Offshore Wind - Now a Big Deal in Europe in 2011 and Beyond

The Sprogo wind farm in Denmark, deliberately placed next to a major bridge across "The Great Belt", where they can be seen, composed 7 x Vestas 3 MW x V90 turbines with gravity foundations. This stretch of water does freeze over in cold winters (http://www.helcom.dk/ice_breaking/icebreaking_main.htm). See http://www.4coffshore.com/windfarms/sprogo-denmark-dk12.html and http://www.sundogbaelt.dk/uk.

Introduction
Installing wind turbines in shallow waters near land has been done as an experimental project since 1991 (those 11 x 450 kw units in the Vindeby wind farm are still operating, btw). However, these days it is a really big deal, with over $US 25 billion worth UNDER CONSTRUCTION, and over 4000 MW (4GW) now operating, involving an investment of close to $US 12 billion, and producing an average of close to 1.3 GW on an average continual basis. In 2011, a bit more than 1 GW of capacity will be brought on line, worth about $US 5 billion. Over half a trillion dollars worth of permitted or in the process of getting approvals projects. The offshore wind installation business is now touted as one of the MAJOR job creating pushes for Europe for the next 20 years. Got the picture?

And to the bosses at NYPA, a few questions. Are you proud of yourselves, yet over you decision to make NY State irrelevant in the offshore wind industry? After all, your efforts at quashing offshore wind in NY State for once and for all (despite claims to the contrary about try # 3 near Long Island) could be a veritable fountain of gold for the natural gas business in NY State, and a major hurt to NY's natural gas and electricity consumers, too.... How does it feel to be such an aid and comfort to the natural gas industry and the associated financial speculators who live on betting on future methane prices, while the job creation potential of offshore wind in NY State (several times that of the frackers, and not even an environmental threat like fracking for gas and oil is) gets the "bug on a windshield" treatment... Happy now?

Discussion
Last week, there was a major offshore wind energy conference in Amsterdam - "Offshore 2011", sponsored by the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) - see http://www.offshorewind2011.info/. The events have grown from 150 participants in 2002 to the 8200 or more attendees plus lots of exhibition space and exhibitors. And also, there was some intense marketing and sales efforts , with several tens of billions of dollars in direct sales, and more than that set up in the near future. And in conjunction with this event EWEA put out a great report detailing the current state of the business and future trends - see http://www.ewea.org/fileadmin/ewea_documents/documents/publications/reports/23420_Offshore_report_web.pdf (93 pages, but easy to understand).

One part of the executive summary really caught my eye - by 2030, an estimated 300,000 Europeans will be employed making and installing offshore wind turbines. And due to the high multiplier effect that goes with such jobs, this will directly and indirectly employ close to 1.5 million other people. By 2020, the (at least) 40 GW of installed capacity will be making over 16 GW of electricity on an average basis, or more than the output of 16 x 1.1 GW nukes. Or, put another way, that is a lot of avoided imported natural gas and coal, a lot of avoided CO2 pollution, and a lot of wealth creation. And a lot of avoided new nukes, too.... which IS a good thing.

In fact, the strong desire by the German population to dump nukes has made followers out of the presently politically and economically conservative German leaders. Ever since the various Fukushima reactor hydrogen gas explosions, nukes have been about as popular in much of Europe as syphilis and AIDS put together. So that leads to the next question - where to get the ~ 10 GW of electricity now made by Germany's still operating nukes within 10 years, and how to do so without burning any more natural gas or coal? Germany has a pretty crappy onshore wind resource, at least compared to the U.S., and even with almost 28 GW in onshore wind turbine capacity in a country of 85 million people, more electricity is needed. And while lots of progress has been made in the PV industry in Germany thanks to Feed-In Laws (same for wind and biogas), the solar resource in Germany is even crappier than is the average onshore wind resource. Well, their portion of the North Sea and to a lesser extent, the Baltic Sea, has excellent wind resources - notoriously so for the North Sea, where winds average between 9 to 11 m/s at 100 meters above the surface. And so, that's where the wind turbines are going, using turbines with capacities ranging from 3 MW to 7 MW, despite the pain and high cost of installing them. And since the North Sea is pretty shallow, these units will be installed on foundations attached to the seabed and sticking about 45 feet to 60 feet above the average surface of the water (wave height considerations).

At present, the UK has more offshore turbine capacity installed than any other country - almost 1.8 GW, and 11 of the biggest 25 offshore installations are located in British waters. And there are very impressive amounts of offshore wind turbine arrays being installed around the British Isles, including the 1 GW London Array. However, Germany will soon be catching up, with several 400 MW sized installations, as well as a recently announced 576 MW (96 x 6 MW) project by Vattenfall costing nearly $US 2.6 billion - see http://www.powerengineeringint.com/articles/2011/11/vattenfall-to-build-576-mw-north-sea-wind-farm.html. Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.... most of them difficult to outsource, and ones where quality counts (and this excludes China a significant extent).

Here is another summary of this event by one of key participants - http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2011/12/2/162029/490. It is centered around the second major floating turbine demonstration - this one of a 2 MW Vestas V80 wind turbine attached to a triangular floating support, installed offshore of Portugal, where waters are deep, but winds are generally impressive. The first one was the "Hywind" floating spar unit installed in 180 meters of water in Norway, using a Siemens 2.3 MW turbine (summer of 2009, and still going strong). There is a huge potential combination of near shore, deep water, fast wind arrangements where the traditional offshore foundations (monopile, tripod, gravity caison, jacket) that will only work in depths up to 50 meters are not appropriate in deeper water. In the Great Lakes, this especially means Lakes Michigan, Ontario and Superior, where floating turbines would be a great way to make electricity. Most of the entire west coast of the U.S., and a lot of the Gulf of Maine, are also perfect for floating turbines.

So in conclusion, how's the local job scene on the southern side of The Great Lakes these days? Not so good, right? So much potential, so much underused capacity to build stuff, so many people who could be making and installing non-polluting offshore wind farms, and onshore ones, too, but who instead are also being treated similar to the bug on a windshield, only maybe with less respect. And yes, all those offshore wind arrays will probably raise the price of electricity a bit, but the job creation, the benefits of making electricity without pollution (especially nuke fallout...), and alleviating the need to export massive troves of treasure to pay for imported fossil fuels more than compensates for the higher price.

And unlike the U.S, most of this offshore electricity will be sold without subsidies and on a cost plus reasonable return basis, with prices set via Feed-In Tariffs or the result of long term Power Purchase Agreements from successful bidders on these projects. As it turns out, when you get efficient with electricity and concentrate on the jobs made by manufacturing renewable energy systems, the economic benefits vastly outweigh those from cheaper generated electricity prices. And of course, a lot of those cheaper prices are a temporary mirage, all related to what are for now manifestations of natural gas being sold below its replacement cost.

How's that for a way to introduce the windiest month of the year in Buffalo?

DB