Offshore Wind Power

Gilligan

Gilligan

#*! boat!
PREMO Member
..I learned a lot about offshore wind power generation last week whilst in Norway recently.


While what I learned confirmed it is not a viable option for the US (O'Malleys' silly little project being a good example of that waste), I was surprised by how close to viability the technology has become in Europe; UK and Denmark in particular. They are close to achieving the necessary operating economies to at least compete with some land-based traditional sources of electrical power.

The fact that a KW-hour is worth considerably more "over there" is a factor, but the economies of scale are a bigger one. They are putting in wind farms on a massive scale..with one in the planning stages that is over 1,000 MW capacity....larger than all but the the largest existing shore-based power plants (coal or NG) currently operating in the UK.
 
glhs837

glhs837

Power with Control
Larry Gude said:
What's the deal? Better wind consistencies? Higher efficiency generators?
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Just a much larger amount of machines, so it costs less to produce each machine, which lowers payoff time, combined with a KW hour of energy costing consumers more, means you don't have to produce as many as you do here for the same amount of revenue.


Gilligan, one thing you didn't touch on was subsidies, and how those compare to the US models. I think MD is requiring utilities like SMECO to source a percentage like %15 of all electricity from renewables or face draconian penalties. Not even carrrot and stick, it's stick and bigger stick......
 
Gilligan

Gilligan

#*! boat!
PREMO Member
Larry Gude said:
What's the deal? Better wind consistencies? Higher efficiency generators?
Click to expand...

Much higher average speed and more consistent wind is a huge part of it. Vast tracts of moderately shallow water that allow huge farms to be built out of view of land is a factor. Total government support and push, certainly a big part of it too. Their windfarms are 30-60 nautical miles offshore!..invisible except to fisherman.

Generators are definitely improving by leaps and bounds. The 300 MW farm currently being operated by the folks who recently hired us (far-offshore windfarm support vessel design/build program) consists of 88 turbines with gearboxes. The next phase construction will use only 67 turbines, with no gearboxes (new direct output alternators operating at 1:1) to produce the identical amount of power.
 
aps45819

aps45819

24/7 Single Dad
glhs837 said:
Just a much larger amount of machines, so it costs less to produce each machine, which lowers payoff time, combined with a KW hour of energy costing consumers more, means you don't have to produce as many as you do here for the same amount of revenue.......
Click to expand...

We're working on that

 
Gilligan

Gilligan

#*! boat!
PREMO Member
glhs837 said:
Just a much larger amount of machines, so it costs less to produce each machine, which lowers payoff time, combined with a KW hour of energy costing consumers more, means you don't have to produce as many as you do here for the same amount of revenue.


Gilligan, one thing you didn't touch on was subsidies, and how those compare to the US models. I think MD is requiring utilities like SMECO to source a percentage like %15 of all electricity from renewables or face draconian penalties. Not even carrrot and stick, it's stick and bigger stick......
Click to expand...

The subsidies being paid are large but specifically very finite in nature; all of them tapering off and expiring in fairly short time frames. All the companies we are involved with have to operate profitably or at least with no losses, in the case of those that are largely state owned (like Norway's Statkraft). So the future profitability of these huge farms is a critical - even dominant - go/no-go criteria for them. That they are proceeding with such huge investments is, as was explained to me, a pretty clear indication that they like the future numbers.

The Dogger Bank project alone will involve some 600 or more turbines and probably a half dozen substations (look like offshore oil rigs without the towers...). To produce over 3000 MW (peak) of power.
 
Gilligan

Gilligan

#*! boat!
PREMO Member
PJumper said:
They don't have crippling government regulations like we do!
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To be fair..yes they do. Some of the hoops they have to jump through and restrictions they have to deal with are even more difficult than our govt imposes. Loss of fishing revenue compensation schemes...bird mortality monitoring and mitigation/replacement schemes....compensation to landowners for the power feed cables...large investments in upgraded shore facilities and marinas benefiting the coastal communities that are selected as support bases. The compensation and working condition requirements imposed by the govt. for the offshore technicians are so good that I might just take one of those spots after we get the boats that will carry them all built. :buddies:
 
Railroad

Railroad

Routinely Derailed
Onshore wind power is much more reliable. Sources like Greenies and Politicians and Bleeding Hearts and farting cows all produce an abundant amount of wind, and all of the sources produce the same noxious gases out of their mouths and their anuses. They're depleting the ozone layer - might as well have them blow/fart/talk into propellers hooked to generators.
 
Bonehead

Bonehead

Well-Known Member
The major problem

Is the amount of rare earth components that the wind generators require and their limited life span.
 
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