World's largest offshore wind farm

[jjasniew]

...is nearly complete - can power 1 million homes. I read "the blades cover an area bigger than the London Eye observation wheel as they turn. Just a single rotation of one of the turbines can power the average home for an entire day"

Makes me wonder what fraction of the recent atmospheric turmoil caused by humanity's pollution is "reinvested" and if there's any "compounding" toward helping to clean up some of the mess. It's probably unmeasurable.

Congrats to the UK and Orsted, the Danish energy company that built it. Certainly a (gigantic) step in the right direction.

 

[Bonsai]

Yeah - it starts about 20 km off the north coast where I live. The turbines are truly massive.

 

[Cal Weldon]

No link?

 

[martin clark]

Hornsea One
The world's largest offshore wind farm is nearly complete - CNN

On windy days UK wind farms delivers >1/4 the nations power; at best, UK solar can add c 20% again. Massive growth on the last 10years in these sectors.

Realtime (last 10-minute summary derived from UK National Grid data export) available as convenient graphs here:

G. B. National Grid status

All UK coal-fired power stations will be gone by 2025; that's down from a solid 40-50% av contribution in under 15 years; as it is, today the max coal-fired output possible is just under c. 6% of peak demand.

 

[scottjoplin]

It'll be interesting to watch those needles over the coming weekend

 

[Tromperie]

How long will it take to recoup the energy investment?
What provides the stable frequency with which it must sync?
What are the percentage transmission losses from those distance?
What will be the effects on flying fauna?
What will be the effects of the energy losses in the atmosphere?
How long will they last?
What is the ROI?
I'll stop there.

 

[martin clark]

Easy answer: good enough there's massive investment behind it.
1. Last study I saw, like solar, the total embodied energy is tiny compared with lifetime
Output - order of weeks.
2
Grid sync inverters, check, U.K. Grid freq is v stable and local failures almost unknown ( not had one interruption in 15 yrs at my location).
2A Acceptable / HVDC transmission drives it into the long grass / 10ths of a %.HVDC inversion tech is outstanding these days; uk already has 4GW of HVDC links with Europe, running bi-directional, too.
3. A long -debunked myth on onshore wind power; and these farms in uk are way offshore, so no issue.
4. Utterly utterly negligable perhaps more likely useful to extract!
5. 20-30yr design life; but usu modular/ servicable. The big advances the HVDC inverter tech has allowed, is getting-rid of the gearbox, the most failure-prone part.
6. Massive or none would invest in it. The best measure is the break even rate per MWH, and that's now well below $58/MwH in the UK market for unsubsidised offshore wind. Essentially, halved in a decade overall.

 

[Cal Weldon]

Thank you Martin, for both the link and for answering the questions so patiently. Perhaps I don't quite understand your comment on the unintentional culling of birds but fair to say that anyone who owns a cat and allows it outdoors is far more a concern than a wind turbine.

EDIT: I am thinking your clever numbering threw me off a bit.

 

[martin clark]

Cal I'd typed in the response! Realised I'd missed an aspect, hacked in a '2a/3 edit that doesnt align with questions asked: apologies all.

To be clear, the impact on fauna question is long de-bunked for on-land wind turbines; and there are many formal studies made for offshore farms & required long ahead of acceptance for permits in the uk.

 

[Cal Weldon]

Well, not birds but I'm still worried about the reindeer attempting take off too close to the blades and getting caught up. Has there been any research into that do you know?

 

[raffajaffa]

List of offshore wind farms in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia
Obviously we do not produce anywhere near the amount of electric power as USA Coal fired burners and we also spend a lot more effort on energy reduction per person. Which is almost as important. However the use of air conditioning in the uk will probaly increase as the rate of global warming effect of carbon fuels increases again.

Guess where this is going.

 

[scottjoplin]

Well, not birds but I'm still worried about the reindeer attempting take off too close to the blades and getting caught up. Has there been any research into that do you know?

There is no actual migration of reindeer between Britain and Scandinavia, however this coming weekend any that become airborne in the Cairngorms could get blown towards the turbines

 

[Bonsai]

I wish they’d rescuer the the Severn Estuary power generation thing. It got shelved a few years ago, but has the
It’d rial to supply 10% of the UK’s energy demands. But, it requires the estuary to be dammed and the damn to be fitted with turbines. Tide comes in, generates power. Tide goes out, same again.

 

[Galu]

A Swedish study shows that reindeer prefer to be out of sight of wind farms.

The results also revealed a shift in home range selection away from habitats where wind turbines became visible toward habitats where the wind turbines were obscured by topography (increase in use by 79% at 5 km).

 

[Cal Weldon]

There is no actual migration of reindeer between Britain and Scandinavia

You realize only eight are related to Santa, right? That leaves the others to continue their regular jobs and TBH, I am more worried about them than any other flying species including bats and pterodactyls, that might encounter night-flight difficulties due to a lack of adaptation.

 

[scottjoplin]

You realize only eight are related to Santa, right?

Santa is a reindeer?

 

[AllenB]

1 million homes

174 seven-megawatt wind turbines

1.2kW each

What are the percentage transmission losses from those distance?

..and can they even maintain 7MW on average

Does the average home get by on 1/2 kW?

 

[billshurv]

What provides the stable frequency with which it must sync?

The UK grid, once running is self sustaining and the operators have to keep it within a gnat's chuff of 50Hz. If we have a blackout there are a number of sites that can jump start the grid, the most famous being Dinorwig in Wales. Luckily it's not had to be tested recently. But we did have a bit of a wobble last August with a 5% load dump even caused partly by Hornsea. Was embarassing as a load of electric trains wouldn't restart without a technician (discussed on here somewhere). Hopefully a rare event as it can provide (with right wind) more power than the UK spinning backup so trips in the future could prove entertaining.

fair to say that anyone who owns a cat and allows it outdoors is far more a concern than a wind turbine.

Recent research suggests that cats are less of a problem than thought and generally only catch old or sick birds as the healthy ones are too quick for them.

Yeah - it starts about 20 km off the north coast where I live. The turbines are truly massive.

When I visit my mother take the kids to the beach at Hunstanton and they are optically confusing as you've got no real scale to compare to work out how far away they are and therefore how huge.


What interests me is what will move in under the water. Generally anything manmade in the sea becomes a habitat.

 

[Refugee1]

There is plenty of on shore wind turbines in the UK rust belt many being visible from the main roads.
Down south they pay for boat trips to go and see a dozen or so turbines in the English channel off Brighton while we can see them for free.
There is one 5 miles from my home.
Google Maps
Solar panels are a bit closer to home.
There is a 30 acre site about a mile away.
The bureaucrats took so long to grant permission for the construction based on panel area that the bureaucracy itself produced a carbon footprint
The panels were out of production and they had a permit for a fixed area connected to a feed powering a small stud farm. The technology had improved massively while they were waiting.
The contractors just fitted the new ones and got paid quick before the summer.
It was BBQ copper topped with melted vinyl.
The power company had to fix it with a bigger drop cable.

 

[billshurv]

I can see a wind turbine out my kitchen window. It's in the business park where I work. From the era of grant farming and is the least efficient wind turbine in the UK!