Analyses carried out by the Carbon Trust over the past five years, show innovation can dramatically reduce costs. Opportunities lie across the offshore wind energy supply chain, through to the deployment and operation of the thousands of offshore turbines that will be built as far as 290 kilometres from the coast. Our Offshore Wind Accelerator R&D programme aims to reduce costs by at least 10 per cent.
New foundations needed for turbines
One area where innovation is critical is in turbine foundation design. Of the wind farms built off the UK coast in the next ten years, 70 per cent will be in water over 30 metres deep, and some will need to cope with depths in excess of 60 metres. German developers face similar challenges. The traditional monopole design becomes very costly in deep waters. Equally, different subsea soil conditions mean there is no ‘one size fits all’ answer: a range of new technologies is needed.
In addition, optimising the layout of wind farms is becoming increasingly important as farms get larger, and increased turbulence is created by the turbine blades. The biggest wind farms today have about 300 turbines, but Dogger Bank, a site that is due to be developed in the middle of the North Sea, could have as many as 2,500. It is critical that the wind farm layout is optimised to maximise electricity generation.
The next generation of wind farms, built further offshore where conditions are harsher, will also pose problems in transferring engineers and equipment safely from boats to wind turbines. This becomes very challenging 300 kilometres from the coastline, in turbulent sea conditions. New technology must be developed and adapted, but dealing with this problem could boost the economics of offshore wind by as much as £3 billion in the UK alone.
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Source: http://www.offshorewind.biz/