New from Vestas, the company that gives you roto-splode:
…comes this super gnarly giant sea wind turbine. No, not an April fools post.
Here’s the details from Vestas:
A dedicated offshore turbine – specifically designed for the roughest North Sea conditions.
Lowering the cost of energy in relation to offshore wind is essential for the industry. Some of the major stepping stones in achieving this are size and subsequent increased energy capture, which means a need for much bigger turbines that are specifically designed for the challenging offshore environment.
With the introduction of the V164-7.0 MW Vestas is taking a major step towards meeting these needs.
CEO Ditlev Engel says of the new turbine: “We are very pleased to be able to serve the market and show our commitment to the offshore wind industry by introducing our dedicated offshore turbine – the V164-7.0 MW. Seeing the positive indications from governments worldwide, and especially from the UK, to increase the utilisation of wind energy is indeed very promising. We look forward to this new turbine doing its part in making these political targets a reality.”
According to Anders Søe-Jensen, President of Vestas Offshore, the offshore wind market is set to really take off over the coming years, but more so in some parts of the world than in others: “We expect the major part of offshore wind development to happen in the Northern part of Europe, where the conditions at sea are particularly rough. Based on our broad true offshore experience and our many years as pioneers within the offshore wind industry, we have specifically designed the V164-7.0 MW to provide the highest energy capture and the highest reliability in this rough and challenging environment. This makes our new turbine an obvious and ideal choice for instance for many UK Round 3 projects.”
Based on the potential market size, the V164-7.0 MW business case is based on Europe and primarily the Northern European markets. Should market demand require so, Vestas is however also prepared to take the V164-7.0 MW to other parts of the world in due time.
Combining innovation and proven technology to ensure reliability
Having pioneered the offshore wind industry, Vestas has over the years gained extensive experience and knowledge which we continuously use actively in our research and development activities. Vestas works intensively to ensure that lessons learned are combined with new and innovative solutions to eventually provide the highest possible business case certainty for our customers. This newest addition to our offshore product portfolio is no exception.
The innovative part of the new turbine is, along with a wide range of technical features, its size and consequently much increased energy capture whereas the proven technology is represented by, among other things, the medium-speed drive-train solution.
“We actually kept all options open from the start, running two separate parallel R&D development tracks; One focusing on direct drive and one on a geared solution. It soon became clear that if we wanted to meet the customers’ expectations about lowest possible cost of energy and high business case certainty we needed a perfect combination of innovation and proven technology and so the choice could only be to go for a medium-speed drive-train solution,” says Finn Strøm Madsen, President of Vestas Technology R&D on this particular design choice and concludes: “Offshore wind customers do not want new and untested solutions. They want reliability and business case certainty – and that is what the V164-7.0 MW gives them.”
To ensure alignment between customer needs and the features of the next generation offshore turbine, a number of experienced offshore customers have been invited to provide their input during the development process – resulting in a match between turbine specifics and customer business cases.
Paving the way for the next generation offshore turbine
Construction of the first V164-7.0 MW prototypes is expected in Q4 2012. Serial production is set to begin in Q1 2015 provided a firm order backlog is in place to justify the substantial investment needed to pave the way for the V164-7.0 MW.
About Vestas Offshore
Vestas has been a pioneer within offshore wind since the birth of the industry and has installed 580 offshore turbines equalling 43 per cent of all offshore turbines in the world. In 2010 alone, Vestas installed a total of 555 MW at the Robin Rigg, Thanet and Bligh Bank offshore wind farms and the overall number of installed capacity has now surpassed 1,400 MW.
In the UK alone, Vestas employs more than 550 people.
Slides from today’s press conference can be found here
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From their press conference slide show (link above), this thing is HUGE:
I had to laugh though, when I looked at this slide:
They forgot the most important element of the 7 megawatt triad:, “wind”.
I’m pretty sure these people HATE nature.
OK, I take it this is not a joke. Shouldn’t a large wind thingy be able to generate a lot of power without turning very fast (with the right gearing)?
Not much new here. Lots of people are talking about offshore turbines in the 5-7MW range, and there is significant design and testing work under way for a 10MW machine. A mid-speed drive-train is an interesting choice; probably the least-proven of the drive-train options in turbines and an awkward compromise in a lot of ways; you still have a gearbox to deal with (with is associated flexibility, vibration and reliability problems) and you still need bigish rare-earth magnets for a mid-speed generator. Not sure what the thinking is.
Imagine the power they would generate in a gale, tornado, tsunami, hurricane or volcanic eruption !!!!!!!!!
I love that video, especially the “splash” when 20 tons of copper and rare earth magnets meet the ground.
Ha ha.
April fool’s. Funny, Anthony.
Well it is April first.
They forgot the most important element of the 7 megawatt triad:, “wind”.
No Anthony they did mention wind, hot air wind that is… from politicians!
I have commented many times on how stupid these things are and I cannot see why any sane person would give even passing consideration to electrity generation from this method.
I wonder whether anyone has considered how much less reliable and how much more maintenance will be required for windmills sited at sea compared to those sited on land. Salt water spray causes quite some problems with equipment on ships and much more maintenance is required. Further, maintenance at sea will be more difficult (and hence more expensive and indeed more risky) compared to maintenance on land.
I suspect that all of this will add considerably to the costs of electricity generation from windfarms sited at sea which will make these things even less cost effective. It would not surprise me if proper cost estimates have not been carried out.
The wind is provided by the politicians
The real failures are yet to come and will be when the US electrical utilities are forced to accept the requirement of adding a 20% contribution to the power grid from wind plants, when the unreliability and variability of wind plant electricity produces brown outs like they had in Texas in February, when the wind farms become a financial burden because they do not produce the revenue needed to cover the loans of the wind plant owners, when demand for foreign oil doesn’t decrease because the utility power plants use very little oil, when the US has another 100 billion dollars added to the debt, and when the power plants that should have been built to supply electrical power are missing so that everyone freezes in the dark.. The subsidies for wind plants are nothing more than a carbon taxes on the people of this country.
It’s not an entirely bad idea really. Humid wind carries more momentum than desert wind.
You do know, that was due to extreme cold that had not been experienced before at a number of plants (including low natural gas pressures due to system wide residential use) – standard thermal plants (coal, nat gas) – that caused problems at those thermal plants (sub-freezing temps causing issues like frozen pipes)?
IOW, it had nothing to do with wind … is that your understanding?
.
No matter how big the turbine, you still need wind.
That means that there is no way that these giant behemoths can provide any kind of reliable energy. I’d love to see the cost of maintenance on these monsters. They still have a limited lifespan, the salt will win, and then there is the energy losses in transporting the energy so far to shore. It’s a no win(d) situation.
Okay, kids. I’m old, and a little dense, and maybe I’m missing the joke, but what kind of expendable moron could they possibly hire to do the very frequent service calls on this device which is “specifically designed for the roughest North Sea conditions”?
Wait, don’t they have lots of non-green aerospace engineers unemployed now?
Forget I asked.
For a marine-based generator with less than 1/6 the height, 10 times the output, and constant operation, you’d be hard-pressed to find better than a
Floating Nuclear Power Plant
http://english.ruvr.ru/2010/06/30/11101839.html
No threat to birds or whales, either!
_Jim,
Texas brownouts happened in February of 2008 also due in part to extreme cold, not unusual. Or perhaps it was a lack of wind combined with increased usage to heat homes. http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/02/28/us-utilities-ercot-wind-idUSN2749522920080228?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews&rpc=22&sp=true
If extreme cold can shut down Texas wind farms then they can shut down wind farms pretty much anywhere in the US.
I propose we install one of these in front of the US Capitol Building and another in front of the White House. We should be able to satisfy the entire nations energy needs from the hot air blowing from those chambers.
Henry, the service will likely be done by the surplus north sea oil rig workers, since output from those fields is dropping.
Actually, if they were smart, they’d build undersea turbines to draw energy from the ocean currents in the north sea and english channel.
Let’s hope this team doesn’t use the cheap grout that is supporting hundreds of mills in the North Sea. Who is going to pay the millions of dollars to fix the design error?
The rate payer?
http://www.dsboffshore.com/dsb-offshore-vessels-for-sale-or-charter-news-article.php?id=228&title=Offshore%20wind%20farm%20grout%20failure%20may%20cost%20%C2%A325%20million.%20For%20multiple%20copies%20contact%20Plant%20Engineer%20sales%20team.
I wonder what the lil’ American Redstart pictured in the other thread has to say about this obscene monstrosity.
But wind farms, because they save the planet from doom, are OK, even if they destroy migrating songbirds, right?
Harold Ambler’s earlier quote is right on, repeated here for effect:
“I’m pretty sure these people HATE nature.”
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
@mikelorrey
Thanks, Mike. That’s a relief, for a grampa whose twin sons work for a major aerospace corporation, and, yup, they’re both engineers. Sure feel bad for north sea oil rig workers. I met some of those guys long time ago. Wild and great humanoids, barely civilized, but wonderful. Never met one that was “surplus”. Hope they do the undersea idea you mentioned. Don’t know any divers yet. Maybe I should avoid getting acquainted. Not easy on the elderly to watch this happen, you know.
Erik Anderson,
Humid air carries less momentum than dry air.
It seems counter-intuitive, but water vapor is less dense than nitrogen and oxygen at STP. Dry air is denser, cold dry air the most dense. Humid warm air the least dense.
Speaking to the idea of wind power:
If the climate is so fragile, how would the jet stream respond to the amount of wind farms we need to be energy neutral? Can I get a modeler on this?
Wow O Wow… that 7 MW sucker will power 1166 air conditions like mine at 6000 W each, 1200 sq.ft. home size, and, as Anthony pointed out, when the wind doth blow.
Wait… and doesn’t blow too much. And… blows in the day. And… blows enough. With that probably being the 15 m/s boilerplate output, what is the average output, something like 30%, better back that up to 350 home air conditioners. So, how much does this four Airbus A380 sized model cost to drive 350 simultaneous air conditioners? Oh, I forgot, they are going to make air conditioners illegal, keep your electric bill the same and pay for the sucker with that. $$%#%@ur momisugly#$#@ur momisugly$@ur momisugly#!!! Crooks.
“They forgot the most important element of the 7 megawatt triad:, “wind”.
The other element is:, “holding itself together rather than exploding in all directions when the wind arrives”.