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”.
Walt man,
“Wind turbines do not suddenly remove GW of capacity from the grid – wind does not suddenly stop over vast areas.”
Of course it does. This is exactly what happens within a blocking high, and did indeed happen over the British Isles last December, with no wind to be had over a radius of hundreds of miles. The UK wind energy production was near zero then. In the event of ever achieving 20% wind power penetration, there would need to be spinning backup to fill these gaps.
But it gets worse. Even when the wind is blowing, the power output over a single wind farm varies minute by minute leading to fluctuations on the grid. The larger the wind farm and the more power being generated, the greater the impact of these fluctuations. This is not a good thing.
Walt man,
“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.”
Unfortunately, this is enviro spin. Any jobs created are at the expense of more jobs lost in the private sector, as was shown in the University of Madrid study (2.2 jobs lost per ‘green’ job created).
There is nothing difficult to understand about this. If you increase the cost of producting something, it must take resources from the rest of the economy to produce it, hence reducing wealth. You can certainly create jobs, but there is always a hidden cost to society. Jobs that require subsidy means taking money from the wealth creating sector leaving less available for investment and less for people to spend on goods and services that they value. The net result is that society as a whole has less wealth which would manifest itself in people enjoying less disposable income and less purchasing power.
Don Quixote comes to mind, I am not sure why.
Maybe it is the renewable energy part about a wind turbine that is manufactured, maintained and supported with conventional energy? And more important, will these machines drive the local population nuts and run off the tourist trade?
Worse yet politicians in the US are committed to wind farms, away from where they live and work of course, in low population areas that have less political power. And the regulations to conserve the energy the turbines don’t produce will precede the bad service. Actually the worse is the reason is based on a fraud.
If these farms are near shipping lanes a headline could read ship sank by windmill, sailors rescued from water littered with dead birds.
According to this the cost of one green job is 3.7 jobs in the private sector – so think how many MORE people will be having to claim benefits!!!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-12597097
@ur momisugly Olen
People and politicians in the US are committed inexpensive reliable sources of energy . . . . period . . .
This looks to be useful report on accident and reliability data. A quick skim has revealed that unreliability with a failure rate greater than one per turbine per year was common and higher for larger turbines. (Durham Uni. rpt page 60, study from 1993 to 2004)
http://www.boemre.gov/tarprojects/633/633ab_DamageandCriticalAnalysisofAccidents.pdf
Who do I sue when I can’t stop laughing after they strike oil, driving the pilings for that sucker?
In my (limited) experience, the people designing the turbines have little idea of the forces involved; especially the dynamics of the structure when they are operating. Yet they keep on scaling up the size, apparently ignorant of the assumptions which they can get away with on smaller stuctures.
Figuring out how they are to be erected in the real world is seldom of any concern. Maintenance? For a 7MW unit more than 100 metres above sea level? Doesn’t bear thinking about for about 8 months of the year.
The first 7MW (nameplate) will likely cost as much as a 1GW nuclear power station to build.
David L says, April 2, 2011 at 2:31 am:
Where have I heard “it’s too big to fail” before?
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This is how I read it: “it’s too big to fall” …
Kum Dollison says:
April 1, 2011 at 9:44 pm
Kum, you must not live in California. The largest chunk of its energy (http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/electricity/total_system_power.html) comes from nat gas (47%) and only 12% of nat gas comes from in state. The balance is imported from Southwest(41%), the Rocky States(25%), and Canada(22%). The renewables you cite wind and solar is quite small. In fact, Wind and Solar count for less than 3% of power, with GeoThermal(60%) and Biomas(35%) and to a lesser extend small hydro plants (5%) accounting for the balance of 97%. California’s problem is that we will hit over 50% of our energy from out of state this year and this is likely all natural gas. When the shortages hit, California will be a basket case because they have not built a new power generating plant in some decades. Wind and solar will not help us when they have to shutter the factories and turn off you ovens.
Hmmm . . . not my neck of the woods. . .
Connecticut Siting Council’s chairman, facing accusations of improper communication, resigned from his seat just one day after public hearings on the proposed Colebrook wind turbines concluded.
http://www.housatonictimes.com/articles/2011/04/01/news/regional/doc4d9643e5f298e676927966.txt?viewmode=default
This is supposed to be put in the North Sea? Let’s wait and see if there are any freak waves coming.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_wave
Can these bird killers withstand something like the Draupner wave?
This is really a great idea. We can not get small to large wind turbines to work correctly so let us build a huge one.
hstad says:
April 2, 2011 at 11:47 am
I looked up the URL you identified, http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/electricity/total_system_power.html
The table shown there seems to identify installed generating capacity. Actual figures for power generated would be substantially lower and vary by the minute, hour, day. week, month and year.
The variations are not that large for conventional sources of power generation but can be as low as Zero percent (very often) to as high as 100 percent (rarely) of installed wind generation capacity. Keep in mind that wind turbines will not generate power when the wind speed is too ow or too high. Seeing that wind turbines turn is not proof that they are generating power.
Average power generation per year from wind turbines is generally estimated to be about 28 percent of generating capacity (depending on location, give or take a little), but measured power generation delivered into the grid per year is in reality lower than that figure.
So they have installed 1400MW of wind generators – considering they run at 25% efficiency the have produced 350MW of power. That is half the output of a modern coal burning power station.
What a waste of time and money.
Stephen Brown says:
April 2, 2011 at 1:01 am
Back in August 2005 Vestas established a turbine blade factory at Portland, Victoria, Australia. The media release by minister responsible in the Victorian, Labor Government at the time trumpeted:
In August, 2007 Vestas announced the closure of it’s Portland turbine blade factory with the loss of 130 jobs.
The sad fact is that the only “green jobs” likely to eventuate, despite the spin of our Labor/Green politicians, will come from re-employing all the displaced manufacturing workers as unproductive green bureaucrats. These jobs will include the likes of green police to look over your shoulder and fine you if you don’t put your recyclables into the correct bin of the nine provided, who see that you fill in the appropriate forms in triplicate when you come to dispose of your used compact fluorescent light bulbs or who fine you if you exceed your electric power ration for the month.
Hi Rational Debate,
I won’t presume to know how these snake-oil salesmen propose to erect their uber-turbine, but when Statoil erected the Hywind floating turbine, it was erected while the hull was floating upright in a fjord in Stavanger. The lifting was accomplished using the same type of crane barges used to erect oil/gas production platforms at sea.
Statoil is currently in the process of erecting the Sheringham Shoal offshore wind park off the Norfolk coastwhich will involve the same construction methods as employed for decades in the offshore oil and gas industry (which is precisely one sales pitch Statoil uses to demonstrat their credibility in offshore wind).
http://www.statoil.com/en/TechnologyInnovation/NewEnergy/RenewablePowerProduction/Offshore/Hywind/Pages/HywindPuttingWindPowerToTheTest.aspx
This 7MW(P) fan might be a large wind turbine, but it won’t be too taxing for anyone used to lifting the topsides of platforms into place of a prepositioned steel jacket or concrete tower.
From a purely technical point of view, this 7MW(P) uber-fan idea should be a non-starter since by employing a fixed tower it is limited to coastal waters – surely such a monstrous turbine is better placed on a floating/semi-submersible spar and moored in deep water at the edge of a continental shelf, where winds are more predictable (and typically stronger), where there are no nimbys complaining about the spoiled view and also removing the need to trouble structural engineers with designing a bolted mating surface between the legs which are pile driven into the seabed and the tower which has to withstand the bending moment of such a large impellor (which if I recall correctly is practically considered to be a disc when calculating the drag it indices).
All things considered, the best use of the sea in generating energy has to be tidal, which is at least predictable.
Hi W S Briggs, et al,
The sensible money is on Hydraulic transmission, which also allows the alternator to be mounted at the base of the tower, as a result the nacelle is considerable lighter than the typical configuration today which has a mechanical gearbox plus an alternator sitting in the nacelle.
A lighter nacelle needs a lighter tower and also expedites maintenance since the ‘works’ are accessible by opening a door at ground (or in this case water) level.
http://www.chapdrive.com/technology/
This sort of technology could also allow the alternator to be coupled to a hydraulic wave generator like this:
http://www.pelamiswave.com/our-technology/pelamis-wec; and et voila, two sets of bogus carbon credits to supplement the subsidy income for one’s shareholders.
None of which makes wind energy any more sensible for base load contribution, but it might lead to an improvement in capital cost per turbine and the HSE performance of wind which is currently piss poor.
One thing is for sure, with wave energy, you get two cycles of predictable and renewal energy each day, whereas with wind you can go for days with hardly anything at all, and wave generators are not so intrusive or real estate hogging as a whirling windmill in a gale.
i think that the hydraulic system is not good in this application. its the dirty little details that get you in this stuff and in hydraulics is the inevitable leaks. for those of you that want to whine about modern sealing technology look at the machine tool industry. they went to electrical systems for every thing when the hazardous waste regulations went into effect specifically for this reason.
another thing.
the costs of building the foundation for these things is one of those pay me now or pay me later things. seawater acts as a middling acid. so if you build the foundation/underwater component on land out of the structural steels currently in favor then you will have to do considerable underwater work in corrosion repair out in the water. (don’t pay any attention to the anticorrosion coatings people as their stuff doesn’t work and they are only fly by night salesmen.)
i have heard no discussion of the term “wind pressure” when the advocates tell us that the structure is sufficient to withstand storm damage. as a matter of fact in this discussion i have not seen any reference to sea states and wind velocities in the terms that the professionals in that world use which makes me wonder about the professional background/abilities of the advocates.
the fellow that mentioned the business of the mach number at the tips of the blades being held below .88 mach 1 has a very important point. the steam turbine people discovered this in the 1930’s and by observing it the incidence of turbines bursting dropped off tremendously. another matter in this world is that the tips of the blades are not confined/supported. high aspect blades like this (another conspicously missing term from these discussions) may need a much higher safety factor (another conspicously missing term from these discussions) than expected. for those that watch the videos the tip off would be the windmills that the blades fall apart at the start of the catastrophic failure (another conspicously missing term from these discussions).
of course there is the advantage (for the public relations types) that when one of these fails it will probably sink beneath the surface of the water and there won’t be any embarrssing wreckage pictures for the press to shout about.
remember, these things are only built to last until the check clears the bank.
Erik Anderson says:
April 1, 2011 at 8:15 pm
It’s not an entirely bad idea really. Humid wind carries more momentum than desert wind.
Not so, as long as the vapor doesn’t condense. Whereas H2O vapor is lighter than N2 or O2, so is humid air. But I love the big windmills, profitable or not. I love watching them crash too.
for the rabid slathering advocates of wind power:
why are there no sailing ships in SERIOUS commercial use these days????
“””””Kum Dollison says:
April 1, 2011 at 9:44 pm
Iowa, Mn, the Dakotas seem to be tickled to death with their considerable wind generation. California is now getting 19% of its electricity from non-hydro, non-nuclear renewables (the lowest cost utility in LA is also the one that utilizes the most renewables. “””””
And the Total population of Iowa and the Dakotas is ???
Wonderful endorsement ! ; one of my central vballey farmer friends, just loves the wind turbine that he has on his property. That thing has been pumping water for him for free for the last 35 years, and he doesn’t
even know how long it has operated since his grandfather first built it.
This whole wind power project is a disaster waiting to happen.
Gees, They are after the albatroses now !
The bats and smaller land bird obviously aren’t big enough,
they want MORE !!!
In response to an article in the UK Sunday Times on 27th March, I wrote a letter which got published in the Business section yesterday (3rd April) on this subject (a shortened version, anyway). My main point was that wind is erratic, unreliable, and unpredictable; always was, and always will be.
The reporter had obviously been fed the standard guff about all the ‘advantages’ and the number of homes these huge turbines ‘could’ power – but as I pointed out, wind turbines are a complete nonsense economically without government subsidies (i.e. our money) and Renewable Obligation Certificates (i.e. our money).
As pointed out by others, maintenance is going to be a massive problem – oil rigs in the North Sea do at least have maintenance personnel permanently stationed on them – how long would it take to repair (say) the gearbox on one of these monsters..? Three months..? A year..? Two years..??
I also pointed out that, as I was writing, contribution to electricity demand from wind in the UK was the same as before Christmas 2010 – 0.1%.