By Roger Harrabin BBC environment analyst, Norway
- 23 July 2017
The world’s first full-scale floating wind farm has started to take shape off the north-east coast of Scotland.
The revolutionary technology will allow wind power to be harvested in waters too deep for the current conventional bottom-standing turbines.
The Peterhead wind farm, known as Hywind, is a trial which will bring power to 20,000 homes.
Manufacturer Statoil says output from the turbines is expected to equal or surpass generation from current ones.
It hopes to cash in on a boom in the technology, especially in Japan and the west coast of the US, where waters are deep.
“This is a tech development project to ensure it’s working in open sea conditions. It’s a game-changer for floating wind power and we are sure it will help bring costs down,” said Leif Delp, project director for Hywind.
So far, one giant turbine has already been moved into place, while four more wait in readiness in a Norwegian fjord.
By the end of the month they’ll all have been towed to 15 miles (25km) off Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, where they’ll float upright like giant fishing floats.
While the turbines are currently very expensive to make, Statoil believes that in the future it will be able to dramatically reduce costs in the same way that manufacturers already have for conventional offshore turbines.
“I think eventually we will see floating wind farms compete without subsidy – but to do that we need to get building at scale,” said Mr Delp.
How big? The jaw-dropping dimensions of the technology used:
- The tower, including the blades, stretches to 175m (575ft), dwarfing Big Ben
- Each tower weighs 11,500 tonnes
- The box behind the blades – the nacelle – could hold two double-decker buses
- Each blade is 75m – almost the wing span of an Airbus
- The turbines can operate in water up to a kilometre deep
- The blades on the towers have been a particular focus for innovation.
- Statoil says the blades harness breakthrough software – which holds the tower upright by twisting the blades to dampen motions from wind, waves and currents.
The operation to begin shifting the first of the 11,500 tonne giants happened dramatically in the half-light of a Norwegian summer night.
Crews secured thick cables to tug boats and used remote-controlled submarines to check for obstacles.
Finally the giant was on the move, floating on a sealed vase-like tube 78m deep, its bottom filled with iron ore to weight the base and keep it upright in the water.
The price of energy from bottom-standing offshore wind farms has plummeted 32% since 2012 – far faster that anyone predicted.
The price is now four years ahead of the government’s expected target, and another big price drop is expected, taking offshore wind to a much lower price than new nuclear power.
HT/Auto
That’s taller than the Washington Monument. Hate to be in it’s path when it breaks loose. Just have a bad (common sense) feeling about this…
Goodness, what will they think of next?
“A generous subsidy deal from the Scottish government made the project viable.
Technically, everything is possible. It’s just the price tag that comes with it.”
So Statoil isn’t necessarily building these floating bird choppers because they think they’re viable. But why not do some virtue signalling and get the free publicity that comes with it if you can use the Scottish government’s money?
The Scottish Government is made up of raving loonies of a socialist/green persuasion. They love to spend (waste) other people’s money.
Exactly. The offshore engineering is feasible and Statoil are very good at it. The question is – is it even a sensible thing to do in the first place. The Norwegians certainly seem to think so and are ploughing billions into the same technology off their own shores – and that’s in a country which has no shortage of hydro.
Norwegian subsidies are not high enough to justify similar projects here in Norway, hence the move to the UK. There the British pensioners and others in energy poverty can pay the price required to finance the subsidies such that any profits end up in Norwegian state owned companies!
The Scottish gonv’t plans to provide 100% renewables to it’s citizens, and sell the excess. Looks like they will be paying for this boondoggle for decades. Funny that StatOIL is building these, with substantial subsidy, from govn’t. Well, whodathunk that?
Nothing special that an oil company also has renwable energy projects, Royal Dutch Shell invests a lot in wind power.
I didn’t say it was special, I said it was funny. Oil companies spending other people’s money in THEIR countries is special tho. Was any of that development/construction conducted in Scotland? No way! Statoil seeking a source of income not derived from oil, but taxpayers, in another country. It means the OIL company does not have to explore, dig, drill or extract ANYTHING, but other people’s money.
They may be onto something Patrick:
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/07/24/record-june-wind-yields-record-six-months-scotland-wind-energy/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-40149604
and their tidal flow turbines aren’t even getting to full capacity yet…
Plus a new HVDC line to allow export of more power opens this year (google Western link)
Your source is cleantechnica.com. They tend to rate very high a company which goes bankrupt in two months.
You guys are crazy. This thing will just bob up and down with the .25 -.50 meter waves the north sea is known for. There is no chance the wind we’ll cause the blades to strike the tower or rouge waves will cause the tower to over turn. The north sea is known to be as calm as a bath tub.
/sarc
Which is why this concept has been tested IN the North Sea for years.
Presumably the rouge waves are because of all the minced birds?
/pedantry
charles the moderator:
The large offshore bird swatter is reaching the limit imposed by the ‘law of diminishing returns’ because as the rotor diameter increases the time the rotor can operate reduces. I explain this as follows.
Wind powered subsidy farms only operate when the wind is strong enough but not too strong. The upper wind speed results from two effects; viz.
1. The tip speed of a bird swatter’s blades must not reach sonic speed.
and
2. The power in wind is proportional to the cube of the wind speed.
A bird swatter’s blade(s) is(are) destroyed if its(their) tips reach sonic speed. And the speed of sound at sea level is typically 340.3 m/s (ref. http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/elevation-speed-sound-air-d_1534.html ).
You report that the blade length (i.e. rotor radius) of the floating bird swatter is 75 m. Therefore, the circumference traveled by a blade tip for each rotation is (2*pi*radius) i.e. 471.24 m.
So, the rotor would self destruct if it reached a speed of (471.24/340.3) = 1.4 rotations/s.
But wind is rarely constant; it has gusts. And the power of the wind varies as the cube of the wind speed. Therefore, the blades must be feathered to keep the blade rotation speed well below its upper limit (i.e. 1.4 rotations/s in this case).
As the rotor diameter increases the time the rotor can operate reduces.
Richard
1. I did not write the article. You talkin to me? I don’t see anyone else here. You talking to me?
2. They say dey got compooters that are really smart and keep da blades spinny spinny good good.
charles he moderator:
I addressed my comment on the head post to the stated provider of the head post; i.e. you.
Your head post is a long quotation from Roger Harrabin (who has often demonstrated his IQ is less than his shoe size). So what? He did not provide the head post.
Richard
richardscourtney July 29, 2017 at 3:49 pm
Richard, I fear you misunderstand Charles’s position in all of this. He is providing interesting articles for us to ponder and discuss.
He is NOT approving of the articles, nor is he endorsing them. He is NOT saying he agrees with them. He is NOT saying that they are believable or correct. He’s just giving them to us consider, contemplate, and comment.
As a result, it is useless to direct your questions at Charles. He’s just the guy stapling the rock band flyers to the telephone pole … he’s not one of the band members.
Best regards, and my thanks to Charles for the excellent job he’s doing of keeping the discussion moving.
w.
Richard: your numerator and denominator are switched.
Stevw Feaser:
Yes, my bad. Thankyou for pointing it out. Correcting my error makes my point worse stronger..
Richard
How long will it take to produce as much energy as was consumed in building the thing?
About that 11,500 ton “per tower” weight…. Does that include the below-waterline mass?
And how does 11,500 ton compare to other facilities? Thunderhorse is one of the larget offshore floating drilling and production platform in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s fact sheet says it displaces 130,000 tons, has a 25 year design life. But, Thunderhorse produces 250,000 barrels of oil PER DAY!! At 1.7 MWhr/bbl, that is 425,000 MWhr/day or an average of 17,000 MW of near continuous power. Not 17 MW — 17,000 MW.
BTW.. what IS the nameplate power capacity of each tower? I didn’t see it. 20 MW is probably generous.
http://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp-country/en_us/PDF/Thunder_Horse_Fact_Sheet_6_14_2013.pdf
Windfarms, on or offshore, produce far more energy than their lifetime cost (build, transport, install, deconstruct)
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/feb/29/turbines-energy
In your “…lifetime cost (build, transport, install, deconstruct)…” I don’t see the REQUIRED backup, neither capital construction cost nor operating cost to keep it spinning so it’s ready, for when the wind don’t blow. Try again.
A rough calculation of land-based ‘bird swatters’ showed cost (cost is a good proxy for total energy) break-even in about 20 years.
5 mW wind turbine, avg output 1/3 nameplate, 20 yr life, electricity @ur momisugly wholesale 3 cents per kwh produces $8.8E6.
Installed cost @ur momisugly $1.7E6/mW = $8.5E6. Add the cost of standby CCGT for low wind periods. Add the cost of land lease, maintenance, administration.
I find it hard to believe, but maybe offshore wind energy return isn’t as bad as I thought.
“A Comparative Analysis of Energy Costs of Photovoltaic, Solar Thermal, and Wind Electricity Generation Technologies” by Michael Dale in Appl. Sci. 2013, 3, 325-337; doi:10.3390/app3020325 file: applsci-03-00325.pdf.
In this paper, he looks at the capital, operating and full life energy cost and return for Wind, Solar PV, and CSP (concentrated solar power). In comparison with the others, wind is far better than the others.
By this ratio: (kWhe/Wp), the P25-P75 estimates are: (by eyeball from the graph.)
Onshore Wind 0.25 – 0.75
Offshore Wind 0.5 – 1.5
PV All is 2.5 – 5.0.
CSP All is 1.5 – 2.5
A ratio of 1.0 means 1000 Whr energy went in to make 1 W nameplate.
First, let’s account for efficiency. Onshore 20%, Offshore 30%
Offshore of 1 is 3300 Whr per average 1 W produced. that means energy payback in 3300 hr. less than 1/2 a year.
It takes a lot of energy to mine and process 11,000 tons of cement and steel. assume it is a 20 MW nameplate (I’m still guessing — I haven’t seen the nameplate for this tower). Can you build that tower for 20,000 MWhr, or 0.5 MWh per ton? It doesn’t pass my smell test.
Maybe where I’m going wrong is neglecting that much of that 11,000 ton displacement is cheap iron-ore/slag ballast. But there still has to be a lot of energy-expensive steel in that ship.
A bit of research shows that the author is badly misrepresenting things. This is NOT the first floating wind farm. The Japanese started work in this area way back in 2011 with a floating wind farm off of Fukushima.
And back in 2015 they did this:
What is it about renewable energy that promoters always have to make fake claims about their supposed virtues?
w.
PS—I just noticed that the head post was by Roger Harrabin … so none of the misrepresentations are any surprise. Exaggeration, concealment, alarm, and puff pieces about renewables are his stock in trade. Of course … he’s with the BBC …
“This is NOT the first floating wind farm.”
But the Japanese apparently (per the clip) installed only a single turbine, not a farm of them, so that’s Harrabin’s “out.”
[withstand tsunamis].
Err, another misleading claim. Even a rowing boat can withstand a tsunami, as the wave height of a large tsunami is only a foot or two, when in deep water.
R
You are wrong, se my post uptread, Statoil had it’s first floating mill back in 2009.
“The world’s first operational deep-water floating large-capacity wind turbine is the Hywind, in the North Sea off Norway.[11][16] The Hywind was towed out to sea in early June 2009.[17] The 2.3-megawatt turbine was constructed by Siemens Wind Power and mounted on a floating tower with a 100-metre deep draft. The float tower was constructed by Technip. Statoil says that floating wind turbines are still immature and commercialization is distant.[18][19]”
Clearly, since then Statoil has found this technology viable, albeit with large subsidies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_wind_turbine
interesting concept…provide backup power to the nuclear power station when you have a tsunami that wipes out your diesel generators and thereby not losing cooling water for the reactors and spent fuel…might come in handy sometime…
Interesting analysis of various kinds of floating wind turbines here
w.
In just skimming, I came across the words “…ideal…when backed by federal and local…incentives…” Ain’t that always the case. I don’t see any mention of the REQUIRED backup (usually fossil fuel fired) that must be built and kept spinning for when the wind don’t blow, or blows too fast (as South Australia found out). The report’s shining example where “…the wind resource available…is…abundant…” is Massachusetts, a location that has already been placed virtually off-limits by NIMBYism. So I’m still not real optimistic to see wind power take off any time soon. This article, and the report you linked to (Willis, I generally like the way you think, but is this link only to the headline, you haven’t read the report all the way through?), both appear to be nothing more than virtue-signalling press releases of projects that wouldn’t exist without OPM.
nice article
I wonder how that bird swatter in Japan is going ?
I seen this story last week and can’t wait for the storm season .
OT but the other Govt funded green leaning TV station in OZ , SBS is having special on California’s water problems , you know the drought they’re in at the moment that nearly collapsed a dam and caused all those dry floods a few months ago .
I’ve seen the shorts for this propaganda drivel and my how dry and empty everything is .
“breakthrough software – which holds the tower upright by twisting the blades”
So in other words, any software error, bug or hack can take the tower(s) down in no time? That doesn’t sound very sustainable to me. Just the presence of vulnerable computer hardware at the core to keep the whole park upright sounds daft on larger scales.
Some calculate how much energy the construction itself costs? And how long it takes to recover that energy from its operation?
The massive & outrageous amount of stupidity that went into this fraudulent scam is breath taking.
I’m still chortling at the idea that Harrabin is capable of being an analyst.
It’s a spelling mistake, there should be a ‘c’ after the ‘l’.
Took me a long time to work that one out…..
Might need a “-” also.
A 575ft windmill, with three rotating blades like in an old-fashioned aeroplane, attached to over 15+ miles of copper cable, produces electricity off-shore? Let’s hope the software preventing it from toppling is based on something else than the climate models.
Statoil? I’ve been waiting for the check from the Big Oil over a decade in vain – only to discover their right hand in my wallet at the till and the left hand in the shared cookie jar.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-40686984
And David Shukman has been in Greenland to warn us about sea level rise.
The video
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-40712926/world-s-first-floating-offshore-wind-farm-in-scotland
Nothing is unsinkable.
I’ve seen this episode on the Simpsons: MONORAIL, MONORAIL.
Except actually, they haven’t.
Never mind. The great advantage of floating windmills, is that they can sink.
Leo, You are bad to the bone…
Plated Energy Rating for supplying 20,000 homes, (using the MSM Scientific values), but in practice what, 5,000-10,000 homes of average power, but supplied interminttently?
Where did that article go, I think it was on WUWT in the last few weeks, talking about actual utility of any production plant? Meaning, when this plant is built, how much existing production can be retired and/or planned production that won’t have to be built. The number that stuck in my head, for a wind energy plant, the actual utility is only 3.5% of its nameplate rating. That’s all. So for the sake of argument, let’s assume this tower does have a nameplate rating of 20 MW, as indicated in other comments. Scotland can now (assuming this tower can get connected and commissioned and actually go on-line and produce energy) retire a coal or natural gas fired plant of 0.7 MW. Tell me again how Scotland will get to 100% renewable energy production?
If a drama happens in Norwegian twilight, but there is no audience to see it, is it really a drama? Or just marketing?
At a cost of $260 million US, they could have built a 300 MW natural gas plant instead (with 98% reliability versus wind at 20%)
The tugboat in the article picture might be giving the wrong impression. These floating turbines are not much different than the standard ones and they are certainly not sitting on a ship platform. There is a tug platform tugging it out to sea but it is not a permament part of the turbine.
Pics of floating turbines versus the standard ones. They are just anchored differently. Floating first.
Standard.
Offshore wind can manage >40% capacity factor. So, it’s not as totally stupid as it would be at 20-30%… 😉
Germany is third in the world in wind farms, their capacity factor is about 17% for land based wind and for sea based wind is about 20% averaged for 2009-2015 (varying from 14% to 35% during that period). Both wind and solar have an intermittent nature that requires continual traditional backup.
Norman, wind and solar output is now reliable predictable in advance, so back up is now started stopped as the solar/wind output rises and falls as predicted.
Grid scale batteries replace spinning reserve and frequency response.
The ‘back up’ is not continual.
https://www.statoil.com/en/news/hywindscotland.html
2 billion NOK = $253 million USD. $8.4 million/MW… about 10 times the cost of a natural gas power plant. About the same cost as a nuclear power plant, which would deliver twice as much electricity per MW.
Throw in the expected life time of the nuclear power plant as twice that of the wind turbine and the cost doubles