In order to asses is capacity to design and manufacture 12 MW wind turbines, Eolink started the 1:10^th prototype design from scratch. Three engineers worked on the rotor specification, the blades dimensions and the float manufacturing. In addition a totally new control command has been computed to pilot the wind turbine.

The project was set in time and within budget by only 5 people. Once at sea, Eolink was considered to be the 8^th best floating wind concept worldwide, according to JIP. Eolink demonstrated the ability to set a “big rotor” on a small float with a 20 meters large rotor on a 7 meters long float.  

The 1:10^th prototype provided extensive information about general dynamic behavior in a real sea environment. 35 sensors gave live information and established correlations between numerical modelling and reality.

Here are some results converted to the 12 MW full scale equivalent: The prototype reached nominal power, equivalent to 12 MW at the nominal wind speed of 10.5 m/s. During one hour at 187 km/h average wind speed and even a 269 km/h gust, the prototype withstood typhoon conditions. Last, low motion was noticed and can be represented by the 20 second heave period, 0.3°/m maximum pitch and 0.25 g maximum nacelle acceleration.

After two testing periods in 2018 and 2019, Eolink published a patent about passive or controlled alignment of the floating wind turbine. Two different settings have been tested, mainly on hydrodynamic shape and anchoring, providing better experimental data .