The world's first floating wind farm is a step closer to meeting its schedule of coming on-line before the end of the year.

The Hywind project off northeast Scotland isn't just breaking new ground; it's freeing wind turbines from it.

Statoil

The floating wind power turbines will sit atop 78-meter tall underwater ballast, and will be kept upright by three mooring lines that will be attached to the seabed.  The new technology eliminates a limitation of off-shore wind farms.  Prior to this, fixed-bottom turbines could be installed as long as the sea floor was no more than 40 meters down.  Now, wind farms can pop-up over the steep drop-offs near Japan or the west coast of the United States, the Atlantic, and the Mediterranean.  And they can be built further from land, easing aesthetic concerns from those who believe wind farms blight the view (which they don't).

The project is also significant in that the developer is not a wind power company or other renewable energy firm, but Statoil.  The Norwegian multinational oil and gas company is seeking to diversify away from carbon-based fuels.

The first floating turbines are waiting in the waters off a Norwegian fjord to be ferried across to Scotland.  Hywind will generate power for 20,000 homes, but future floating wind farms are expected to service much larger areas.