Wind Catching Systems, a Norway-based startup that develops floating offshore wind-power technology, just announced a Series A investment round of up to $10 million led by GM Ventures. Additionally, Wind Catching Systems is announcing that it has entered a strategic agreement with GM to collaborate on technology development, project execution, offshore wind policy, and the advancement of sustainable energy technology.
Wind Catching Systems is also backed by Ferd, North Energy, and Havfonn. Funding will go towards the development and commercialization of new wind power technology, with the goal of establishing a commercial installation by 2027.
“The Wind Catching technology has significant competitive benefits compared to conventional floating offshore wind technologies and we see great opportunities for deployment at the Utsira site in Norway and at other locations worldwide,” said CEO of Wind Catching Systems, Ole Heggheim.
GM Ventures serves as the venture capital arm of General Motors, with this latest investment in the Wind Catching Systems startup serving to forward GM’s overarching goal of ushering in an all-electric, zero-emissions future. That includes renewable energy to power GM’s electric vehicles.
“As GM continues to move towards an all-electric future, it’s critical that we simultaneously drive the transition of the grid to low-carbon energy sources,” says GM’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Kristen Siemen.
Wind turbine installation rendering
Wind Catching Systems aims to develop technology that can provide renewable electricity that competes on a cost level with other energy sources, without subsidies, with the same annual production as five conventional 15 MW offshore wind turbines. To that end, the startup is developing floating multi-turbine platforms that can reduce overall turbine acreage by over 80 percent, as well as increase overall efficiency as compared to traditional floating wind turbine designs. The technology is also expected to offer a structural design life of 50 years.
General Motors previously announced that it is investing billions into autonomous vehicle technology and electric vehicle technology, with $35 billion earmarked for tech development by 2025.
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Comments
isn’t GM a car Company ? thought to be..
They did change their corporate logo to look more like a power outlet.
but then building the 330 m Eiffel Tower again above ocean was funny… kkkkkk
Were you last in line for brains? The tower is photoshop just to show you the height of the wing catching structure. No one is building a new tower.
… oh a genius here … thanks for explanation, but knew already … the compare is just stupid like saying it is 3 soccer squares long … just write there in caps letters 330 m high that every guy understand, of course not in blue colour, but in a white one would be ok, every master designer like me has the 40 years back to know… stil use the CS2 but the CC is equal how to do, even those with IQ 40 would understand… an easy Paint can go, not those high level with photoshopping a Paris tower
They also used to make trains, refrigerators, and manage the data of satellites… your point?
yeah true, Buses and Trains are ‘Automotive’
Refrigerators ok understand is equal a fender
but Eiffel Tower was strange for me, who gonna buy ? it has many worldwide like the 30 m replica in Umuarama, but in middle of ocean… welll north-american are crazy people
No more crazy than you.
And I wonder why they went bankrupt in 2008.
Some people & companies never learn.
… ah … it has corruption with government all over the world, so all solved for the power guys
No MK, gm (and Ford for that matter) I’d a “woke” social organization whose goal is to pander to the fringes of society while ignoring their mainstream customers and their needs.
ok then, understood 👍 kkkkk
I hope those so concerned about ‘woke’ have enough facial tissues and diapers.
Sounds like our current presisentiql administration…
Or tampons, can’t forget that we can invest 10 million into offshore windmills but can’t into something we use like tampons
Do you use tampons?
If your supply is low, I can pull a few strings for you.
That is a really beautiful site to be looking at as you look out over the ocean.
the ocean is big, youll live
Oceans might be “big” bub, covering 71% of the Earth, but inshore shallows where monstrosities like this can be sited and anchored/serviced are not so “big”.
Tigger: Is that any different than looking out over the oil rigs in the ocean or on land? What about the areas around coal mines? I could go on, but I think the point is made.
… showed my wife wife the pic, she said ”’ what u want… this is ridiculous ”’ kkk a Tower in Ocean… etc.
then I said, says a company name, she said… do not know, Mercedes ¯_(ツ)_/¯
no, GMM… ahhh ridiculous
Imagine how many birds those fan blades will kill.
… for me seems those USSR Big Radar Antenna like the Duga Radar Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
Not as many as climate change will. Even if the oceans were full of turbines. We’re in the middle of the biggest extinction event since the dinosaurs and parts of the Arctic are heating up 7 times the global rate. If anything, manufacturers should be getting more involved, should be like a wartime effort. Hate to sound too ‘woke’, but the evidence is pretty depressing.
… there is no climate change … I mean of course since the Big Ban start of Planet with dinos, volcanos etc had and still is a great dynamic transformation, but planet is still very calm, imagine Jupiter Atmosphere then you will see. We are not Mars yet all arid or a Moon like planet hit by meteors, no, .. we have some trees around, for example here in streets has flowers & plants
Think of how much water will be saved. When people don’t need to wash the crap from all those birds off their cars.
And exactly how many Seabirds will this monstrosity kill ? Better to make it Tidal-powered, which is far more reliable and operates in a much more dense medium.
What an eyesore.
My favorite part about this post is reading the replies to comments where “science-splainers” are berating the posters who made sarcastic jokes about the presence of the Eiffel Tower. Note to the science-splainers: those jokesters are more witty than you, and not as stupid as you seem to think. Just needed to point that out in case you missed that fact too.
They could have just used C8’s stacked vertically to demonstrate the height.
Other than a feel good photo op on the cover of Tree Huggers monthly magazine Windmills have proven to be a pipe dream, they never produce enough energy to pay for the their cost, deadly to surrounding wildlife, and are 100% non-recyclable.
Not familiar with these things, admittedly, but I question the whole design of the thing….. Since the WIND gets stronger the higher you place the windmills, I don’t see the point of having the lower windmills down by the water surface…
Since many other manufacturers put 3 bladed windmills on a single shaft – I’d think by now that the most efficient placement by OTHER manufacturers has been long since put to rest…..
I’m rather surprised that EARLY modern windmill designs did *NOT* have adequate bearing robustness for the radial and axial loads impressed on them…. Since windmill failures are BEYOND costly, I’m sure the NEW ones will be just fine…
But I question the useability of these ‘somewhat weird’ designs.
But wind power in general is extremely cheap – especially in the mid section of the USA south to north – where there is plentiful wind MOST of the time…. Some people say Wind Power has become much cheaper actually than Solar Power.
So yes its true, its electricity you cannot always rely on, but since it makes Cheap electricity it is obviously somewhat useable.
But these new fangled ‘wind-mill-walls’ make me question why others have not come up with anything like them.
well … as mechanical engineer degree explain you..
See this as a grid. The area in which wind hits is quite the same pressure in whole structure. So, different of the regular giant fan you have out there, the blades of this, even though in bigger quantity used, the size is smaller, less material, rotates faster, but the transportation cost is easier to shipping and mounting with crane, because is less weight per unity. And then, if a wind mill is broken, the others still continues to rotate. In the case of regular one, not, once broken, the whole structure is stopped. The disadvantage is that it is too much complicated, more intrinsic complex, and so more expensive to mount. Of course the wind press at above part is higher than the lower one, so the fans in lower part rotates much slower than in upper part. The electronic controls then have to balance this and more cables in whole structure, heavier on sea bed. Same compare an airplane with 2 propeller and those recent drones with several small electric motors. But for me GM just want to be different
For me this configuration works only on paper, because the momentum in axle is extreme and to make robust enough, this becomes incredible heavy that the cost is really exponential and so the EVs cars see a high bill. Not against EV cars at all, but Ethanol with sugar cane plantation is easier, even in desert
About the Momentum… well said in an easy way, but of course the case here is so complex vibrating and shaking with many loads in several directions, many bearings for each axle this square ventilator, and the a huge axle in some kind a perpendicular force that instead of having one pillar inside water per structure, you have here 6 (2+4) with connecting bars among them to stabilize those shakes …. sincere, forget here how many pieces and parts you have, seems like those pioneer airplanes of 1900 and the regular now tube-wing of today 777, but GM wants to call attention… and then this is only NASA feasible like going or pretending going to moon with Apollo 13 or SpaceX or whatever Rocket you want … so <! of course you have many types of sea bed offshore structures to mount you one pillar in the regular ventilator, the monopile, the tripod and then the jacket truss tower, but you have one per windmill. Imagine in this case of 6 pillars if each one goes with a tripod or jacket, then omg, you are also extreme complex below waterline in average levels. to not enter in question the currents in ocean, frequencies of wind etc. signals lamps avoiding ship hit, fata morgana and so on, not liked the invention
Uh huh – well – thought I just said that…
Another thing is that it appears to me that there will be interaction of so many closely spaced turbines and they haven’t taken into account of eddy currents (wakes) in the wind.
As far as ‘momentum’ goes, there is a problem here if English is your second language… I think you mean torques on the structure – but then again – the english translation of this was so indecipherable that I couldn’t hear clearly what you were saying…. But sometimes that is the intention anyway – that people like their explanations to be deliberately obscure.
well … so we said similar things… but completed with wave frequencies, vibration, type of pod etc it has also the constructive waves which culminates in wave propagation and resonances of sound, wind itself, and the ocean waves
I CAN NOT DRAW HERE : you know, not upload pics, so is hard
momentum is right in two ways. it has (but also Torque is Similar and completes another Forces, the Theory)
1. In Newtonian mechanics, linear momentum, translational momentum, or simply momentum is the product of the mass and velocity of an object. It is a vector quantity, possessing a magnitude and a direction. If m is an object’s mass and v is its velocity (also a vector quantity), then the object’s momentum p= mv or F=d/dt mv but think in a pool snooker table balls the windmills, then
2. like you thought M= you know, the right hand with Force Vector Directions etc. because Loads … … see wiki in your english ‘Angular momentum’
3. it has in wikipedia, you know, bad, but is a reference anyway, Momentum (disambiguation) cases like Behavioral momentum, a theory and metaphor used in the quantitative analysis of behavior
it was my mind … not a translator… because languages like portuguese, german, italian, spanish etc mix as well
BUT AS SAID HERE BELOW SPONGEBOB HAS TO ELUCIDATE THE THEME PROPERLY
Google answer us :
Including results for the difference between torque and Moment
Search only for the difference between torque and Momentum
Image result for the difference between torque and Momentum
What is the main difference between torque and moment? Torque is the measurement of the turning force of a body, while the moment is the measurement of the perpendicular distance from the point of rotation to the force’s line of action.12 Aug 2019
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At End :
The point is for me, it so much things, in this thing,
A. It does not work, or to make it working, A1. requires time A2. cost so much to calculate all in super computers CAE etc.
B. The all costs are so exponential, better still do a farm of windmills we already have, the known regular one, 1 Mast, 1 Fan with 1 Propeller 3 Blades >>> and that’s it BUT this is only an Ad Merchandise, so here we are analysing the unique Tour Eiffel !!!
However Eiffel Tower is almost so Static, it is not, but does not matter, comparing to this crazy thing, which is totally static-dynamic, then we are comparing Apple with Strawberry…
do not believe they gonna constructing that …
… yeah … maybe good for an artificial reef, some crabs playing around in mexico gulf, but … no
Let’s ask SpongeBob and Patrick in Bikini bottom to see what they think
For sure I am in same skepsis opinion of Squidward Tentacles, but maybe Mr. Crabs aka GM here wants its money, you know … kkk
First hurricane and it falls over.
… yep, a tornado or so…