Offshore wind farms have been creating electricity off the coastof Denmark since 1991 and England, Germany and other countries onmainland Europe have followed suit, as have China, South Korea and Japan. It's a different story in the US, where until recently there were no offshore wind farms in operation or even under construction. That changed recently with the start of construction of a small wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island.
The 30 megawatt, 5 turbine Block Island Wind Farm project in Rhode Island is scheduled to go online next year, producing enough electricity to power 17,000 homes. It joins a list of similar US projects currently in various stages of proposal, review, and approval, mostly off the East Coast, and one recently proposed for Morro Bay off the Central Coast of California.
The largest offshore wind farm in the world is off the coast of Cumbria in the UK and canproduce a claimed 367.2 MW of electricity or enough topower 322,000 homes.
The reasons for the lag by the US vary, but can roughly be attributed to the high cost of construction,changing regulations, and personal lobbying. Perhaps the best known example of the latter is billionaire Bill Koch's fight to stop the Cape Wind project near Cape Cod, which has now been stalled.
What makes offshore wind farmsattractive is that there’s always an ocean breeze. Unlike onshorewind farms where wind can be inconsistent, especially in the summermonths when weather can be fairly static depending on the region.That means offshore wind farms have the potential to create moreenergy per turbine than their onshore counterparts. According to theUS Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), a turbine at a sitewith an average wind speed of 16 mph would produce 50 percent moreelectricity than at a site with average windspeeds of 14 mph.
Off shore wind power has enormous potential. TheNational Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates a gross windpotential of 4,223 gigawatts (GW) off the coast of the United States alone – roughly four times the generating capacity of the entire US electric grid. One GW of wind power can supply between 225,000to 300,000 average homes in one year.
While onshore wind farms have proved viable with Iowa, for example,getting 28 percent of its energy from onshore wind farms alone, they’venot been without their detractors. Noise pollution, the death ofpredatory birds like hawks and eagles, and the negative impact on theland during construction are among the issues raised by their opponents. Most of these concerns go away when it comes to offshore wind farms. The further away from shorethey’re constructed, the less noise pollution is created, the fewerbirds affected, and the less the environment is impacted.
But there’s a catch … at least as faras the US is concerned. The Atlantic shelf off the east coast ofthe U.S. is shallower than that of the Pacific. So it’s easier toanchor windmills into the Atlantic shelf floor. The Pacific Oceanshelf, on the other hand, drops off fairly quickly away from shore,so wind turbines off the West Coast of the US have to float. Thisis why there’s more activity on the East Coast right now, and whythe recent announcement of a possible wind farm off the coast ofCalifornia was considered significant.
Whether an offshore turbine is anchoredor floats, it technically works the same way as it does onshore.What’s different is that offshore turbines need to be constructedto more efficiently take advantage of the steadier winds and theharsher marine environment. That means the towers are taller, therotor diameters are longer, and an assortment of modifications to thetower and base structure need to be made to handle the forces ofwaves and ice flows – all of which add to the cost of construction.
Many industry experts and governmentofficials say that the potential for increased energy productioninherent in offshore wind farms would offset those costs. This argument, which appears to have held up in other parts of the world, is about to be tested in the US.
Watch this space.
For to deicing the wind turbines a proposal is to use helicopters a completely imbecill idea. Each deicing procedure will take 1.5 hours to perform for each windturbine.
Costs for hireing a helicopter and transport time to and from will be sextremely higher than the income.
A Windturbine have to be stop at a velocity of 20 metre pro second otherwise it will be damaged. In Denmark Windturbisnes crack their wings, the generator house together with gearbox house fell off the towwer as effect of unbalance and finally the Tower cracked.
Off shore windturbines miles out in ocean have many hours transporttime to be reached for service etc. A lot of Carbone oxide exhaust.
What about typhons etc frequently genereated around United States and Heavy winds frequently blowing inrto the country.
As I see it the on shore windturbinmes in Sweden with great subventions is a large mistake. We generate additional electri Power not needed. Better to invest in developing in nuclear Power. The windturbines press the Electric energy costs so the nuclear Power make no profit.
We have effect Power tax charging the nuclear and subvention for wind Power. That´s is we pay a lot of Money for the unefficient wind Power and charge the efficient, environmently friendly nuclear Power.
A indeed huge mistake.
In Sweden off shore windpower is even more ineffective and costly. Don´t let investment in windpower become realised for relegius reason but do an bojective analyse wether rhias is the best way to take. I am not conviced
W = power. Wh = energy.
> or enough to power 322,000 homes.
… most likely without heating. This is probably just to power lights.
Besides, 1. Wind and sun are intermittent, so require gas-powered power plants: Natural gas is a fossil fuel so can't be used anymore, and Europe has very little natgas, and considering the political situation in Ukraine and Algeria, it's not a very good idea to make ourselves more dependent on imported energy
2. Wind turbines and solar panels don't grow on trees: They require rare minerals, which themselves require oil to be dug and transported
The reality, is that there's no silver bullet: We *are* going back to the Middle Ages.
The house insolation of the future? The sweater. The electric car of the future? The bicycle.
Excellent piece on offshore wind farms.
Rhode Island entered the game late, yet despite numerous states attempting to construct an offshore wind farm, some for as long as a decade, Rhode Island permitted its wind farm in a few short years, because of an innovate environmental permitting process that was fully compliant with the Coastal Zone Management Act and its regulations. Rhode Island quite literally zoned the oceans to facilitate this wind farm. Rhode Island has been held up as a blueprint for how other states could accomplish the same thing, and Oregon has done so with an offshore wave energy facility.
I have written a book published by the American Bar Association which details how this was done in Rhode Island, and the status of ocean zoning here and in Europe. Zoning the Oceans The Next Big Step in Coastal Zone Management. It is available on Amazon.
Again, excellent article!
All best
John
Some people are open to having their mind changed, others not so much. Take a look at Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) in the united states for a point of reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cost_of_electricity_by_source&redirect=no#United_States
Onshore wind is already cheap or cheaper than coal. It's one of the cheapest methods to produce energy in the country. GE is one of the largest manufacturers but Siemens leads in offshore turbines. Offshore turbines are still expensive by comparison but there is one point I want to emphasize it's that turbines MUST be built at scale to be efficient. Small household or microturbines are completely garbage. $8,000 microturbines often produce far less electricity than a $300 solar panel even before you calculate higher maintenance costs for them. Household vs grid turbines are simply not comparable technology, one of them is cheaper than coal and the other is junk science meant to scam people that don't know better out of money.
Intel recently installed 58 JLM Zefr turbines on their HQ, take a look at the specs of it here: http://www.jlmenergyinc.com/zefr The price is probably neary $10k each installed and even the manufacturer lists them at just 240 watts at 2 MPh. At the actual average wind speed in Santa Clara of 9 MPH they produce essentially nothing in electricity. The $500,000 to $600,000 wind farm on Intel's roof likely produces less actual electricity than they would get from $1,000 in solar panels.
With solar grid vs household panels are pretty much the same thing which is why for a small business or household solar is a better choice than wind turbines by about 3 orders of magnitude. This should shed some light on at least one of your points on grid vs locally produced energy. This is an option for solar but not with wind. I don't want to give the wrong impression of wind power though. Onshore wind farms are a very clean and efficient method to generate electricity and the jury is still out on getting offshore costs down further.
As for being a "greenie" I am mostly independent but even if you ignore global warming there is a national security argument to be made for reduced dependency on fossil fuels. Also nobody is denying pollution. Have you seen info on the air quality in Shanghai or Beijing? People literally wear masks to go outside in it.