From the “bigger they are, the harder they fall” department comes this monster from General Electric:
GE Renewable Energy GE will invest more than USD 400 million over the next three to five years to develop and deploy the largest, most powerful offshore wind turbine – the Haliade-X 12 MW.
Featuring a 12MW direct drive generator and a capacity factor of 63 percent, the Haliade-X will produce 45 percent more energy than any other offshore turbine available today, the company said.
GE Renewable Energy aims to supply its first nacelle for demonstration in 2019 and ship the first Haliade-X units in 2021.
Towering 260 meters (853 feet) over the sea, more than five times the size of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France, the Haliade-X 12 MW carries a 220-meter rotor.
Designed and manufactured by LM Wind Power, the 107-meter-long blades will be the longest offshore blades to date and will be longer than the size of a soccer field.
Jérôme Pécresse, President and CEO of GE Renewable Energy said:
“The renewables industry took more than 20 years to install the first 17 GW of offshore wind. Today, the industry forecasts that it will install more than 90 GW over the next 12 years. This is being driven by lower cost of electricity from scale and technology. The Haliade-X shows GE’s commitment to the offshore wind segment and will set a new benchmark for cost of electricity, thus driving more offshore growth.”
AN INDUSTRY FIRST
Introducing the Haliade-X 12 MW, the most powerful offshore wind turbine in the world to date, featuring a 12 MW capacity (the world’s first), 220-meter rotor, a 107-meter blade designed by LM Wind Power, and digital capabilities. In addition to being the biggest offshore wind turbine, the Haliade-X will also be the most efficient of wind turbines in the ocean. Best of all, it’s capable of transforming more wind into power than any other offshore wind turbine today.
The Haliade-X 12 MW also features a 63% capacity factor*—five to seven points above industry standard. Each incremental point in capacity factor represents around $7 million in revenue for our customers over the life of a windfarm.
The offshore wind turbine design of the Haliade-X is what makes it unique. The combination of a bigger rotor, longer blades and higher capacity factor makes Haliade-X less sensitive to wind speed variations, increasing predictability and the ability to generate more power at low wind speeds. The Haliade-X can capture more Annual Energy Production (AEP) than any other offshore wind turbine even at low wind conditions.
This 12 MW ocean wind turbine can also generate 67 GWh annually, which is 45% more AEP than the most powerful machines on the market today, and twice as much as the Haliade 150-6MW. One Haliade-X 12 MW can generate enough clean power to supply 16,000 European households according to wind conditions on a typical German North Sea site. Based on a 750 MW windfarm and an estimated AEP, the Haliade-X 12 MW could produce enough power for up to 1 million households.
Source: https://www.ge.com/renewableenergy/wind-energy/turbines/haliade-x-offshore-turbine
h/t to Roger Sowell
No word yet on what the “carbon footprint” of producing and installing this beast is, and whether it will actually going to offset its own footprint during its useful operational lifetime.
Given what happened at the wind farm in Punta Lima, Playa Hucares, Puerto Rico when Category 4 Hurricane Maria made landfall on September 24th, one wonders if the materials in this monster turbine are up to the task of scaling up the size. The wind loading would be massive and untested, and could only be modeled.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
What will be the bird kill? What will be the other disruptions?
Even if it did manage the stated CF, according to my calcs, for 16,000 households, that’s only 11kWh/day. I would be surprised if that’s sufficient for European houses.
Average annual UK domestic electricity consumption is 3,850kWh per home but most homes are heated by natural gas which adds another 15,250kWh annualy per home. This is the usual trick the subsidy farmers use. 12MW at 67% capacity factor equals 18,300 UK homes for electricity only but 3,700 for all power. Of course 67% is wildly optimistic and the true figures are probably a half to a third. Costs to the grid for dealing with all the intermittent, distributed, micro generators are also huge of course. The beautiful countryside southeast of me is being desecrated by more huge pylons to trade electricity with Belgium.
http://www.kentonline.co.uk/canterbury/news/pylons-plan-would-wreck-the-121750/
Energy GE will invest more than 400 million US taxpayer dollars.
There, fixed it.
12 Megawatts… and it still won’t power a DeLorean time machine.
https://youtu.be/fzuO9wHrvGg
The amount of insanity this website manages to scrape together in one place is absolutely astonishing.
Even a 260 meter QLav wouldn’t top this monstrosity.
The artificial “green” blight is ecologically unfriendly, mission unreliable, and long-term unsustainable. Still, it is a niche solution, with progressive (i.e. monotonic) profit potential.
Kiss those albatross goodbye.
A giant elephant (white elephant – if they know what that means)…I assume they don’t.
It looks like electricity rates are going to “skyrocket” again…just too bad…
the blades sweep an area of 9.5 acres or 4 hectares. The bearing technology must be spectacular and the blades built with stunning strut support internally. All that to generate about 20% of the boilerplate spec.
I’m trying to get my head around this ‘capacity factor’ thing – it smoke and mirror,
As best I can see its similar to how methane (for instance) has 100 times (or whatever) the greenhouse warming effect of CO2.
I think that what they’ve done is use the figure for windspeed at a certain height to calculate the power the thing can produce.
By simple virtue of wind shear, taller turbines make more power and seemingly ramps up the claimed Capacity Factor. It’s not actually any great improvement on the design/manufacture/materials. It is complete bollox.
If they simply jacked up an existing small turbine at the same site they’re putting these (the North Sea as best I can tell) it would achieve the increased Capacity Factor
Why do they (need) to do that. Not dissimilar to the solar panel (PV and thermal) salesmen being fast & loose with their energy and financial predictions.
It stinks.
For these things (offshore) – is not the bird (raptor) killing part all rather academic and (I’m sorry) an excuse by some to ‘start a fight’ and create aggro just for the sake of it?
Or out of ‘fashion’ and political correctness and making out how ‘caring’ you are?
Do eagles, hawks, buzzards etc really venture 10, 15 and 20+ miles out to sea? What’s there for them?
As for seagulls = Aerial Rats that take out the less common (wonder why) seabirds – not least puffins and kittiwakes in the North Sea
In any case, me personally am a supporter/carer of the small birds – sparrows, finches, thrushes etc etc. To the tune of 3kg+ per day of mixed wild-bird-seed.
And this in a place where I’m surrounded by huge fields & farms growing wheat & barley.
I would rather have a few of the little songbirds in my garden to wake me up of a morning than to find a little pile of feathers amid silence – interspersed by a pair of buzzards riding thermals & ridges half a mile away and making noises like tiny human baby being tortured.
YMMV – try to ensure its not varying out of some sense of Big Willyism
Remember, none of it is impressing The Modern & Contemporary Female.
Must try harder.
ha ha
The original ‘capacity factor’ was a figure of quality – how many hours a plant could run compared to its downtime for maintenance. That was then renamed ‘availability’
The concept was then extended to be a measure of how many hours the plant DID run, and at what power output, versus its 24×7 ‘nameplate’ capacity, as a measure of income against capital expenditure.
Then the concept was mangled by renewable energy – which always runs flat out – to be the amount of energy the plant produced compared to its nameplate capacity, which is a completely arbitrary number. This was in fact a measure of the availability of the renewable energy source.
IN this case the concept is meaningless. Average capacity factor of UK offshore is < 40%. The same turbines in Germany fare far worse.
All I can conjecture is that this thing is so huge that it both gets itself above the boundary layer, improving wind capture, an is deliberately built for low wind speeds, which predominate, so that its actual 'nameplate capacity is far less than is justified by the rotor swept area and the Betz limit and the peak wind speed.
Such a turbine will produce the same or more in light airs, but cannot handle gales so will presumably be switched off
i.e the artificially reduced 'nameplate capacity' allows them to generate a completely spurious 'capacity factor'.
The same trick has been played with UK FITS where hydro power stations and wind turbines are deliberately 'de-rated' to render them deserving of a higher rate of subsidy
Renewable propaganda makes me quite sick sometimes
“One Haliade-X 12 MW can generate enough clean power to supply 16,000 European households according to wind conditions on a typical German North Sea site.”
I would like to do my own calculations regarding number of households.
I had difficulties finding a reliable source for European household consumption, so I decided to take the numbers from France according to CIA’s World Fact Book.
France consumption: 436 TWh (436 * 10^12 Wh)
France avg. load: 436 * 10^12 / 365 / 24 = 48 GW
France population: 67 million (67 * 10^6 people)
France load per capita: 48 GW / 67 M = 716 W per capita
Assuming 2.5 parsons per household:
France households: 67 M / 2.5 = 30 M households
France load per household: 1.6 kW
GE 12MW turbine CF 63% = 7.56 MW avg. supply
GE 12MW supply amount households = 7.56 MW / 1.6 kW = 4725 households
Deviation between GE’s and my calculation: 16000 / 4725 * 100 = 339 %
As I see it, they claim to supply over three times more households than I would estimate.
Granted, in my calculations, the industry, offices, etc. are included in my numbers.
However, I still think their 16000 household numbers are deceptive.
Adding to that, they do not mention what amount of backup capacity installation is needed, and how this is financed.
Maybe they figured the Bay of Bengal for the installation?
Must be a lot of clergy in France if there are two and half parsons per household. Or it was a typo, but I prefer the former interpretation. 😉
The capacity factor is not a function of the turbine. It is a function of the wind.
That fact alone makes me deeply sceptical of all the information presented here.
It is not clear to what the blurb is referring, but then its marketing propaganda, so who knows?
Given that bearing failure on much smaller machines is already a problem, how on earth will they cope with the loads involved in supporting this massive rotor and generator?
China installed 300 GW of supercritical coal between 2005 and 2013 (3000 days). I consider this the greatest industrial achievement in history. Compare that to 90 GW wind (30 GW after capacity factor applied) in 4400 days for WORLDWIDE wind industry. Doesn’t strike me as a green revolution.
More echos from the mindless echo chamber by people who oppose something not for what it is, but because of who supports it. When you get to that point, you’ve turned control of your mind over to people who you intensely dislike. Strange, isn’t it.
Yes, you are.
In other words; you can’t refute anything said, but since your paycheck depends on you posting something, you are going to pretend that you are above it all and just insult those who don’t worship as you do.
Something that only puts out 12 MWs but has to be the size of the freaking Eiffel Tower? A lash-up of four modern 4400 hp locomotives puts out more power than that, can do it any time wind or not, & only takes up a tiny fraction of the space.
How much diesel fuel are you burning? What does that cost? What’s the initial cost of the locomotive? What’s the maintenance cost? All these things have to be taken into account.Same for the windmill.
A new, modern 4400 HP AC (alternating current) locomotive costs around $1.7 million — rebuilt one about half as much. So four new ones cost ~$6.8 million & generates 13.1 MW. Compare that to $400 million — 58 times(!) that of the diesels. I don’t know if the pin-wheel cost includes installation out in the water, with underwater power lines connecting it to a distribution station somewhere on land. Plus the capacity factor (they say 68% — hard to believe), but anyway, 12MW x .68 = 8.2 MW, so the initial cost is actually 94 times per MW (and intermittent, unreliable power at that) for the pin-wheel compared to diesels. And then, which do you think are easier to maintain? I’m not going to do everything for you, but I guarantee you can buy ALOT of fuel for a couple hundred million bucks.
A 100Mw coal fired power station generates 89 times as much electricity and only costs 150% more and has a 300% better life span.
One other thing, who pays to dismantle it at the end of its working life?
I’m pretty certain that the $400 million just covers the cost of buying it from GE. Installation and wiring costs are too variable to quote in a general document like this.
Just following up; I was never able to find a cost for the 12 MW turbine, but it’s not the $400 million. That number is what GE says they are going to invest in development and deployment of the X-12. In any case, the cost of power from wind is way cheaper than diesel. Diesel is used when it’s the only option or for emergencies.
How many birds killed per hour? They leave out the important stats
At this scale it requires whole flocks per hour.
‘The Haliade-X 12 MW also features a 63% capacity factor’
Great! But if someone is going to rely on a 12 MW supply, they’ll need a 12 MW backup for this.
12 MW of weather dependent, supplemental power seems useless.
Funny how the military is evil for using sonar sounds to protect America’s coast lines with no alternative available, but the wind industry will be sending out these destructive low frequency sounds when there are plenty of alternatives that are far superior.
Since Anthony made this into a post of an article I emailed him, I am lifting my self-imposed boycott of WUWT. As Andrew Breitbart stated so eloquently, “Walk toward the fire. Don’t worry about what they call you. All those things are said against you because they want to stop you in your tracks. But if you keep going, you’re sending a message to people who are rooting for you, who are agreeing with you. The message is that they can do it, too.”
Re economics of EU offshore wind farms; “… winning bid prices have declined from approximately
$200/megawatt-hour, for projects with a commercial operation date between 2017 and 2019
down to about $65/megawatt-hour for projects, with a 2024/2025 commercial operation date.” — US DOE 2016 Offshore Wind Technologies Market Report, p. v. https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/08/f35/2016%20Offshore%20Wind%20Technologies%20Market%20Report.pdf
Re wind turbines requiring grid power when not generating, this is not dissimilar to conventional power plants when they are offline. Nuclear plants require many MW just to keep radioactive things from melting down. In particular, the cooling water pumps need to keep running.
Re offshore wind turbines and hurricane-force winds; as I wrote recently to Anthony, the 6 MW turbines offshore the US Rhode Island did just fine in high winds. The DOE wrote: “[America’s] first offshore wind farm [performed as expected] when winter storm Stella rolled through in March. All five turbines [at Block Island] were operating at full capacity (30 megawatts), except for a brief window of several hours when wind speeds exceeded 55 mph.
Although this was not a hurricane, it does demonstrate the shutdown process. The wind farm sustained wind speeds higher than 70 mph during the automatic shutdown and successfully powered back up to serve Block Island after the winds diminished.” https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/how-do-wind-turbines-survive-severe-storms
The Block Island wind farm also performed as expected during the stronger winds of Hurricane Jose in September 2017.
The EU offshore environment also has occasional hurricanes, and the Hywind floating windfarm performed as expected: “Hywind Scotland’s first encounter with harsh weather conditions was the hurricane Ophelia in October (2017) 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. Whilst the wind turbines shut down for safety reasons during the worst of these winds, they automatically resumed operation promptly afterwards.” https://www.statoil.com/en/news/15feb2018-world-class-performance.html
Re bird deaths, all the candidate offshore turbine locations are studied carefully, and bird prevalence is a factor in discarding certain sites.
Despite the many (and comical) nay-sayers at WUWT, offshore wind is a fast-growing business around the world where the wind is sufficient. GE’s 12 MW turbine is not the ultimate, merely the largest today. Sandia Labs has a design for a 50 MW turbine; that will soon be in operation. Electricity prices from such a turbine, given economy of scale, will likely be 2-3 cents per kWh. Or less.
“Electricity prices from such a turbine, given economy of scale, will likely be 2-3 cents per kWh. Or less.”
And the cost of the backup is? Since the fixed cost of the backup accrues regardless of use, it’s cost must be added to the cost of the windmill.
At which point you realize the windmill is superfluous. It doesn’t replace other generation capacity. It is at best supplemental. For a system that doesn’t need a supplement.
To Gamecock, re yours at May 11, 2018 at 11:02 am
The backup gambit is raised by you. “And the cost of the backup is? Since the fixed cost of the backup accrues regardless of use, it’s cost must be added to the cost of the windmill.”
The simplest way to understand how wind energy works is to consider two people riding a bicycle built for two. The person in front represents the gas-fired power plants, and the person in back represents the wind turbine system. The goal is to maintain a steady speed for the bicycle.
When the wind does not blow, the person in front must do all the work to move the bicycle because the person in back stops pedaling.
But, when the person in back begins to pedal, the one in front can ease off and not work so hard.
In the grid context, gas-fired, very efficient cogeneration plants serve as the power source that balances the grid when wind output fluctuates. That means less fuel is consumed when the wind blows. As can be seen by examining the wind annual statistics, the wind turbine output is typically 30-45 percent on an annual basis. That means the gas-fired plants can loaf, can use less fuel, to that extent.
What is also important is that wind power is now cheaper, in many locations, than the gas-fired power it replaces. Even when the gas-fired plants have their fixed costs amortized over a smaller amount of electrons produced, the consumer wins.
The broader benefit, as I wrote long ago, is that a lower demand for natural gas has lower price for natural gas, with enormous trickle-down benefits across the economy.
Wind power is the wave of the future, as all the major players understand.
@ur momisugly Roger Sowell,
Wind power ??
Who’s gonna build those expensive turbines in a country that is ruled by gangs with machetes ?
They would be stripped of any precious metals within a week.
Count your blessings.
Roger, nothing you said contradicts anything that Gamecock wrote. You still need to pay for twice the generating capacity, and the fossil fuel one can’t be run in it’s most economical mode.
For MarkW re yours on May 11, 2018 at 3:18 pm
“Roger, nothing you said contradicts anything that Gamecock wrote. You still need to pay for twice the generating capacity, and the fossil fuel one can’t be run in it’s most economical mode.”
Actually, no.
Wind farms are typically built and paid for by private investors, who then sell the electricity to the utility.
The utility pays less for the wind electricity than it costs to generate by other means.
Note that US subsidies are phasing out in a couple of years. Even then, the subsidies are via tax credits, a very small burden spread across 320 million people in the US. The tax credits last only 10 years and are a tiny 2 cents per kWh produced. If the wind doesn’t blow, or the turbine is broken, zero subsidy is paid.
The new installations offshore EU are without subsidies.
Mr. Sowell, you need some finance education. Study fixed cost and variable cost.
For Gamecock re yours at May 12, 2018 at 5:06 pm
“Mr. Sowell, you need some finance education. Study fixed cost and variable cost”
Thanks for the laugh, I’ll pass your expert opinion on to the hundreds of delighted clients in the energy industry for whom I consulted for over the past 4 decades. They will also get a good laugh, at your expense. Meanwhile, they are busy counting the several US$billion in extra profits (not revenues, but profits) that my consulting work afforded them.
The Wall Street corporations that presently pay my consulting fees will also get a big laugh.
The University of California institutions for which I was and am a guest speaker on engineering economics will also raise an eyebrow at the least, and get a laugh probably.
You are a funny person, Gamecock, please, keep ’em coming!!!
Actually, it is an expert opinion. I ran a cost accounting system for a major (DJIA) for 19 years.
“Re wind turbines requiring grid power when not generating, this is not dissimilar to conventional power plants when they are offline.
No it is NOT! It is completely dissimilar!
Conventional fossil fuel generation don’t require a back-up during normal operation! Wind-junk does! Your propaganda fails! ALL the ‘grid ruinables’ require continuous rapidly dispatched back-up. They are an economic and technical millstone around the necks of those that have to balance the grid. Without the MASSIVE subsidy they would naturally die in a real market place. Pathetic, useless junk littering the land and now the seas.
(see http://notrickszone.com/2018/04/30/new-papers-intermittent-wind-power-preserves-increases-need-for-fossil-fuel-energy-generation/ )
How do you square your crud about Scotland’s off-shore wind-junk when Germany (the larger off shore wind-junk installer) has so many problems, and is still off-line? (See http://notrickszone.com/2018/04/27/massive-damage-large-scale-engineering-debacle-threatens-as-north-sea-wind-turbine-breaks-apart/ )
And life expectancy? The break even point for these over-subsidized disastrous junk devices was originally given as 24 years minimum. So where has that been meet? And how much was the maintenance cost to get any to last that long?
Now compare the maintenance cost per actual power output, to that of say a gas or coal fire power station. No contest wind-junk is way more expensive by orders of magnitude.
To tom0mason re yours at May 11, 2018 at 11:40 am
See my reply above re wind turbines requiring backup.
It turns out that ALL power plants require backup; this is known in the industry as Reserve. Some of that is Spinning Reserve, and is required by law. Southern California felt the need for such backup not many years ago when the two nuclear reactors at San Onofre went off-line without warning. Seems they sprang a leak, radioactive steam heated the clear California skies, and 2200 MW of electricity went dark. Quickly.
But, the grid had sufficient spinning reserve to ramp up on short notice to keep the lights on that day. It turns out that aging nuclear power plants go off-line without warning, rather frequently. The spinning reserve is called upon to take up the load every time.
The Scotland Hywind turbines are well-documented to have thrived in adverse conditions, as I wrote clearly above. I have not examined the issues in offshore Germany, so will not comment.
Next, you complain about life expectancy, and some break even point of 24 years originally. Break even for what? Typically, a wind turbine plant investor seeks a 10 percent return on his investment, or will not invest. That is the reason that sales prices for electricity were at $200 per MWh (US 20 cent per kWh) in the early days. However, as turbine sizes increased and output increased with better designs and experience, the latest wind turbine plants give the 10 percent return on investment with 70 to 80 $/MWh, and as I quoted the US DOE above, $65 per MWh for projects that come online in year 2024-2025.
Maintenance costs for offshore run approximately 0.5 to 1 cent per kWh produced, and depend on many factors. Larger turbines with higher capacity factors have lower maintenance costs per kWh sold.
For the actual figures, based on US onshore wind turbines, see my article from 2016:
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2016/04/wind-turbines-operations-and.html
First-year operating and maintenance is 0.5 to 1 cent per kWh, rising at year 30 to 4-6 cents per kWh. Data is from US DOE “2014 Wind Technologies Market Report.”
I’m told that the EU offshore O&M costs are buried in the capital costs, in which a 20 year maintenance contract is included in the first costs.
Again you come out with BS!
“It turns out that ALL power plants require backup; this is known in the industry as Reserve. ”
But your beloved wind-junk is not reliable. Fossil fuel plants are reliable, just as nuclear is — some run for a very long time before they require maintenance (year or more 24/7), and they do last for decade. Your beloved wind-junk can not predict when it will be available, and has not got the stated longevity. PERIOD. They are a waste of resources. They are not green nor efficient use of materials.
Contrast and compare outages per year for conventional power plants to the hideous outage figure for ruinable sources.
Hidden costs for installing the ruinable junk on the grid system is the extra cost in equipment and monitoring that has installed to try and keep the grid stable. These ruinously unreliable source of infrequent power erode grid stability margins.
“Larger turbines with higher capacity factors have lower maintenance costs per kWh sold.”
LIER!
Junk statement with no evidence as they have not been running long enough to prove the case. Your figure are short term rubbish, get back to me in 20 years.
The costs have been optimistically modeled not observed over 20+ years for large wind-junk technology.
Fossil fuel plants don’t drop out at the spur of the moment several times a day. Because of this wind power cannot be compared to fossil fuel plants being offline.
It’s easy to grow when you don’t have to pay your own costs.
GE announces monster 12 megawatt wind turbine – works only when the wind blows
If any part of that thing breaks away and lands on my house, GE will foot the bill for all new everything for me. And NONE of it will be electric anything.
Exactly where are they going to install this wonder of engineering. The east coast of the US is out because of the Hurricane threat. See Puerto Rico for results. To make it viable it would have to be within 30 to 40 miles of shore other wise the under sea cable to feed the power to the grid makes it uneconomical. I see this one is direct drive without a gearbox. So what type of bearings are used in this unit. There has been a problem with scaling up wind turbines to above 5.0 MW. The main shaft bearings roller elements were failing at an alarming rate which caused operators to sue the manufactures and the bearing companies. It had to do with the sheer strength of the roller surfaces. If they have gone back to a “sleeve” bearing design then the oil system must be running all the time to prevent damage when the rotor starts to turn. I have seen some windmills using this sleeve bearing design use a lot of power when the wind does not blow to heat and circulate the oil in case the wind starts.
Very good point. In the mid eighties, when I was in R&D in a Danish wind turbine company, we were experimenting with keeping the asynchrone generators engaged with the grid to avoid cold fusion of the bearings. An added plus was that it looked like the turbine produced electricity, although it was drawing from the grid instead. The issue with the bearings get worse when the rotor stops rotating, the turns a few degrees, the stops, etc.
Sorry, not cold fusion – cold welding, sorry.
Browns Ferry in Alabama has an output of 1000 MW. It requires 83 of this Hubris models to replace it, although that’s nameplate output only. In reality, just to come near to Browns Ferry’s capacity, I guess about 150 of these monsters are needed. What a ghastly sight to see.
I hope that Field Marshal Common-Sense drops by and hits General Electric on the head. Hard.
The monuments to tax credits will stand tall and eventually surpass the tallest man made structures on the planet. Just don’t tell them about the solar wind.