BW Ideol’s Floatgen achieves continuous capacity factor of nearly 60%

France’s first and only floating wind turbine continues to prove its reliable per-formance capabilities and delivered an average capacity factor of 59.2% over a three-month period ranging from November 2022 to January 2023. The 25 GWh-milestone was reached just after the major Atlantic storm Gerard in late January. The Floatgen turbine, mounted on BW Ideol’s patented Damping Pool^® foundation, handled wind speeds up to 37.30 m/sec. (equivalent to 134 km/h) and up to 5.5 m of significant wave height (equivalent to around 10.5 m maximum wave height).

“Floatgen – one of the few floating wind turbines currently in operation across the globe – continues to deliver outstanding results in terms of reliability, efficiency and production. It keeps on validating the merits of our unique floating offshore wind technology, even in the harshest environments. Such repeated performance, high availability and consequently high capacity factor underlines the benefits of floating wind and its ability to capture the best possible wind resources without depth constraints, contributing to a much needed energy resilience in the process,” said Paul de la Guérivière, the CEO of BW Ideol.

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