Wind power news and discussions

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

Offshore wind turbine platform pivots downwind like a weathervane
By David Szondy
July 02, 2024

A new offshore wind farm system that promises faster, cheaper installation and operations will be tested in the Mediterranean. Called the NextFloat+ Project, it received a €13.4-million (US$14.4-million) grant from the European Commission.

Setting up wind farms at sea seems like a logical idea. Sea breezes tend to blow regularly and open water provides a more predictable and dependable wind pattern than on land. Plus you don't have to worry so much about compulsory purchase of the building site.

However, the engineering challenges of setting up turbines at sea are so great that they often outweigh the benefits. This is because not only do the turbines need to be very robust, with blades that won't bend under load and strike their own mast, they also require heavy mooring systems to keep them in place that are expensive to install.

https://newatlas.com/energy/x90-offshor ... orm-pivot/

[wjfox]

[funkervogt]

Something I recently discovered is Somalia has enormous wind and solar power potential:


The only problem is building a lot of wind turbines near the coast could intensify the desertification of the country by making it harder for winds carrying moisture to travel inland.

I think we'll have to wait until AGI takes over for countries like Somalia to fully utilize their clean energy potential.

[weatheriscool]

BOEM issues its final approval for two New England offshore wind projects. New England Wind 1 and 2, located about 20 nautical miles south of Martha's Vineyard, will have a combined total capacity of up to 2,600 MW. https://renewableenergyworld.com/wind-power/off

[weatheriscool]

Watch: World-first wind turbine tech is an EV charging station for boats
By Michael Franco
July 24, 2024

In the Belgian North Sea, maintenance vessels are now able to tether to an automatic cable at a wind farm to get their batteries topped up. The innovative system is the first of its kind and a major step in keeping electric vessels as green as possible.

The charging system was deployed at Belgian's Nobelwind wind farm, which has been in operation since 2017 and features 50 turbines covering 19.8 square km (7.6 square miles) at sea. The facility is the third deployed by the Parkwind company and it supplies power to about 190,000 households.

https://newatlas.com/energy/parkwind-of ... g-station/

[Time_Traveller]

UK secures seabed land deal to boost windfarms

25 July 2024, 00:09 BST

British seabed owned by the Crown Estate will be used to help build windfarms in plans aimed at making the UK more self reliant for energy.

It is the first big announcement by Great British Energy, Labour's new publicly owned energy company. The firm's aim is increase renewable energy projects, boosted by £8.3bn in state funding, paid for by a windfall tax on oil and gas giants.

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband claimed the initiative would "lead to lower bills" for households.

But the Conservatives said GB Energy was "nothing but a gimmick that will end up costing families".

The deal means the Crown Estate - which manages a huge portfolio of property and land and helps fund the Royal Family - will lease the land on which windfarms can be developed and built.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crglp32zzw2o

[weatheriscool]

[wjfox]

Danish wind power giant Ørsted delays major US offshore project

Thu 15 Aug 2024 12.12 BST

The Danish company developing the world’s largest offshore windfarm in the North Sea has been forced to delay a major project off the north-east coast of the US, months after cancelling two nearby developments and cutting hundreds of jobs.

Ørsted has pushed back the start of commercial operations at its 704 megawatt Revolution Wind project off the coast of Rhode Island and Connecticut by a year, to 2026.

The company behind the giant Hornsea windfarms off the Yorkshire coast said the construction delay would contribute to an impairment cost of 3.2bn Danish kroner ($472m) in its second-quarter financial results.

The latest financial hit to Ørsted includes costs relating to its decision last year to scrap two major windfarms off the New Jersey coast, Ocean Wind I and II, amid surging costs facing the global wind power industry.

Within weeks of laying bare the company’s financial turmoil, its chief financial officer, Daniel Lerup, and chief operating officer, Richard Hunter, agreed to step down with immediate effect because the company needed “new and different capabilities”.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... re-project



Credit: Orsted/EPA

[wjfox]

[Time_Traveller]

New Shetland wind farm could power 500,000 homes

Thursday 29 August 2024 11:31, UK



The completion of a wind farm and 260km subsea transmission link has connected the Shetland Islands to the GB electricity grid for the first time.

SSE hailed the milestone, describing it as a "groundbreaking achievement for clean energy in the UK".

The energy giant said the 103-turbine Viking Wind Farm has an installed capacity of 443 megawatts (MW) and is expected to produce enough electricity to power the equivalent of 500,000 homes each year.

The subsea cable - a high-voltage direct current (HVDC) link - will enable the energy generated in the Shetland Isles to flow to the rest of the UK. It will also allow for electricity to be sent back to Shetland, ensuring a reliable supply for the islands.

The two projects mark a £1bn investment by SSE as part of a £20.5bn commitment to UK clean energy infrastructure by 2027.

https://news.sky.com/story/new-shetland ... s-13205246

[wjfox]

Nine offshore wind farm projects awarded in UK auction

3 September 2024, 07:57 BST

The government has awarded nine offshore wind farm contracts after last year's auction failed to attract any bidders at all.

The contracts are part of a wider slate of green energy projects the government has announced that include tidal and solar power which, it said, will be enough to fuel the equivalent of 11 million UK homes.

Last September, no companies bid in the auction to build offshore wind farms.

The industry said at the time that the guarantee price offered by the then Conservative government for electricity generated by the wind farms did not take into account higher costs such as construction materials which had risen because of inflation.

[...]

The government is aiming to produce 60GW of energy through offshore wind farms by 2030.

The new offshore wind farm projects announced on Tuesday provide capacity of 4.9GW but Pranav Menon, a research associate at Aurora Energy Research, said the government has still some way to go to meet its goal.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c86ldzve4neo

[weatheriscool]

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

[firestar464]

Google's former CEO: AI advances more important than climate conservation

https://mashable.com/article/former-goo ... e-concerns

Nonsense. It is possible to drastically reduce AI energy consumption without sacrificing much performance as research has shown

[weatheriscool]

World's largest onshore wind turbine spins up 430 ft blades to deliver 15 MW
By Abhimanyu Ghoshal
October 11, 2024
https://newatlas.com/energy/sany-world- ... d-turbine/

China's Sany Renewable Energy claims it has just erected the world's largest onshore wind turbine. The 15MW prototype was installed earlier this week in northeast China's Jilin Province.

The lovingly named SI-270150 turbine features 430-ft-long blades (131 m), making for a maximum swept area of 616,298 sq ft (57,256 sq m). That's equivalent to nearly 11 American football fields. According to Sany, it's also set a record for the largest onshore turbine rotor diameter at 886 ft (270 m), surpassing the previous largest onshore wind turbine on the planet, Goldwind's 12-MW design launched in 2023 with a 787-ft (240-m) rotor diameter.

The 430 ft blades were first manufactured at the company's facility in Inner Mongolia back in January. Those were built to not only be durable and stable, but also to incorporate recyclable parts. They also bested Sany's 2023 record for the longest onshore turbine blades, which measured 341 ft (104 m).

[Time_Traveller]

Cheaper green energy by 2030s as Spanish giant invests £24bn in UK grid

October 11, 2024 10:57 am

ScottishPower owner Iberdrola, the largest electricity company in Europe, announced plans to more than double its UK investments to as much as £24bn, ahead of the International Investment Summit in London.

The group said that with Britain’s electricity grid needing the “biggest rewiring ever seen” it plans to direct two thirds of this figure at building new transmission and distribution networks.

Keith Anderson, the ScottishPower chief executive, who will meet Sir Keir Starmer in Edinburgh today, said the decision was motivated by the Government’s approach to net zero projects.

The Energy Secretary’s tough approach to planning after approving a series of controversial solar projects is “what we want to see as an investor”, he said.

ScottishPower supplies energy to 4.4 million homes and businesses, builds onshore and offshore wind farms and runs vast tracts of the power grid across Scotland and parts of England and Wales.

https://inews.co.uk/news/business/spani ... uk-3319041

[weatheriscool]

Planet's largest wind turbine record broken again at 26-MW
By Joe Salas
October 23, 2024

China, the undisputed global leader in wind energy, has just set another world record for the world's tallest and highest-capacity offshore wind turbine, taller than the Eiffel Tower, The Chrysler Building, and longer than the longest US aircraft carrier.

Dongfang Electric Corporation (DEC) is building these massive 1,115-foot-tall (340-m), 26-MW wind turbines at its factory in Fuzhou, Fujian Province.

The nacelle hub height sits at 607 ft (185 m), while the blade diameter is a whopping 1,107 ft (310 m). It has a blade swept area of 812,424 square feet (75,477 sq m). Do you know what else has about that much wingspan? Twelve Boeing 747s. You'd need an area the size of 14 NFL football fields, or a decent city block, to lay it down. It's a bit big.

https://newatlas.com/energy/world-recor ... ang-26-mw/