The 30MW Hywind Scotland, the world’s first commercial-scale floating wind farm, performed better than expected in its first three full months in production, Statoil, the operator of the wind farm said.
Despite one hurricane, one winter storm and wave heights of up to 8,2 meters, Hywind Scotland, the world’s first floating wind farm, performed better than expected in its first 3 full months in production.
The 30MW wind farm, operated by Statoil in partnership with Masdar, is located 25 kilometers offshore Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and is powering approximately 20,000 UK households.
During the winter, when the wind is at its strongest, the typical capacity factor for an bottom fixed offshore wind farm is 45-60%. By comparison, Hywind Scotland achieved an average of approximately 65% during November, December and January, i.e that the wind farm was producing 65% of max theoretical capacity.
A capacity factor of 100 % means all wind turbines have generated at maximum output every second of the day.
“We have tested the Hywind technology in harsh weather conditions for many years and we know it works. But putting the world’s first floating wind farm into production comes with some excitement. Therefore, it is very encouraging to see how well the turbines have performed so far. Hywind Scotland’s high availability has ensured that the volume of electricity generated is substantially higher than expected. In addition, it has delivered without any HSE incidents,” says Beate Myking, senior vice president of offshore wind operations in Statoil.
Hywind Scotland’s first encounter with harsh weather conditions was the hurricane Ophelia in October when wind speed of 125 kilometers per hour (80mph) were recorded. These wind speeds were surpassed during Storm Caroline in early December when gusts in excess of 160 km/h (100 mph) and waves in excess of 8,2 meters were recorded.
Looking for new opportunities
“Knowing that up to 80% of the offshore wind resources globally are in deep waters (+60 meters) where traditional bottom fixed installations are not suitable, we see great potential for floating offshore wind, in Asia, on the west coast of North America and in Europe. We are actively looking for new opportunities for the Hywind technology,” says Irene Rummelhoff, executive vice president for New Energy Solutions in Statoil.
Statoil and Masdar are having an ambition to reduce the costs of energy from the Hywind floating wind farm to 40-60 €/MWh by 2030, making it cost competitive with other renewable energy sources.
“This is an ambitious, but realistic target. Optimised design, larger and more efficient turbines, technology development and larger wind parks will drive down costs, improve infrastructure and logistics,” Rummelhoff says.
Source: Statoil Press Release h/t to Roger Sowell
Wind power engineering seems to be getting better. The key metric of success will be how well it holds up over the long-term to payback the costs of engineering, installation, and operation.
The first Tay River Rail Bridge at Dundee lasted for eight years before it collapsed in a 10-11 Beaufort Scale Tempest. It is early days yet for these floating gizmos.
How is the local seabird population doing?
Outperforms on how long it will remain in service until salt corrosion forces its retirement?
No worries. All the structure is gold-plated.
No problem with this tech. Let it ‘float’ free and if it competes then that’s great. No way I want my taxes going into it though. If Statoil think it’s a winner then let them and the Norwegian government fund it and good luck to them.
So far. But 3 months? The North Atlantic is patient. It’s thinking up something to throw a monkey wrench into the works. Remember the world’s first unsinkable ship? Maybe a plus is seabirds dont spend much time that far offshore, although that never is a consideration anyway.
How many units were lost or required major repair during that period?
nattering nabobs of negativism
graney grumblings of gullibility
Thomas, do you understand energy density? The rough rule-of-thumb is nuclear is 1000 X more energy dense than fossil-fuels, and fossil-fuels are 1000 X more energy dense than wind, solar, etc. Now do you understand why windmills were quickly abandoned after fossil fuels were developed? To engineers, these whirligigs are like going from modern automobiles back to horse & buggies.
Pointing out that unicorns aren’t an option, is just being negative?
The article reads [excerpt]:
“During the winter, when the wind is at its strongest, the typical capacity factor for an bottom fixed offshore wind farm is 45-60%. By comparison, Hywind Scotland achieved an average of approximately 65% during November, December and January, i.e. that the wind farm was producing 65% of max theoretical capacity.
A capacity factor of 100 % means all wind turbines have generated at maximum output every second of the day.”
The is no reason I can see that this floating installation should have a much higher capacity factor than a bottom-fixed offshore structure – maybe there is a bit more wind because it is further offshore, BUT note that these are only numbers for November to January inclusive – what about the total year?
Besides, the Capacity Factor does not recognize the huge disadvantage of wind power – that it is non-dispatchable and essentially worthless when it is not in demand. I made a crude analysis of German wind power here on wattsup recently, and concluded that in Germany non-dispatchable wind power is worth about 5% of dispatchable power. It only looks as good as they claim because all the costs of conventional power backup, etc. are NOT included. Let’s give this project “the benefit of the doubt” and assume its power is worth a full 10% of conventional dispatchable power.
Comparing a three month period against an estimate for the entire year is a bit deceptive.
I haven’t looked up average wind for that area vs month of the year.
Lots of negative comments, but these guys are good engineers not a bunch of university leftists. Their plan seem solid, though ambitious. I believe they will be able to get good efficiency out of it at a reasonable price – probably lower than any previous offshore wind farm.
The really good point is that it doesn’t take up useful land and will have a significantly lower bad impact on the environment than land-based wind farms (not sure about the effect on birds, though – may depend on migratory patterns.
The issue is that it isn’t the engineers’ job or the business’ job to get the power to the final user at a reasonable rate at all times. Back up power or storage isn’t in the engineers’ job descriptions and making money, including all subsidies and not worrying about externalities, is the business’ job description.
Norm – you are missing the point. The engineers are certainly talented, but they are probably engaged in a fool’s errand. Non-dispatchable wind power is almost worthless when it comprises a large part of a conventional power grid, because it requires almost 100% conventional backup.
The fr@ud in wind power schemes is that warmist politicians insist that non-dispatchable wind power gets “first access” to the grid, and gets paid much more than the dispatchable power that remains in spinning reserve to back up the wind power. Only a warmist politician could insist on a scheme that is this ridiculous and fundamentally c0rrupt.
“Wind power – it doesn’t just blow, it sucks!”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/10/22/weekly-climate-and-energy-news-roundup-288/comment-page-1/#comment-2643835
[excerpt]
WHAT IS GRID-CONNECTED WIND POWER REALLY WORTH?
Wind power is intermittent and non-dispatchable and therefore should be valued much lower than the reliable, dispatchable power typically available from conventional electric power sources such as fossil fuels, hydro and nuclear.
In practice, one should assume the need for almost 100% conventional backup for wind power (in the absence of a hypothetical grid-scale “super-battery”, which does not exist in practical reality). When wind dies, typically on very hot or very cold days, the amount of wind power generated approaches zero.
Capacity Factor equals {total actual power output)/(total rated capacity assuming 100% utilization). The Capacity Factor of wind power in Germany equals about 28%*. However, Capacity Factor is not a true measure of actual usefulness of grid-connected wind power. The following paragraph explains why:
Current government regulations typically force wind power into the grid ahead of conventional power, and pay the wind power producer equal of greater sums for wind power versus conventional power, which artificially makes wind power appear more economic. This practice typically requires spinning backup of conventional power to be instantly available, since wind power fluctuates wildly, reportedly at the cube of the wind speed. The cost of this spinning backup is typically not deducted from the price paid to the wind power producer.
The true factor that reflects the intermittency of wind power Is the Substitution Capacity*, which is about 5% in Germany – a large grid with a large wind power component. Substitution Capacity is the amount of dispatchable (conventional) power you can permanently retire when you add more wind power to the grid. In Germany they have to add ~20 units of wind power to replace 1 unit of dispatchable power. This is extremely uneconomic.
I SUGGEST THAT THE SUBSTITUTION CAPACITY OF ~5% IS A REASONABLE FIRST APPROXIMATION FOR WHAT WIND POWER IS REALLY WORTH – that is 1/20th of the value of reliable, dispatchable power from conventional sources. Anything above that 5% requires spinning conventional backup, which makes the remaining wind power redundant and essentially worthless.
This is a before-coffee first-approximation of the subject. Improvements are welcomed, provided they are well-researched and logical.
Regards, Allan
* Reference:
“E.On Netz excellent Wind Report 2005” at
http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wp-content/uploads/eonwindreport2005.pdf
Rube Goldberg was also a good engineer who put a lot of thought into his designs.
Strawmen bashing? Then the “I want it to be true, therefore it is true” fallacy. And, of course, the “green jobs” fallacy.
Come on.
“get good efficiency” => never will happen, physically impossible
“it doesn’t take up useful land ” => but useful see space
“lower bad impact on the environment” => no windmills will have no impact
The society will be much better off without those obscenities.
Being cheaper than other offshore wind mills is a pretty low bar there buddy.
While it may not take up usable land, it just could be taken up usable ocean. We don’t know what other uses that patch of ocean could have been put to.
Floating offshore wind has to be preferable to fixed installations which create dangerous artificial reefs which will pose a serious hazard to shipping for centuries to come.
“They hear no sound, the swell is strong
Though the wind has fallen they drift along
Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock
Cried they, ‘It is the Inchcape Rock!’”
Was that sarcasm?
Even if the steel used for the foundation isn’t cleaned up, it will rust away in a few decades after maintenance is stopped.
The concrete portions are on the ocean floor and well below the keels of any ships that might pass by.
Artificial reefs are being created on purpose all over the world.
Sigh.
Ocean. Winds, waves, steel, electricity. It all sounds so unlikely to work as planned for other than a brief period of time.
Yep, the M word was not mentioned in costs…maintenance….
What about the D word – decommissioning? The Green lobby are always quick to raise it when nuclear is suggested but I would guess that the life of the average offshore wind turbine is less than that of a nuclear power station.
Since it’s floating, I would assume that decommissioning would be cheaper than fixed facilities.
Just cut the cables and tow it to shore.
this thing costed $9/W.
Interest for capital cost alone is $0.09/W/year per 1% interest rate. let’s use real low rate for this kind of project. $0.6/Wyear
If it require maintenance, same calculation: $0.09/W/year per 1% maintenance cost. Yet another $0.6/Wyear
It it doesn’t work forever, add amortization cost. $0.09/W/year for a century life. $0.03/W/year for 33 years
total cost per year: $1.5/W/year
100% nameplate production is at best 8.7 kWh a year. 65% is ~6kWh.
This thing produce electricity at ~$0.25/kWh.
Well, this would be easy to check, if they published their accounting. which then won’t of course.
This cost pounds 210 million for 20mw/hr. Thats 10,5 million per mw/hr. Cost of money at 4% is 53 pounds per mwhr but gas price is only 24 and gas plant only costs 20 million???????????????
Outperforms low expectations for a brief time! Big deal.
why do we not have wind powered ships? it has been tried many many times. it should be a natural.
yet in reality it is cheaper to burn oil than to harvest the wind. you only. need wind power on a boat if it is too small to carry the weight of fuel required to move from one port to the next.
because while the wind may be free the cost of harvesting the wind and turning it into useful, reliable energy is very high.
The sole source of this is a press release by Statoil, reported by Roger Sowell. It “is powering approximately 20,000 UK households”. I does not say “if the wind is not too weak or too strong”.
The claim of a 65% capacity factor does not appear credible. The number is likely sandbagged by lowering the supposed capacity. If I say my friendly neighborhood nuclear plant is good for fifty MWH per day, I can operate at a bazillion percent capacity factor.
The end of last year was good for windmills in Europe. The years before were bad – that’s all.
That led to the telling fact that German “Eco”-electricity producers got only € 200 million € for their ware last December, but € 2 300 million in subsidies – a relation of 1 : 11.5 .
In 2017 the wholesale price fluctuated between € 120 and € – 52, depending mainly on the availability of wind.
Paying others to take electricity off their grids for over 140 hours per year – Germans can be proud of themselves.
In 2016 Germany added 50 GW wind-capacity.
So how much more did they harvest than in 2015?
The answer is: Nothing, they actually got a little less; the wind didn’t blow enough, although there allegedly was so much more energy in the “warmest year ever” then.
Here’s an excellent guide from Paul Homewood re UK/Scottish wind power showing the absurd situation the UK is in (absurd for the customers that is, not for the “producers” – I use the term sarcastically).
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2017/08/12/wind-power-some-basic-facts/
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2017/08/12/wind-power-some-basic-facts/
Excerpts
“Put simply, an onshore wind farm will expect to earn double the wholesale price, and an offshore will triple it.
…
According to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the cost of subsidising renewable power this year will amount to £6.0bn. Of this, the Committee on Climate Change estimate that £3.1bn will go to wind farms.
By 2021, subsidies for wind will have increased to £7.1bn, as capacity grows. This equates to £265 per household.”
6-7 Billion ponds squandered here, another 6-7 billion wasted there, pretty soon you’re talking real money!
One wonders what the other £2.9bn pays for – is it for backup power for the wind farms – all those diesel generators that must run when the wind does not blow?
Or does part of the money pay for advertising campaigns to delude the British public into thinking wind power is actually cost-effective and saves the environment?
Or does cloudy, rainy Britain also have considerable solar power – for the six days per year when the Sun actually shines?
It’s “Heat or Eat” for the elderly and the poor in Britain, resulting in Excess Winter Mortality Rates that are several times higher than that of Canada, where energy costs are lower, and homes are centrally-heated AND insulated.
The warmist elite has taken “granny-bashing” in Britain to a whole new level – just kill off the old bats with excessive energy costs – they are a drain on the economy anyway.
What I detest most about reports like this is the deceit in non-disclosure of real cost. The bottom line is that the cost of renewable energy can only ever be greater than, by orders of magnitude, fossil fuels would be. Add to that the wool pulling about supply. Compared to fossil fuel, it’s an intermittent dribble.
Floating wind turbine: Another clever scheme to hack the birds and produce expensive electricity. What’s not to like?
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/04/07/article-0-1923299A000005DC-754_634x377.jpg
Ivanpah, 2 billion, does not work
Crescent dunes, 1 billion, does not work
this one, 210 million, does not work
Location, location, location!
floating? really? huh. Bet it is subsidized. that’s a problem.