Posted on December 8, 2025
If Don Quixote believed that the windmills in La Mancha were giants, we don’t want to imagine what he would think of the innovative turbines that have been installed in the Norwegian Sea. Offshore wind power seems to be one of the cornerstones of the global energy transition. After all, offshore turbines do not bother the population, and there will always be wind thanks to ocean currents. Far from the coast, the winds are stronger and more constant, making the open sea the perfect place to install turbines that reach 15 to 18 MW.
But they do not follow the traditional model in which the wind turbine is completely vertical.
The Norwegian startup World Wide Wind (WWW) is reinventing everything we know about wind engineering: they have developed a revolutionary design, the Counter-Rotating Vertical Axis Turbine (CR-VAWT). This colossal structure is already known as the “Mother of the Seas.” This prototype, with a capacity of 40 MW and a height of 400 m, is the design of the future. For now, they are starting with the testing of a more modest 1.5-megawatt prototype, but this is only the beginning.
An upside-down design for wind turbines
Instead of having a horizontal axis, this turbine is completely vertical, which means its blades can capture wind coming from any direction. This eliminates the need for complex mechanical systems to orient the turbine. However, the real magic of the prototype is its counter-rotating design.
Instead of a single set of blades, two sets have been installed on the same tubular shaft. These two sets of blades rotate in opposite directions, doubling the relative speed between the rotor and the air mass. This dramatically increases the efficiency of the machine, as the rotation helps to cancel out the torsional forces generated by the rotation. This cancellation phenomenon makes the structure extremely stable even when at sea without being attached to any solid structure.
This upside-down turbine has a low-gravity structure, in which the heaviest components (such as the generator) are located at the base. This arrangement shifts the center of the turbine downward, making it inherently more stable. This allows the structure to float and remain securely anchored in deep water, even far from the coast.
The “Hurricane Hunter”
Apart from its innovative design, the “Mother of the Seas” turbine is extraordinarily resistant even in the harshest sea conditions. So much so that it has also been nicknamed the “hurricane hunter.” The low gravity of its design and its buoyancy allow it to tilt with the wind. It does not offer any rigid resistance to the storm, but simply sways with the waves, which drastically reduces the structural load that a common tower usually bears during sea storms.
This means that the turbine is not only designed to survive storms, but also continues to generate energy even in hurricane-force winds.
Not only is it more resistant to storms, but its maintenance is a radical improvement over traditional designs. Since the generator and all vital components are at the base, access to them for repair and maintenance is much easier, safer, and above all, more economical. Maintenance can be carried out from a boat at sea level, unlike the costly giant cranes that must operate at heights of over 100 m on the high seas. This accessibility and lower overall mechanical stress translates into a longer service life and lower operating and maintenance costs from the outset.
What this new wind turbine means for the economy
While these turbines are reaching a design ceiling of 15 to 18 MW, the company WWW aims to create 40 MW turbines. These titans would have a final height of 400 m above sea level and would provide 2.5 times more power than the largest current turbines.
Following a simplified design, lower material usage per megawatt, and drastically reduced maintenance costs would make this wind energy, apart from being considered green, extremely competitive: half of the company’s goal is to achieve a levelized cost of energy below $50/MWh.
