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”.
And now for the $64 question: What is the projected Energy Returned On Energy Invested (EROEI) for this project? Don’t hang by your thumbs waiting for Vestas to give you an answer. They either don’t have one, or – more likely – it is one they do not want you to know.
Let me assist in this endeavor. The answer is about 0.29! It will take more than 3 times the energy to design, fabricate, erect, operate, maintain and decommision this project than the energy it will ever produce.
http://www.windpowerfraud.com
Eric (skeptic) says:
April 2, 2011 at 6:34 am
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.
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But Eric, you are speaking as if they could store all of that night-time generation power and then use it during the hot summer days at peak loads. That is why they will at best lower the base load, but never lower it very close to zero during minimum pulls, most large-scale plants just can’t turn on and off like that. It just won’t happen. They are expensive suckers unless power storage, as pumping water back into hydro-generation lakes is factored in, and that can only happen but in a very few special case. My statement still holds.
Why store it?….surely somewhere around the World there is someone wanting to plug in to get his toast cooked or TV show on the go, so the answer is an International grid that allocates the generated power available to the first in last out mob, or at very worst, to those prepared to pay any price when the only means of energy production is what Nature provided.
Having lived in a time in the UK when the coal miners strike brought a government to it’s knees, it made alternative means a reality when the rolling power cuts just turned off the electricity…. period…..for 8 to 10 hours at a time.
We made do with anything that you could use, and the easiest method was a 12 volt car battery or 2, charged up in the on period and hooked up to a couple of 12 volt globes for the evening meal by fairy lights….very romantic…..another baby boomer epic in the making….LOL.
Anyway, the thread is about the feasibility of the 7 MW monster in the sea, and even if’n it gets mounted on it’s platform and does perform as planned, the ramifications of Murph’s law is a factor that cannot be ignored….If it can happen it most definately will happen.
Supposing this particular mill, the 7MW one, not any common or garden land type, were to be mounted on a disused oil drilling platform…….oil is going out……wind is coming in…….new life for old platforms etc……and most of them are standing the test of time, apart from the few that because of the volatile substance they drill for, went up in smoke big time.
There’s plenty of area on a platform for storing maintenance equipment and a crew too, and the platform does not have to be too fussy in it’s tethering spot, +- a hundred metres is good enough, unlike a drill rig that must maintain precise position over the well head.
The plus is also, that if the location proves to be a bit less windy than anticipated the platform can be relocated without having to rip up the foundations.
It was quite an awesome sight to see one of those platforms being towed into position upside down, and then turned over 180 degrees to stand upright above the sea on it’s legs which were deep in the water.
With the fall off of oil or demotion, whichever, there will be lots of iron real estate going for scrap prices around the world, and those that buy them up will make a killing.
Ian.
handlewanker:
i would speculate that old oil platforms will be precisely at the point where they would need massive welding underwater to keep them from falling over. the oil patch gang are pretty good at running out equipments string just as the hole runs dry.
c
Assuming of course that someone has predicted the life expectancy of an oil field and made a platform that expires as the last drop of oil is pumped and then just let it sink into the abyss to rust away quietly and dissapear for all time, disposal problem solved, but it doesn’t happen that way.
Granted that some parts deteriorate faster than others, probably the more exposed undersea parts which eventually make it dead in the water, but that would apply to any new structure as well, so ongoing maintenance on a structure already in place would be feasible provided there was enough design to allow replacement of vital partys as the break.
As the said windmill is going to be the prime electricity producer for the future, so say, then longevity is the first criterior for any design, the method is already decided.
Ian.
[Note: Change your screen name. ~dbs, mod.]
Wind turbines on average take 6 months to produce the energy it takes to MAKE them. If that were not true, it would not make sense to make them!
You obviously have no true understanding on the subject you are talking about, and to use this site to advertise your ‘book’ is a sham in itself. Even calling yourself a Professional Engineer with only a BS is laughable.
I am neutral in the wind debate, and know for a FACT that your stats and figures are wrong. Quit feeding lies.
REPLY: That [screen name deleted] was childish. You are entitled to your opinion, but not other’s screen names in a derogatory way, especially when hiding behind a moniker. I’ll give you one chance to come up with a screen name that doesn’t insult the other poster, or its the permanent bit bucket for you – Anthony