Britain launches pioneering large-scale wind farm project

London - Britain Tuesday launched an ambitious and controversial offshore wind farm project hailed as a strategic milestone towards the production of renewable energy at industrial level. A undated handout image provided by German energy giant E.ON of the E.ON Windpark Scroby Sands, Great Yarmouth, Britain. A consortium led by German power giant E.ON announced 12 May 2009 that world‘s largest offshore wind farm, with a projected energy generation of 1 gigawatt, will be built off the coast of south-east Britain. EPA/E.ON/HO

A undated handout image provided by German energy giant E.ON of the E.ON Windpark Scroby Sands, Great Yarmouth, Britain. A consortium led by German power giant E.ON announced 12 May 2009 that world‘s largest offshore wind farm, with a projected energy generation of 1 gigawatt, will be built off the coast of south-east Britain. EPA/E.ON/HO The London Array project, which envisages the construction of up to 341 giant turbines in the Thames Estuary off the coast of south-east Britain, is set to become the world's largest offshore wind farm and the first with a capacity of more than 1 gigawatt, operators said. German energy giant E.ON, one of the project's main backers, said construction of the first phase, involving 175 turbines, would start later this year and could be generating power in time for the 2012 London Olympic Games. E.ON and its partners DONG Energy of Denmark and Masdar of Abu Dhabi will invest 2.2 billion euros (3 billion dollars) into building the first 630-megawatt phase of the wind farm near the coastal city of Southend. Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the 'flagship project' would play a key role in Britain's drive to cut CO2 emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. Britain would become a world leader in offshore wind farms, creating jobs and prosperity for the economy as it moved into a low carbon future, Brown said. The project will be sited over an area of 230 square kilometres, some 20 kilometres off the coast of Kent and Essex. It is estimated to displace the emission of 1.9 million tonnes of CO2 every year. It is scheduled to supply enough power for around 750,000 households, which would fulfil 25 per cent of the requirements of all homes in the Greater London area. 'The partners are satisfied that the project is now financially viable and are now keen to push ahead with construction and to produce the first renewable power in 2012,' the firms said in a statement. E.ON chief executive Wulf Bernotat described the London Array project as a 'key milestone' in the ambitious strategy to take the production of renewable energy to an industrial level. 'With this pioneering scheme, we see a significant increase in scale for offshore wind and also for E.ON as we aim to become the world's largest offshore wind farm developer,' he said. Sultan al-Jaber, the chief executive of Masdar, said the leadership of Abu Dhabi recognized the importance of global collaboration in the development of renewable energy on a large scale. 'The London Array represents Masdar's strategic approach to renewable energy, whereby real partnerships are formed between government and the private sector,' he said. The project would take renewable energy further down the path to widespread global adoption, added al-Jaber. The project had been on a knife edge since Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell withdrew from it in 2008, but received fresh impetus from considerable British government budget commitments to the promotion of green energy. E.ON holds a share of 30 per cent in the project, with DONG Energy holding 50 per cent and Masdar 20 per cent. 'This is another green light for green energy. It's a vote of confidence in the support the government has put into backing renewable energy,' Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband said. Energy production from giant wind farms has been controversial in Britain, especially in Scotland, where dozens of projects have become subject to planning inquiries and legal disputes. However, environmental group Greenpeace Tuesday praised the 'cutting-edge' project and urged the government to promote an even faster development of the wind industry. 'The UK has the best renewable energy resources in Europe, and the know-how to harvest it. The London Array should be the start of a major expansion of offshore wind to help power Britain,' said Greenpeace executive director John Sauven.

And Also

Look Back at the Worst Celebrity Breakups

Look Back at the Worst Celebrity Breakups - PopEater
360 Live support now available via Apple App Store - The Tech Herald
Avatar Jumps From 60 Minutes To MTV - Cinema Blend
Guide to Avoiding Red Carpet Faux Pas - PopEater
A&E series 'Hoarders' and 'Intervention' premiere Monday, Nov. 30th, preview

Your Talkback on this Story

Latest Headlines in Science

Older Talkback

page: 1

TruebritMay 16th, 2009 - 10:36:49

Well, on the face of it this seems like good news. So of course it isn’t. The trouble lies in the limitations of wind powered generation itself. Firstly, The power of moving air is proportional to the cube of its frequently changing velocity. Halve the windspeed and maximum potential power input reduces eightfold; and wind turbines are able to harness only a fraction of the available power anyway. This is why Wind turbines are so susceptible to windspeed changes.

In practical terms, a turbine running at near 100% rated capacity in an approx 30mph blow drops to under half of that if the windspeed reduces by a third. On average, given our weather, with everything from howling gales too high for them to operate at all, down to light airs and flat calms when they don’t work anyway, their output has been assessed at anything between 15% and 35% of their rated capacity. “ Big wind” evaluations in Europe assess the figure at approx. 25%: The UK Government expects 30% for off-shore wind. Air densities over the sea are higher than ashore.

Let’s be generous and assume they’re right. Even the increased future wind speeds predicted for southern England imply a ceiling of between 10% and 15% of our total requirements for wind generated electricity (See Sharman, Proceedings of Nov 2005). The currently planned offshore windfarms have a total rated capacity of 33GW. In fact, about 10GW average is the most we can expect from them.

It gets worse. The wind does not blow conveniently at times of peak demand. Not even in a British winter. Electricity suppliers like EON have stated that they will need over 90% back-up in the form of more reliable power generation in order to be sure of meeting demand.

The final problem, as usual, is cost. Not only is the projected cost of build, currently at around £66 billion, enormous, but through life maintenance costs of the entire infrastructure are high compared to existing types of power and the working life of the turbines is assessed at only 20 years or so. Even the huge quoted build cost excludes the additional system of cables, substations, etc that will have to be specially constructed to bring the power onshore and distribute it through the grid. Based on build costs, and estimated actual, as opposed to rated capacity assessments of the true price of wind generated electricity have been as high as £14m/MW.

Compare all this to Nuclear power, another carbon neutral form of electricity generation. The Nuclear option is itself expensive, yet Nuclear plant can produce power at levels above 95% of rated capacity. Recent projected rises in the costs of nuclear build, which is estimated at £4.8bn for a 1.6GW reactor would imply, assuming no more than around 1.4GW per hour as average output, a cost of around £4.20m/MW. (business.timesonline.co.uk)

The other problems associated with wind are absent too. Nuclear is reliable. Output can be increased or decreased rapidly to meet peaks and troughs in demand. Plant constructed on existing sites would have some of the required infrastructure already in place. Maintenance costs are lower. The service life is at least twice as long. The money that has to be set aside for decommissioning is currently about £0.50/MWh, or just over £6million a year for the 1.6GW reactor cited above. Much of the storage currently taking place is associated with the weapons industry, and modern reactors produce far less waste than earlier ones anyway. As a percentage of total costs it is miniscule. In fact, the true overall cost of wind generators has been estimated at 4 to 6 times greater than that for nuclear plant.

There is another option too. Britain is an island and the tide, with one of the higher ranges on earth, comes in and goes out twice a day. Tidal power is far dearer than either wind or nuclear to develop, but combines the advantages of both, without either’s perceived drawbacks. Projects like a Severn Estuary or Morecambe Bay barrage would be years in completing and require immense amounts of capital, but once in place would supply enormous power reliably and without generating dangerous waste to upset stupid Guardian readers. Like the nuclear option, the government has ducked it, so we’re set to have thousands of bloody windmills put up round our coast. As my “informed source” put it: “Would you buy a Kettle if it took three times as long to make the tea as advertised, only worked an average one day in two, and you couldn’t tell in advance when that would be anyway?”

Science

Science News

Britain launches pioneering large-scale wind farm project

And Also

Your Talkback on this Story

Similar articles

Latest Headlines in Science

Older Talkback

From Sites we Like

In Monsters and Critics

Corporate

The Fine Print