Floating wind farms

Oldtree

Just seen an article about this so don't know a huge amount of detail yet but It seems like a very interesting development and one that perhaps would suit us here.

But what really caught my eye was this:

Price drop

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.

World's first floating wind farm emerges off coast of Scotland -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40699979

Oldtree

The size of these things is astounding

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.

Capt'n Midnight

Each tower weighs 11,500 tonnes

This is one of the reasons why offshore wind is more expensive


How much does towing these things cost. Would it ever be practical to follow season weather patterns , or move to countries with better rates.

As an article said the main use would be for places with deep water offshore like US Japan.

Oldtree

They did insinuate in the article that the costs were falling and they expect the cost to be below new nuclear power costs within a few years. I would presume that a cost like towing the turbine into place is taken into account.

Capt'n Midnight

Oldtree wrote: »

They did insinuate in the article that the costs were falling and they expect the cost to be below new nuclear power costs within a few years. I would presume that a cost like towing the turbine into place is taken into account.

I wouldn't consider Nuclear to be a good cost comparison. It's roadkill. Big, slow, late, outages can last years, cost rises, and the clean up costs aren't getting cheaper. (and the UK gets a special prize for leaving Euroatom )

The UK strike price of 9.25p a unit , with lots of subsidies for a project that's recently had 7% cost overruns. Solar and wind are falling. Bord Na Mona is even installing solar panels in bogs.


Things like this or pumped storage or demand shedding that make the fixed baseload and slow response of Nuclear or needing pylons to remote locations or the loss of a large power plant because of a transformer fire or jellyfish less of a problem also work well for renewables.

Floating wind turbines exist for Nimby's or places where there's a lack of land or shallow water.

Oldtree

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

I wouldn't consider Nuclear to be a good cost comparison. It's roadkill. Big, slow, late, outages can last years, cost rises, and the clean up costs aren't getting cheaper.

Floating wind turbines exist for Nimby's or places where there's a lack of land or shallow water.

There are no plans for us to disconnect from the UK power connections or decrease our use of their power. The UK is expanding its number of nuclear power stations. So it is a good cost comparison for us and the UK.

Are you an imby? Would you like one of those huge 175m turbine farms outside your back door. I think the answer you are looking for is no. You want it out of your sight in the middle of a bog. So why not out of sight offshore?

Markcheese

Maybe we should have a dual electricity pricing system, you register as a nimby or a status quoist.. And pay accordingly 😌
. So if you want no pylons, off shore wind turbines,no power station anywhere near you, nuclear (somewhere but not here), then you pay extra for" small " extra capital cost.. 😀 😀 😀

Oldtree

Markcheese wrote: »

Maybe we should have a dual electricity pricing system, you register as a nimby or a status quoist.. And pay accordingly 😌
. So if you want no pylons, off shore wind turbines,no power station anywhere near you, nuclear (somewhere but not here), then you pay extra for" small " extra capital cost.. 😀 😀 😀

Sounds like an idea that needs thrashing out. But I'm not sure it would work pitting neighbour against neighbour.

Capt'n Midnight

Oldtree wrote: »

There are no plans for us to disconnect from the UK power connections or decrease our use of their power. The UK is expanding its number of nuclear power stations. So it is a good cost comparison for us and the UK.

Are you an imby? Would you like one of those huge 175m turbine farms outside your back door. I think the answer you are looking for is no. You want it out of your sight in the middle of a bog. So why not out of sight offshore?

I live in a house with double glazing in an urban area not a million miles from 220KV pylons, a bit industrial and they ruin Longwave Radio reception when you get near them.

So yeah I've love to live somewhere where biggest problem was wind turbines on the horizon. Instead I'm subsidising that lifestyle.

Plant trees to hide the noise.


I don't see the need here to pay for millions of tonnes of floating islands and offshore work when the same could be done inshore on on land with the extra costs. TBH I'd like to see the money the Nimby's want for hiding pylons or offshoring windmills to also include undergrounding 220KV pylons near housing estates and the spend to be spread evenly per capita. Hint - there'll be hardly anything left for the Nimby's.

Like I said this is a solution better used elsewhere. But it's always nice to have alternatives.


There's lots of places along the East Coast ready for inshore wind farms.

Oldtree

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

I live in a house with double glazing in an urban area not a million miles from 220KV pylons, a bit industrial and they ruin Longwave Radio reception when you get near them.

So yeah I've love to live somewhere where biggest problem was wind turbines on the horizon. Instead I'm subsidising that lifestyle.

Plant trees to hide the noise.


I don't see the need here to pay for millions of tonnes of floating islands and offshore work when the same could be done inshore on on land with the extra costs. TBH I'd like to see the money the Nimby's want for hiding pylons or offshoring windmills to also include undergrounding 220KV pylons near housing estates and the spend to be spread evenly per capita. Hint - there'll be hardly anything left for the Nimby's.

Like I said this is a solution better used elsewhere. But it's always nice to have alternatives.


There's lots of places along the East Coast ready for inshore wind farms.

Done the pylons thing in London along with a motorway a short distance away and a train station at the end of the 40 foot garden.

I've also had the experience of living within 800 m of a quarry where the digger was going 13-14 hours a day weeks on end for years. You could hear the digger scraping and rockbreaking constantly outside the house. We shared the bedrock so the low level hum of the diggers engine and rockbreaking rat a tat tat reverberated up inside the house at 3 times the volume that it was outside. There was no escape.

You would not want the low level hum of a massive turbine in your life. Introduce an incessant hum into your life for a few months and see how you would love it then.

Ps I'm all for undergrounding the electric network. Its already being done in some countries but not here. Wonder why?

BloodBath

Oldtree wrote: »

Just seen an article about this so don't know a huge amount of detail yet but It seems like a very interesting development and one that perhaps would suit us here.

But what really caught my eye was this:



World's first floating wind farm emerges off coast of Scotland -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40699979

The price to build might be lower than nuclear upfront but the returns on investment aren't. A 2.6GW nuclear reactor would cost around 8 billion but returns 250 million + a year in profit with a 70-80 year lifespan.

These turbines last 20-25 years at best and will not even cover the costs of building them. These offshore ones are even less economical and "green" than land based ones. It's a complete sham.

Industrial solar and wind farms are not the answer to Ireland's energy requirements. Rather than building big solar or wind farms we should be pushing for household panels to boost the grid and using nuclear to power Dublin.

Capt'n Midnight

BloodBath wrote: »

The price to build might be lower than nuclear upfront but the returns on investment aren't. A 2.6GW nuclear reactor would cost around 8 billion but returns 250 million + a year in profit with a 70-80 year lifespan.

LOL

Seriously ?

Profit for whom ????


Nuclear doesn't do On Time, On Budget

You just can't do nuclear power on the cheap. It's that simple.

You can pretend to do nuclear on the cheap, but the time scales involved mean there's a lot of accounting handwaving and ignoring subsidies like disposal costs. Nuclear in the US has a long history of non-nuclear problems too, like boiler pipe corrosion , transformer failures. The difference with nuclear is that you loose more of your grid in one go.

And don't get me started on jellyfish.
It's another of those problems that the nuclear industry ignores until it's too late.

These turbines last 20-25 years at best and will not even cover the costs of building them. These offshore ones are even less economical and "green" than land based ones. It's a complete sham.

After 20 years you can refurbish a windfarm for a fraction of their original cost.

EDF started building a power station in Finland in 2005. It might open next year, if there aren't yet more delays. A wind farm would have been built and paid for by then. Also they are carbon neutral in months. I can't imagine the Finnish EPR being carbon neutral 20 years after construction started. Don't forget you have to include mining and repository inputs too.

Industrial solar and wind farms are not the answer to Ireland's energy requirements. Rather than building big solar or wind farms we should be pushing for household panels to boost the grid and using nuclear to power Dublin.

Please explain just how much spinning reserve we'd have to provide backup for a modern nuclear reactor ?

Wind and solar are getting cheaper.
Nuclear isn't.



Floating wind farms are expensive. And not a practicable solution here yet. Concrete islands can last a long time though. And floating solar farms are an interesting option if you can find quiet water especially if evaporation is a problem. One of the limiting factors with fish farms is that warm water can't hold as much oxygen so shade may be useful for them.

BloodBath

Profit as in payment received for energy vs operating costs. A 2.6GW reactor makes around €250+ million a year net profit. That's roughly 20 billion over it's 70-80 year lifespan. This is after operation and fuel costs.

The French reactor I spoke of was meant to cost 3.5 billion. It was way over schedule and cost but it will still be more cost effective than solar or wind.

I don't know about spinning reserve. I assume its to do with downtime. Downtime is obviously a big problem with a large centralised high output reactor. Multiple smaller ones and energy storage solutions are a workaround. I don't have all the answers but I do know solar and wind will never provide the energy needs of Ireland in their current state.

Wait for them to improve the tech before heavily investing in it.

The extra load on the grid that EV's will cause is going to be huge. The majority of energy usage is from vehicles. Going from fossil fuels to electric is going to massively increase electricity demands. Where is this going to come from? Wind farms? I don't think so.

They can get as cheap as you want but the land is not there for them to generate the amount of energy we will need within the next 23 years. That's a simple fact. So either offshore tech needs to massively improve and get cheaper or we go nuclear or we import it all.

Capt'n Midnight

BloodBath wrote: »

Profit as in payment received for energy vs operating costs. A 2.6GW reactor makes around €250+ million a year net profit. That's roughly 20 billion over it's 70-80 year lifespan. This is after operation and fuel costs.

It's very easy to make a profit when you sell at a price over twice the market average and don't have to worry about being flexible like all the other operators do.

Here the grid can accommodate up to 60% renewables. IIRC the future target is 75%. That means that other operators have to pay attention the the 5 day weather forecasts and bid accordingly. Nuclear is only "economic" if running at least 80% of the time and can have long restart times so would have to bid very low at times.

I don't know about spinning reserve. I assume its to do with downtime. Downtime is obviously a big problem with a large centralised high output reactor. Multiple smaller ones and energy storage solutions are a workaround.

It's a HUGE subsidy for nuclear. Other renewables need far less spinning reserve.

Under the Irish grid rules if that 2.6GW plant went off line then you have FIVE SECONDS to find up to 1.95GW replacement power. (Compare that to the FIVE DAY wind forecast and maximum outage of 130MW if an entire farm fails at peak output) Usually that's provided by open cycle gas turbines running at reduced power, and that's a lot less efficient than closed cycle. Also at present the rules only cover for 0.325GW + 0.125GW reserve so lots of extra infrastructure and subsidies needed.

Operational Constraints
http://www.eirgridgroup.com/site-files/library/EirGrid/OperationalConstraintsUpdateVersion1_50_March_2017_Final.pdf
Combined MW output of
OCGTs must be less than
473MW (out of a total of
798MW) in Ireland at all
times. Required for
replacement reserve. The
MW values are subject to
change as availability of
the units change.



Was wondering how long it would take to drag out the "smaller reactors". The short answer is they aren't economic. That's why you are talking about a 2.6GW plant in the first place.

note : the navies of US, UK and France have been used hundreds of relatively safe , small ( 300MW ) self contained reactors which need minimal refuelling, since the 1950's. Compared to the prototype nuclear power plants with teething problems currently under construction it's reliable off the shelf kit. If they were remotely economic for grid use they'd already be used.