballast system moves the water between columns to compensate for the stresses caused by the wind thrust on the wind turbine. This moving ballast compensates for significant differences in wind speed and direction. Its purpose is to keep the wind turbine tower upright to optimize its performance.

WindFloat Atlantic has an operations and maintenance base in the port of Viana do Castelo, where the team receives the wind farm’s information in real-time so they can address issues immediately. Onsite intervention can be complex, due to adverse weather and sea conditions in the area where it’s sited.

At the end of 2023, WindFloat Atlantic was resilient in the face of Storm Ciarán, weathering wave heights of 20 meters (66 feet) and wind gusts up to 139 km/hr (86 mph).

Ongoing surveys have found that over 270 species are successfully coexisting with WindFloat Atlantic, and the floating structures have fostered marine life, contributing to a conservation and reef effect underwater.

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Environment

Cybertruck backlog runs out, Model S gets stuck, GM hits a sales milestone

Published

8 hours ago

November 5, 2024

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Cybertruck backlog runs out, Model S gets stuck, GM hits a sales milestone

On today’s episode of Quick Charge, Tesla’s Cybertruck is now available in Canada – and, like in the US, there’s no waiting! Plus, we’ve got an “actually” smart summon Tesla that’s actually stuck, GM reaches a sales milestone, and we get a brand-new title sponsor!

Today’s episode is the first with our new title sponsor, BLUETTI – a leading provider of portable power stations, solar generators, and energy storage systems.

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New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded, usually, Monday through Thursday (and sometimes Sunday). We’ll be posting bonusLucid proves than an EV company can keep its promises while Xiaomi teams up with Chevrolet and Honda to prove – at least conceptually – that records are made to be broken. audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage daily news!

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This ‘supercharger on wheels’ brings fast charging to you [update]

Published

10 hours ago

November 4, 2024

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This 'supercharger on wheels' brings fast charging to you [update]

Mobile car care company Yoshi Mobility launched a DC fast charging EV mobile unit that it likens to “a supercharger on wheels.”

November 4, 2024 update: Yoshi Mobility will only be charging EVs on the side of the road now – it announced today that it’s selling its fleet fueling operation to EZFill Holdings (Nasdaq: EZFL).

It was originally founded as a direct-to-consumer, mobile fueling business in 2016, but now it’s going to focus on mobile EV charging, virtual vehicle inspections for partners like Uber and Turo, and onsite preventative maintenance.

Bryan Frist, Yoshi Mobility’s CEO & cofounder, said, “By spinning off our fuel business and focusing all of our energy on solving hair-on-fire problems that fleet owners face, we are meeting the changing needs of enterprise customers while making the future of transportation safer, cleaner, and more sustainable.”

May 22, 2024: Yoshi Mobility saw that its existing customers needed mobile EV charging in places where infrastructure has yet to be installed, so the Nashville-based company decided to bring the mountain to Moses.

“We recognized a demand among our customers for convenient daily charging, reliable private charging networks, and proper charging infrastructure to support their fleet vehicles as they transition to electric,” said Dan Hunter, Yoshi Mobility’s chief EV officer and cofounder.

The company says its 240 kW mobile DC fast charger, which can turn “any EV” into a mobile charging unit, is the first fully electric mobile charger available. It can provide multiple charges in a single trip but doesn’t detail how they charge the DC fast charger or who manufactured it. (I asked for more details, and they replied that they won’t disclose client names or the manufacturer of its DC fast charger yet.)

Yoshi is launching its mobile charger on two GM BrightDrop Zevo 600s and will introduce additional vehicles throughout 2024. It aims for full commercialization by Q1 2025. (I wonder if the Zevo 600 ever charges itself? Yes, I asked that too.)

Yoshi Mobility says it’s already deployed its EV charging solutions to service “major OEMs, autonomous vehicle companies, and rideshare operators” across the US. Its initial customers are made up of large EV operators managing “hundreds” of light-duty vehicles requiring up to 1 megawatt of energy per day that don’t yet have grid-connected EV chargers. I’ve asked Yoshi for details of who it’s working with, and will update if they share that info.

The company says pricing is based on location and enterprise charging needs. Once under contract for service, the service will be deployed to US-based customers within 10 days.

To date, Yoshi Mobility has raised more than $60 million, with investments from GM Ventures, Bridgestone, ExxonMobil, and Y-Combinator in Silicon Valley.

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Environment

Marqeta shares plunge more than 30% on big forecast miss

Published

10 hours ago

November 4, 2024

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Marqeta shares plunge more than 30% on big forecast miss

Marqeta celebrates its initial public offering at the Nasdaq on June 9, 2021.

Source: The Nasdaq

Marqeta shares tumbled more than 30% in extended trading on Monday after the company issued weaker-than-expected guidance for the fourth quarter.

Here’s how the company did compared with Wall Street estimates, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:

Loss per share: 6 cents adjusted vs. a loss of 5 cents expected
Revenue: $128 million vs. $128.1 million expected

While third-quarter results showed a slight disappointment on the top and bottom lines, Marqeta’s forecast for the current period was more concerning.

The payment processing firm said revenue in the fourth quarter will increase 10% to 12% from a year earlier. Analysts were looking for growth of more than 17%, according to LSEG.

Marqeta, which primarily functions as a card-issuing platform, attributed the guidance miss to “heightened scrutiny of the banking environment and specific customer program changes.” The company has been struggling for a while, and its stock is now down more than 80% from its peak in 2021, the year it went public. The stock was down 15% for the year prior to the report.

Total processing volume of $74 billion was up more than 30% from a year earlier. Net revenue and gross profit were up 18% and 24%, respectively.

Marqeta’s digital commerce business sells payment technology designed to detect potential fraud and ensure that money is properly routed. It also issues customized physical cards that look like a credit or debit card that can be used for point-of-sale purchases.

The company has been trying to break into the buy now, pay later business with a recently launched product called Marqeta Flex. The service brings BNPL from lenders such as Affirm or Klarna to any credit card wherever Mastercard and Visa are accepted.

“It’s an orchestration layer, but it’s tied to issuing and processing and disputes and chargebacks,” CEO Simon Khalaf told CNBC at Money2020 in Las Vegas last week. “So it is not actually a Wild West in BNPL. It is actually very well established. And there is a reason why a lot of people are jumping to it.”