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”.
Groups launch wind power product label- “WindMade”
http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFLDE70G1IU20110117
Ditlev Engel, Vestas chief executive:
“Electricity generated from renewable sources is often more expensive…..We hope that this will create a strong element of consumer pull..”
…bind me to the mast, and row like hell..
As young kids they play with inexpensive mechanical toys, then they grow up (physically) and become politicians and continue playing with very expensive mechanical toys.
Which part of the word “replace” is not understood by promoters of wind power, as used thusly:
Can intermittent wind power replace continuous power provided by conventional means?
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In the original text of the post: “the offshore wind market is set to really take off . . .”
take off As the supplied opening video suggests the proper phrase should be crash land.
Can we have more discussion of chemtrails, and less insanity please?
/sarc
But seriously.
Giant? A 7 MW fossil-fuel or nuke unit would be a joke as base-load. Hardly worth building except as a peaking unit.
Aren’t these wind turbines slowing down the rotation of the Earth ?
Hey, if we don’t ask now they will stick us with only these, then declare them unsafe.
wayne (April 1, 2011 at 9:12 pm) when you state “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.”
You are forgetting that the duty cycle of A/C is 1:10 or 1:20 at the most. So you need to multiply the number of homes serviced by 10 or 20. However other commenters are correct that offshore energy is outrageously expensive compared to onshore which is merely expensive. But I believe onshore wind can work efficiently in some circumstances.
SPIN!
I think I might start up a North Sea salvage company!
The North Sea is not exactly friendly to machinery of any kind. Who the heck is going to climb that to repair the frozen gear box?
The corrosion and maintenance will cost millions. This is a great way to get rid of excess money that the gubment has laying around.
That triad is missing the most important component…
Lawyers.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Brower-Piven-Encourages-iw-3499593583.html?x=0&.v=1
In the “Artist rendering” at the head of the article, any sailors care to speculate which way the wind is blowing, from looking at the clouds and the waves? No wonder the rotor is stationary!
Does anyone think we are smart enough or technically advanced enough…
…to pull this off?
Kum Dollison says:
April 1, 2011 at 9:44 pm
California is now getting 19% of its electricity from non-hydro, non-nuclear renewable
California imports 30% of it’s electricity.
Washington State gets 15% of it’s electricity from fossil fuel.
But we export 20% of our electricity to California.
So in creative accounting I could say Washington State gets 100% of it’s electricity from renewable and exports all it’s fossil energy to California.
But some people in California aren’t interested in buying fossil energy. So we export our renewable energy to California and burn coal for ourselves.
But not to worry, when the inevitable drought year occurs, and the Hydrodams in Washington State can’t load balance Californian renewables Californians will be enjoying rolling blackouts.
I read on another blog (so sorry no references) that if a windmill out at sea suffered mechanical failure requiring substantial repair, by the time a large boat was hired with a suitable crane, crew, engineers, replacement mechanism and H&S etc etc then ….. most important of all, waiting for a fine day to fix it, it wasn’t worth fixing, even if it could be fixed.
Not proof, but certainly needs to be added to the list of “must check it out” before spending any cash!
A 7 MW unit would require an even bigger boat, bigger crane etc … and probably better weather for longer!
Two comments:
1) Rational Debate says:
April 2, 2011 at 1:22 am
Folks, I have got to know – how the heck do they get the turbines, and then blades, UP there?
They have developed “self-erecting” wind turbines, where the tower is used to support the assembly. A link to one type is below, there are others with the same concept.
http://www.windpowerengineering.com/construction/tested-technology-with-a-compact-powertrain-and-self-mounting-crane/
2) I work for a large U. S. electric utility and our numbers indicate that offshore wind is by far the most expensive power in terms of capital and O&M, on the order of $250 per megawatt hour. It is 2-3X more expensive than on-shore wind due to the costs of assembly at sea and the aggressive/corrosive environment, even if the “fuel” is “free”. Nothing is too expensive as long as you are using other people’s money.
walt man says:
April 2, 2011 at 5:27 am
“UK gov subsidies creating 550 jobs – if these jobs were not created then there would be 550 more people claiming benefits from the same gov. What is the differential?”
Interesting question.
According to the Telegraph, wind power subsidy tops 1bn GBP a year.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/7061552/Wind-farm-subsidies-top-1-billion-a-year.html
Looks like there are about 10,000 wind energy jobs in the UK.
http://www.mywindpowersystem.com/2011/03/skill-shortage-uks-wind-industry/3087/
So we get about 100,000 GBP or about 154,000 USD per wind energy job in the UK per year. This cost is slapped on the ratepayer bills; depriving said ratepayers of disposable income, reducing demand and thus jobs in the private sector.
How many jobs in the private sector would a consumption of 154,000 USD be able to create? My hunch would be about 3, with another 2 public sector jobs created just to micromanage and regulate these 3 private sector jobs.
Perhaps I missed it somewhere in the info presented, but I did not see anything related to a rpm maximum. I calculate that at 40 rpm these blade tips are at mach 1. Airplane propeller design experience shows that blades become very unstable at speeds in excess of 0.88 mach. So my question is “at what rpm (and related wind speed) is the rated power being developed?” I am aware that the manufacturers have cutoffs to prevent high blade revs.
DirkH says:
April 2, 2011 at 8:01 am
“How many jobs in the private sector would a consumption of 154,000 USD be able to create? My hunch would be about 3, with another 2 public sector jobs created just to micromanage and regulate these 3 private sector jobs.”
This estimate is based on the assumption that GDP per capita in the UK should be about 35,000 USD per year; a private sector job should cost about 50,000 USD a year including taxes, and the tax share contained therein pay for the 2 public master/servant jobs.
How much will one cost . . . . any estimates . . . cost to maintain . . . cost to connect to grid . . . time to make a return of investment . . . et cetera . .et cetera . .et cetera . .
I don’t see the power lines sending the power to shore. Are they underwater or will they be on pontoon-based towers?
I’m still puzzled by why the wind turbine folks insist on using gearing. If it’s only for feathering the blades, then it would seem that another design would be better, and there are numerous alternatives. As far as the generator goes, electronic commutation is far easier to do and wouldn’t require much other than more poles on the rotor. But if it’s just about showy, marginally useful stuff, then they seem to have it well in hand.
“In the UK alone, Vestas employs more than 550 people.”
I’m glad to see the revolution in green jobs is working out.
What about Icing? that huge blade dynamic just screams “RIME ICE” Icing is the enemy of all lifting surfaces, unless there is no icing due to the anticipated AGW…