All of which come from the last century. Nothing new here.

There are a number of design false assumptions:-

“the early favorite for further testing is the Darrieus design.”

Which variant is best?

“The project will evaluate new rotor designs that smooth out the amplitude of these torque oscillations without significantly increasing rotor cost.”

That’s already been done, hasn’t it? Is cost a factor with this design? Looks like it could be replaced at a fraction of the cost of a HAWT turbine repair.

http://www.rechargenews.com/business_area/innovation/article296513.ece

“Offshore wind is a different world.” Can’t argue with that.

“better scalability to very large sizes.”

Wrong premise. Silly really. A (nominal) 2MW will do nicely – more robust.

“Barone said new VAWT designs will need robust aerodynamic brakes.”

No – they won’t need any brakes at all. The (no gearbox) drivetrain should do that job.

“aimed at addressing the national energy challenge of increasing the use of low-carbon power generation.”

Aimed in the wrong direction. Dispatchability addresses that challenge best.

Why capture the wind and not the wave energy? There’s a lot of it out there!

Draft is a factor in achieving the economies of towing out from port, so sub-sea innovation is the answer.

“The five-year, $4.1-million project began in January of this year.”

Too little, too late. But still far better than the UK’s pathetic R&D scene. Anyway, why aren’t the incumbents pushing these boundaries? Too complacent?

(BTW, I’ve spent a few years as a blue water sailor. I have a pretty good idea how large the ocean is and how much gets used for shipping, etc.)

Ocean realestate isn’t as available as you think given shipping channels, fishing grounds and marine mammal habitat

The only thing that I’ve seen says that VAWTs are less degraded than HAWTs when ganged, which is what one would expect. HAWTs don’t
like turbulence and create some in their wakes.

That argues that VAWTs might be a better choice when real estate is at a premium, but it doesn’t automatically mean that clustering is better when total area is not an issue.

I can imagine that turbulence, as long as there isn’t significant energy cancellation, could help VAWTs as it might spread force and somewhat smooth out the loading cycles.

Placing multiple turbines in close proximity could foul the wind.  Ocean is not in short supply.

I suppose we’ll have some data before too long and can get past the speculating….