Offshore wind peaks in the evening when power demands are greatest and other renewable energy sources are less available
CALIFORNIA POLYTECHNIC STATE UNIVERSITY
As California aims to provide 60% of its energy from renewable sources by 2030 and 100% by 2045, a study from California Polytechnic State University provides some good news. Offshore winds along the Central Coast increase at the same time that people start using more energy — in the evening.
One of the challenges of moving toward fully renewable energy is matching production to demand. Though the state has high existing solar energy capacity and the potential for even more, the supply of solar power peaks in the middle of the day and ends when the sun goes down. Consumer demand, on the other hand, peaks in the evening when people return from work around or after sunset.
Because storage of solar energy on a large scale is not yet practical, other renewable sources are needed to meet the Golden State’s environmental milestone of going fully renewable.
The Cal Poly research team found that offshore winds are strongest when demand is greatest, making it an ideal candidate to fill the gap left by solar and on-shore wind energy production. The team was led by research scientist Yi-Hui Wang and included biology professors Ben Ruttenberg and Crow White and physics Professor Ryan Walter.
“The alignment between potential offshore wind power production and demand highlights the important role that offshore wind energy could play in meeting California’s ambitious renewable energy goals,” Wang said.
Even more promising, offshore winds reach their peak during the hot summer months when state energy use is highest due to the use of air conditioning. Offshore wind energy offers several other advantages over land-based wind and solar energy, including stronger and more consistent winds and less impact on other land uses.
The greatest wind speeds, which would produce the most energy, are found farther from the coast. Most existing offshore wind farms are installed close to shore in shallow water less than 160 feet deep. However, several floating wind farms in deeper water farther from shore are now in operation in Europe, with more in the planning stages.
“Floating offshore wind farms are now a proven technology and game-changer in many respects,” Walter said. “These floating platforms make offshore wind farms a new reality in many locations, with a single turbine having the potential to power more than 10,000 homes.”
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which funded the study, is considering the Central Coast as a location for California’s first offshore wind farm and has proposed priority areas for leasing by energy companies. The Cal Poly study provides crucial information that, along with other studies on economic, cultural and environmental factors, will help guide the evaluation and planning of offshore wind energy.
“Looking at this wind data in relation to maps of fisheries, whale and seabird activity will help identify locations where offshore wind farms could add the most value and yet have the least impact on local economies and marine wildlife,” White said.
The Cal Poly team is working on the next steps, which include estimating the total amount of electricity wind farms in the area could produce and how these wind farms might affect the broader economy of San Luis Obispo County.
“Ultimately, we hope this information and our ongoing work will inform the conversation, helping the policymakers and citizens of California decide if, how and where to prioritize renewable offshore wind energy,” Ruttenberg said.
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Links:
Original study, Spatial and temporal variation of offshore wind power and its value along the Central California Coast, published in IOPscience: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2515-7620/ab4ee1
Just more unicorns farts, fairies and rainbows.
When will they ever learn.
When will they eeeeever learn.
ht/ Peter, Paul and Mary
Be sure and extend the high speed rail line to the offshore wind farm. That will help insure mutual success for all. Oh and bring all of the shoreline property owners associations as stakeholders.
Be sure and use union labor to satisfy Biden and the Dems and make those wages comparable to the longshoremen or greater. That power will be noncompetitive by the time it gets installed.
Meanwhile solar is undercutting them all.
https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2020/09/08/nrels-pv-cost-projections-plummet-in-new-forecast/
Solar undercuts nothing. It is intermittent and unpredictably so. It is inefficient, generating only 20% or less of its rated power over a period of days. Its cost per watt generated is very high on cloudy days or smokey days when its output is minuscule, and infinitely high between late afternoon and early morning when its output is zero. It requires full system backup ready to go, all the time. You get one electrical generation system for the price of two. And those are just some of the problems.
but the annual output of solar is predictable, so by using it you can fix your electricity costs for 20 years plus. That’s why it is popular in UK car plants and US supermarkets.
“but the annual output of solar is predictable”
So what? We use energy by the hour, not by the year. So, you need a NG backup power plant. Who pays for that?
You don’t run the grid with average power, you run it with instantaneous power. The panels have to produce the power when it is needed, which only partially overlaps with the period where the sun shines.
So UK has no supermarkets open after sunset.
.. Really ???
I guess you will be one of the last to see the LCOE effect and accelerating project additions.
https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2020/09/08/interconnection-queues-across-the-us-are-loaded-with-gigawatts-of-solar-wind-and-storage/
This has moved way beyond social preference and govt policy prodding. Mr. Market has taken the wheel.
PV Magazine?
It beats thorium reactor magazine.
Both are more likely to be shills for the industry rather than trustworthy sources of data.
Okay, so why not lift a finger and go direct to ERCOT and PJM instead of arm waving?
“As California aims to provide 60% of its energy from renewable sources by 2030 and 100% by 2045,”
If you remove this goal, problem solved. Were there any other actual problems?
Did anyone see this?
And why are we basing estimates of power production magnitudes and schedules, yet again, on model simulations? Because we do not have the observational basis to do so, of course.
Right now a prominent wind farm along I-80 is being repowered, about 15 or so years into its life. The hubs, generators, and upper parts of the towers are coming down, and because it is such an excellenet wind resource site, new turbines are going to take thier place. Taller towers, larger diameter blades, and bigger generators. But it will be interesting to see what becomes of the foundations and lower reaches of the towers. These will have to be modified or new foundations built nearby in order to hande the larger static and dynamic loads and overturning moments. Even these old small foundations and appurtenances must be troublesome and expensive to decommission and remove.
If the blades are longer, then the towers are going to be further apart. Even if the existing bases were adequate for the taller towers (they aren’t), they still wouldn’t be able to re-use most of the existing bases.
Good point. They need a lot more spacing.
This is a bit long winded and obscure, but most of the issues around bases are covered…
http://www.caithnesswindfarms.co.uk/Onshore-Wind-Repowering-Report-November-2018.pdf
this covers it as far as existing repowering efforts in the UK:
‘…where repowering has proceeded (in the UK), original concrete foundations have been reduced to 1m
below ground level and cabling left in place… In some sites e.g. Carland Cross, the
old turbine bases are now part of arable field systems and crops are grown over the top, so this
depth of reinstatement is sufficient for ploughing and cultivation. ‘
I suspect more repowering has been done in Germany, with possibly bigger turbines. German wind farms do tend to be on arable land at present
That’s interesting, but taking out a meter of concrete with rebar is still not easy, and the results are going to be site dependent. Up on these windy ridges they are going to have to armor the ground surface as they replant or the winter winds will simply scour down to the old foundation.
Griff can blow them up.
Give griff one of those surveyors hammers and let him go to town.
Should keep him busy for a decade or two.
Am I the only one who senses a desperation behind pompous words?
Lobbyist words
Alas, if only there were already a relatively cheap and extremely reliable form of energy available right now for producing electricity.
Oh wait! There are 3, actually – nuclear, gas, and coal.
Problem solved!
From Wikipedia:
A 2009 Stanford University study of California offshore wind potential identified a site off Cape Mendocino that could provide uninterrupted year-round power from a 1500 MW wind farm that would produce an average of 790 MW.
Like, old news or what?
CA only as about 6 MW of installed wind power. It supplies about 5% of CA electricity. What the heck?
CA has plenty of solar power and it is growing quickly. All they need now is some way to store it.
In the above article is this statement: “Even more promising, offshore winds reach their peak during the hot summer months when state energy use is highest due to the use of air conditioning.”
This strongly implies that the Cal Poly research team only looked at winds generated by the land-versus-ocean temperature differential (i.e., hot air over land rises and must be infilled by cooler air coming from the nearby ocean).
So, what about the much higher wind velocities associated with the movements of high and low atmospheric pressure areas and associated weather fronts? These happen continuously but irregularly and cannot be synchronized to times of highest demand for electricity.
It would have been nice if the researchers had quantified what percentage of yearly average wind energy comes from “offshore winds” versus from other causes.
“The Cal Poly research team found that offshore winds are strongest when demand is greatest, making it an ideal candidate to fill the gap left by solar and on-shore wind energy production.” Oh, P-L-E-E-E-E-A-S-E! How can anyone make such a sophomoric statement without providing the metric of LCOE $/kWh energy delivered to customers???
Such fluff.
The first rule of thumb for all green promotions is avoid the C-word for cost. It’s also a popular word to avoid in political statements and Party platforms.
Yes, community college-level research
California needs to be practical, they should be aiming to use unicorn farts instead! They could build unicorn farms right on the spot where the rainbows touch down, which gives an automatic 50% power boost.
California stands as a bad example for the rest of the country – whatever they do as a state, the other states should not do it! Unless we want to “progress” from nuclear energy with gobs of electricity, to windmills and solar panels that only sort of work if/when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, to candles for light and cow dung for heat and cooking…
One turbine. 10,000 homes. Day and night. I believe it. Sure.
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: a rusting column, overgrown
Stands on a hillside. By it, close at hand
Half sunk, a long and curving shaft lies prone
Though crumpled and corroded by the rain
Its sculptor’s purpose still is plain to see
A giant windmill, spinning to entrain
From tortured gearing, electricity
And on the pedestal these words appear
“We are the Legion of the Green New Deal
Look on our ranks, deniers, and despair”
Nothing beside remains, round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, the meadows fair
And forests breathing life stretch far away
Lovely adaptation. Top marks sir!
Pretty interesting observation – question is how many days/weeks/months/years of actual data did the University offer as evidence of this timing theory of – “…Offshore winds along the Central Coast increase at the same time that people start using more energy — in the evening….” Now what about energy use spikes in the morning. I just can’t get past such nonsense. They haven’t predicted anything of value with their Climate Models, but they can predict that Winds go up during the ‘rush hour’. Truly astounding. Is that why CA has been going through days of rolling brownouts and actual blackouts. I just don’t understand these people.
Offshore Central California coast is prone to heavy fog. These monster windmills would constitute a serious hazard to mariners and would be another eyesore that would spoil the magnificent vistas along the coast.
Offshore wind turbines, how to waste billions of dollars to produce intermittent unreliable electricity that will never generate enough power to replace themselves, net result more CO2 then if you hadn’t built them.
Pictures like the one at the top always give the misleading impression that they will build just a handful of windmills when in reality it will end up like Tehachapi California where the landscape as far as the eye can see is forested with hundreds and hundreds of them.
Yeah, and never more than half of them are working.
As a Californian, I’d prefer to just keep Diablo Canyon going, and build 10 more. Then we can get rid of every turbine and solar panel in the State – and have 10% leftover to run desalination plants.
Dan, that shows signs of common sense. Idiot Lives Matter though, and they don’t do common sense.
The learned people at this University are either unaware or ignore the very real technical deficiencies of wind generation.
Power output varies as a cube of wind speed so small variations in wind speed bring large variations in power output, not ideal for a power supply.
Wind generation is asynchronous so cannot support grid frequency. Frequency has to be maintained to close limits (Any deviation beyond + or – 0.2 Hz is classed as a frequency event in the U.K.) These events on the U.K. grid have doubled in the last few years due to an increase in wind capacity connected. Thermal and hydro generations can vary their frequency as load varies to maintain the nominal figure. Wind and solar cannot they merely follow. Therefore the greater the amount of power generated by renewables the less stable the grid becomes and the likelyhood of grid trips increase and as a compounding factor, renewables cannot assist in a restart this extends the duration of the trip.
Wind and solar have no inertia, unlike large rotating thermal and hydro alternators, this is another characteristic that provides essential stability.
These deficiencies are well known yet so many governments persist in increasing renewable generation at the expense of reliability.
That the cost of these renewables overall is higher than conventional generation when all costs are counted is also undisputable despite continued media claims that they are cheaper.
The power of the agenda driving the expansion of renewables is seemingly so strong it over rides common sense and good engineering practice. As already mentioned, nuclear in it’s varied forms is so obvious but ignored, and even in Germany they are closing viable nuclear plants and France is also planning to shut down some of it’s fleet and increase part time power?
No, it doesn’t. https://gridwatch.org.uk
Because storage of any energy on a large scale will never be practical…
Usual lies backed up by phoney studies to justify yet more virtue signalling profitable but useless whirligigs.
There is one type of storage that is practical. Chemical storage. Which is why fossil fuels are so cheap and effective.
This would be horrendously expensive
How many millions of tons of coal will it take to manufacture an offshore wind farm. How many millions of tons of chemicals will it take to manufacture an offshore wind farm?
Why can we increase the use of coal and oil to be used by the wind industry? Coal and oil use can increase if the use is for government subsidized, and literally paid for, wind turbines?