These floating wind turbines are loosely tethered to the ocean floor and are omni-directional. The blades pivot to face the incoming wind. As the video shows, they are assembled on land in trenches that are flooded. The turbines are then towed fully assembled sometimes several miles offshore where they are then sited.
The talk of the offshore wind community is the success of Seattle-based Principle Power’s two-megawatt WindFloat floating turbines off the coast of Portugal and Norway-based StatOil’s three-megawatt Hywind floating turbines.