Baltoflake steel coatings prevent offshore wind turbine corrosion

An offshore wind farm represents a staggering financial investment. In Europe, just one wind turbine costs EUR 1.23 million per megawatt, and wind farms may have anywhere from five turbines to more than 250. At the same time, costs are rising quickly due to larger sized turbines, longer foundation structures and substation requirements.

So what if the life of a wind turbine, which is normally 20 to 25 years, could be extended by another 10 years or more? Imagine how this would reduce costs as well as investment risk.

Baltoflake, a glass-flake-reinforced polyester (GFP) solution, does precisely this. The coating provides more than 30 years of proven maintenance-free corrosion protection at the splash zone for offshore installations such as wind turbines.

Long-lasting protection reduces the need for maintenance over the life cycle of the turbine – lowering emissions, supporting the green energy transition and reducing the overall levelised cost of energy (LCOE).

According to DNV, the independent expert in assurance and risk management, Baltoflake provides decades of protection for offshore wind substructures and reduces life cycle costs by up to 50 per cent.

Introduced during the 1970s, Baltoflake was one of the first performance coatings designed for the offshore environment. Today, the solution is proven to be maintenance free, extremely durable and high performing, as well as fast curing and efficient. It also reduces the emission of volatile organic compounds (VOC) by up to 97 per cent.

Extremely strong, the coating has glass flake materials incorporated into polyester to create a structure that is 5 to 20 times more impermeable than resin alone.

Moreover, by adding years to the life of steel structures, the solution could potentially reduce the need for assets of thicker steel. This in turn could potentially reduce the need for new steel production, which is responsible for as much as 9 per cent of global emissions, roughly 3.5 billion metric tons of CO₂ every year.

In the EU, the installed offshore windcapacity was 14.6 GW in 2021 and is set to increase by at least 25 times by 2030. Baltoflake coatings are poised to play an important role in extending the life of new and existing wind turbines far into the future.

Baltoflake is produced by Jotun, which is headquartered in Sandefjord, Norway. Jotun has close to 100 years of experience in steel protection in harsh environments and is a world leader in high-performance coatings for offshore structures.