The Carbon Trust has been running a competition for new designs for craft supporting the operation of offshore wind installations. Yesterday it announced the finalists in the various categories and since then we have been in touch with them for full access to images and videos, since these developments are central to Argyll’s future provision for the industry.
The competition – the Offshore Wind Accelerator Access Competition – was focused on the North Sea, since its relative shallowness makes it the immediate preferred location for developers. While west coast and Atlantic conditions are different in nature and degree, they are sufficiently similar in some respects and almost exactly similar in service need. This makes it particularly interesting to see what categories of resource the Carbon Trust sees as central in structuring its competition – and to see what sort of solutions are there in the selected designs.
Today’s offshore wind farms are typically less than 25km offshore in relatively benign sea conditions, and consist of up to 100 turbines. Maintenance is possible in boats about 90% of the time when wave heights are up to about 1.5m. The new ‘Round 3’ offshore wind projects will be as far as 300km offshore in rougher sea conditions, and may consist of as many as 2,500 turbines. At these sites, today’s access systems would only allow transfers about 210 days a year. The aim of the competition is to find concepts that can be commercialised to make transfers possible for a minimum of 300 days a year.
The competition is therefore centred on operational and maintenance support systems for offshore wind farms (or ‘parks’, as is the current spin) and not on installations. The oil industry has already driven the development of specialist craft – like anchor handlers and cable layers – to support offshore installations and these will either serve as they are or with any necessary modifications. A visist to Aberdeen Harbour to see the types of craft operating in support of the North Sea oil industry is instructive and addictively interesting.
The winners will each receive £100,000 of development funding; and the entries vary in presentational sophistication – worth looking at for its own sake, some seeming to show working prototypes, some taken to animated demonstrations of performance and some at the concept level.
The competition
The aim of the competition project is to improve the economics of the offshore wind industry by keeping turbines generating electricity in the harshest sea conditions to increase revenues by as much as £3bn for the next generation of the UK’s offshore wind farms.
The Carbon Trust, through its Offshore Wind Accelerator programme, is leading an industry collaboration of eight UK wind farm developers – E.ON, DONG Energy, Mainstream Renewable Power, RWE Innogy, ScottishPower Renewables, SSE Renewables, Statkraft and Statoil – in a focus on making a dramatic reduction in the costs of offshore wind.
This co-funded industry collaboration employed a technically rigorous process to select the final 13 designs from 450 submissions from around the world – from Australia, Canada, Demmark, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Scotland and the UK. The technical merit of these 13 concepts suggests they have the best chances of successfully driving down cost.
The Carbon Trust’s Benj Sykes, Director of Innovation, says of the competition: ‘We’ve trawled the globe looking for revolutionary new ideas that can transfer engineers safely in the huge swells around the UK’s coasts. People have been building boats for thousands of years, but we’ve seen some truly radical departures from what you would think a boat should look like. These designs could significantly improve the economics of offshore wind and keep our engineers safe far out to sea. Our analysis shows offshore wind is a huge green growth opportunity which could create up to 230,000 jobs in the UK by 2050.’
The finalists
The categories into which the selected final deigns fall are:
- Vessels – for transporting personnel and equipment from permanent bases or mother ships to turbines, incorporating a transfer system.
- Transfer systems – to transfer personnel and equipment from vessel to turbine, potentially with motion-compensation
- Launch and Recovery systems – systems fitted to the permanent bases or mother ships for launching and recovering daughter craft from the sea.
The categories alone give us a sense of what this industry must combat to operate and how it plans to do so. It is looking at mother ships, semi permanent offshore bases acting as a resource for the resource suppliers.
It is confronting the serious physical difficulties of moving personnel and equipment to and from a fixed platform or ladder from a craft moving from trough to peak of 3 metre waves. No small challenge. This involves two approaches – designing craft for as much stability as possible in steep sea conditions; and designing devices to assist and secure such transfers.
It’s all genuinely fascinating.
One finalist (the UK’s Houlder TAS – Turbine Access System – above) has a boat docking with a turbine ladder like a space shuttle to the space station – bow on – and then deploys a bow gangway that is motion compensated – meaning the end stays in a fixed position relative to the ladder despite the fall and rise of the host craft.
It seems to us that this is manageable for boat to ladder transfer but would be much more difficult from ladder to boat, when the person to make the transfer is necessarily facing inwards. Watch the animation.
Generally speaking, getting off looks a lot more hairy than getting on from a ship. This same problem may affect transfers made from another design concept (Germany’s MOTS – or Momac Offshore Transfer System – above) - a large bionic arm whose ‘hand’ is a cage. Sheathed against salt water, it looks like a nodding donkey in a wet suit. The ‘arm’ installation seems to be set on a platform independently stabilised from the boat, dampening the lateral movement coming from the boat. With this device, the arm is reached upwards and outwards within its tolerances, towards a fixed platform from which the person or equipment is loaded and secured. The simulation for this is very clever and worth watching.
With stability in steep seas a core challenge, one extraordinary concept (Canada’s Transpar) – described as a sort of seahorse – is for a super-deep keeled craft which itself stand on stilts proud of the water. The idea is that the weight and depth of the keep offers stability in these wave conditions; and the ‘stilts’ keep the craft itself clear of and above the waves – which seems possibly to be directed at reaching platforms relatively high above wave peaks.
This design includes the parallel concept for a mothership (above), operating on the same vertical .line and docking four of the craft on its central mast – looking like an offshore mobile phone transmitter.
The Transpar mothership facility could itself be supported by another finalist (Norway’s Offshore Kinetics Launch & Recovery System – above) – a giant mothership acting as a longer term homebase for engineers and with the an in-deck ship-lift and crane for a range of types of ‘daughter craft’ on and off its deck; and two helicopter landing decks for crew changes. This is aimed at enabling engineers to live on the mothership and be transported between it and the turbine towers at will by the daughter craft, with or without equipment.
There are also designs for a permanent dock sheltered in the semi-submersible stern cradle of a mother ship (Scotland’s Divex Launch & Recovery System, LARS – above); and for craft plying between a shore base and offshore wind farms. In this scenario, the challenge is making the transit as comfortable as possible, in awkward sea conditions, for those who are going to have to be able to get to work when they are transferred to the turbines. Some of these craft look familiar enough but are technically sophisticated. One design uses a variant of hovercraft technology.
Another (Australia’s Nauti-Craft – abovve) seems to blend existing technologies – independent suspension systems born of the design needs for Paris-Dakar rally cars (thumping across rolling moguls of desert stands), married – by the operations of four separate floats, each with independent suspension. The video animation for this device is fun to check out.
Implications for any Argyll renewables industry support harbour
It may well be that the revolutionary Transpar – or seahorse – proves viable for relatively stable operation in steep seas. While such craft are envisaged as operating from an offshore mothership, that mothership itself would need to come ashore. Even if independently deployed, the indivdual Transpars – or craft built on a similar principle – would need any ports used to offer both deep water to accommodate their keel depths and height above high water and below overhead structures like bridges, to allow for their towering presence above the water.
Safe clearance between high water and overhead structures is of general importance because the radar and communications masts of any offshore vessel require significant height. Look at tugs.
The nature and spectrum of these craft also give entrepreneurial Argyll businesses advance notice of the sort of shoreside repair and maintenance skills and facilities likely to be necessary to support these vessels.
This competition and the 13 finalists chosen, give all of us a glimpse into a future in which Argyll might be a senior player.
And not too far into the future we will be seeing the shortlist for Scotland’s visionary Saltire Prize – a single £10 million prize focused on inventions in marine energy generation aimed specifically at operability in Scottish waters.
NOTE: The Carbon Trust is a not-for-profit company with the mission to accelerate the move to a low carbon economy, providing specialist support to business and the public sector to help cut carbon emissions, save energy and commercialise low carbon technologies. By stimulating low carbon action it contributes to key UK goals of lower carbon emissions, the development of low carbon businesses, increased energy security and associated jobs.
It helps to cut carbon emissions now by providing specialist advice and finance to help organisations cut carbon. It sets standards for carbon reduction, It reduces potential future carbon emissions by opening markets for low carbon technologies. It leads industry collaborations to commercialise technologies, investing in early stage low carbon companies.
THE IMAGES: The images accompanying this article were supplied to us by The Carbon Trust. Those not identified in the text are, from and including the top:
- Norway’s Fjellstrand Windserver
- The Netherlands’ Zport
- Turbine Transfers
- The UK’s Pivoting Deck Vessel
- Norway’s Surface Effect Ship
Full details of these are on the Carbon Trust’s competition website page.
Damn! I thought that was the new Dunoon ferry!
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And the last image – presumably Norway’s surface effect ship – looks as if it might need a slightly bigger gun if it’s really to fulfil the need for something to blast wind towers out of the water if they’re a blot on the seascape, or haven’t paid rent to the Crown Estate.
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For Robert Wakeham: This gave us a really good grin.
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Presumably Donald Trump will be looking to purchase one
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Surely I cannot be the only person who thinks wind farms are stupid and off-shore ones doubly so.
“Maintenance is possible in boats about 90% of the time when wave heights are up to about 1.5m.” coupled with ‘the water level keeps going UP and DOWN due to tides’ tends to infuriate me. A major and constant energy source (water) is ignored due to the fact insufficient profit for mfrs can be gleaned, so we’re getting suckered into this wind farm nonsense.
I knocked together a generator driven by water flowing through my garden (thanks freecycle dunoon) which literally cost nothing. Now considering dropping a length of pipe into the sea outside my house. When the tide goes out, it will create a negative pressure in the pipe and when it comes in, a positive pressure in the pipe. Now, what could one do with this energy? Genuinely, it is not rocket science!
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For Grant Macdonald: We agree that the unbuttoned drive for wind is indiscriminate. We will need it but not at the level planned, given its degree of inefficiency.
Have you seen the plans for Tiree? One wind farm alone is planned to be five times the size of the island and starts only three miles offshore. Then there are two other wind farms and, later, a marine turbine farm. Together these will ring the little Atlantic island – and no one has any real idea what the impact of all these structures and operations will be on the marine environment with, among other things, Tiree on the orca migratory route.
The turbines are also to be up to 200m high and will ring the Skerryvore light, the most beautiful Stevenson lighthouse.
All of this is being done with no serious measured investigations and lost in an indefensible system which refuses to consider the impact of individual installations but only the west coast in its entirety.
While we have very real concerns on this, as anyone should have, we are not against the proposals per se – but we are appalled by the lack of interest in conducting the objective and intelligent research and analysis which could underpin the optimum decision – whatever that emerged as being.
With regard to the entries in this competition though – the human ingenuity and invention and the technological potential are energising in their own right.
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Not unlike one of the designs currently being trialled for wave-power. As the unit rises and falls on the waves it creates pressure in a pipe linking it to an onshore generator.
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Another article illustrating the utterly conflicted attitude of ForArgyll towards renewables.
The tip height of the Argyll Array turbines will only be 200m if they are 10MW machines – which have yet to be designed – and this would of course substantially reduce the number of turbines required – to 180 tops if the full 1.8GW capacity was built – so it is swings and roundabouts.
And there is in fact plenty of serious investigation going on into how this will affect the environment around Tiree – see the Scoping Opinion document at http://scottishpowerdownloads.opendebate.co.uk/downloads/Marine%20Scotland%20Scoping%20Opinion.pdf for more details.
The other developments referred to will not impact Tiree in any significant way AFAICS, so this is a bit of a red herring.
It is IMO ridiculous to write an enthusiastic article about devices designed to service offshore wind turbines then to in the same breath shoot the only serious imminent Scottish offshore wind proposal in flames. Time ForArgyll came off the fence – are you for or against large scale renewables, and if against what do you propose as an alternative to bring carbon emissions down?
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For Webcraft: we openly admit to being ‘utterly conflicted’ on wind power – but better wrestle publicly with that conflictedness than rush to an unevidenced premature conclusion.
As you know from our series of articles – and as will have horrified you (as well as ourselves), the brutality of the overall plan for the sea area around Tiree drove us for the first time to question the total cost/benefit of wind energy.
Worse, it led us to the previously unthinkable – in our own terms: seriously considering the nuclear option.
And then came Fukushima, with its gross reactor farm, its technical and operational weaknesses and its vulnerability to a variety of natural challenges.
We have no theoretical doubt about marine renewables because we feel that the payload is significantly better and the source relatively predictable – but wind? ‘Conflicted’ says it all.
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In fairness Newsroom, Fukushima stubbornly refused to be a disaster. The islands topography and zonal threats made the location a problem waiting to happen. Media hype seems to have turned the Tsunami disaster into a nuclear disaster.
Siting a generation plant in Scotland should be relatively easy as our country is well placed for such.
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Webcraft: ‘An alternative to bring carbon emissions down’? – Instead of throwing money at constructing and subsidising more unreliable windfarms invest it in providing utterly reliable tidestream power generation, many more small scale hydro power plants, some form of energy storage (maybe hydrogen production) to soak up the huge variations in wind power generation, much more insulation in older houses, more attractive public transport, much more tax on needlessly large and thirsty cars, and (much more difficult) long term drastic reduction in commuting to work and flying about the place for peanuts.
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Robert,
Your comments are valid except for one wee problem . . . tidal energy and hydrogen are barely out of the science fiction stage.
Tidal energy could have had a lot more money invested but wind was a proven technology so it is not unnatural that the energy companies went with that first. We are still at least two years away from the first 10MW grid connected tidal scheme in Scotland (The Sound of Islay scheme using a Norwegian turbine design). Meanwhile we already have over 2,500MW of wind power installed. Personally I believe that accelerating tidal technology with large tranches of public money would be a fine thing, but not many would agree.
As for hydrogen – the Hydrogen Office in Methil was a bold concept, but since opening in January there has been no news . . . government sponsored R&D in technologies that are stil a very long way from mass application is not a priority when money is tight. There seems to be little widespread support for hydrogen technology; although a few car manufacturers (notably Honda and BMW) are investing in hydrogen prototypes the majority seem to be going down the pure electric or petrol/electric hybrid technology route. It will be a few years yet before there are enough charging points for an electric vehicle to become practical for people living in rural Scotland, and much longer before we see hydrogen fuelling stations.
Cutting down on energy use is just not glamorous . . . perhaps it needs to be given a makeover as a concept. I agree with your idea of more tax on unnecessary fossil fuel consumption (large cars, air travel, ‘food miles’) – but so-called ‘green’ taxes are unpopular with the general public, many of whom remain unconvinced that we have a problem.
With green taxes aimed at changing behaviour unpopular and limited public funds to invest in R&D, wind is about the only thing that is actually working. People love to carp on about how ‘inefficient’ it is, but wind farm developers are fully aware that a load factor of 30% is a good result and the numbers and thinking are designed round this basic fact. It is not a terrible dark secret – or at least, not to those who know what they are talking about. People harp on about the ‘need for back-up’ – ignoring the fact that no form of generation has a 100% load factor and that when the turbines are turning they are generating low-carbon electricity. Others make outrageous statements about the time taken by a turbine to pay back the carbon costs of its manufacture and installation – figures plucked from the air when the real figures are readily available.
Nearly every anti-wind group in the country (and I am beginning to think we should count ForArgyll in this group) starts its campaign with some sort of statement to the effect that ‘We are not against renewables but we feel this development is inappropriate . . . .’. Then a few weeks later the campaign website is full of posts about ‘wind turbine syndrome’, the shocking ‘discovery’ about the load factor, the amazing revelation that sometimes here is no wind so no power is generated. Turbines are referred to as ‘bird mincers’, white elephants, and we are told we must preserve the countryside for our grandchildren. We are told terrible things about the energy companies – apparently some of them also operate nuclear power stations . . . then a couple of posts further on we will find a discussion about how nuclear power is the answer, quoting the previously reviled low carbon gurus Lynas and Monbiot who have recently changed their stance to pro-nuclear.
All the majority of windfarm antis care about AFAICS is their view and their property price, but instead of being honest and campaigning on these issues they feel obliged to rope in any and every daft theory and unsubstantiated claim in a nasty stew of tabloid half-truths. Before long they are quoting articles from the climate sceptic blogs and denying that there is actually a problem with carbon emissions. Soon posts appear saying that the whole greenhouse effect is a myth.
Wind is working for Scotland. The bigger offshore developments offer economies of scale that make sense. It isn’t perfect, and we need to pump much more money into wave, tidal and energy storage to rapidly accelerate the development of these. Perhaps this money should come from a levy or obligation on the part of wind companies to invest a certain percentage of wind-derived revenue in these other technologies.
As for the rape of the Scottish countryside – well, wind turbines only have a working life of 20 years before they need to be decomissioned or replaced, a much easier job than with other forms of power station. In 20 years time perhaps many of them will be removed as other forms of carbon-free generation come online – giving our grandchildren the countryside back. In the meantime, we have to do something and for now wind is mostly it. If we have to look at some turbines it doesn’t strike me as too much of a sacrifice.
Sorry, long rambling post . . . to sum up: protest about wind if you want, it is your democratic right – but don’t use half-truths and nonsense to spread global warming denial and complete inaction on carbon as a result. Let’s have some honesty from anti-wind groups about their motives. Perhaps they would gain more sympathy from those looking on from outside by putting something back into the debate with real, useful suggestions and local low-carbon initiatives.
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Webcraft: good points – the only clarification I’d make is to say that my mention of hydrogen was not with reference to using it to fuel cars; my understanding is that the idea would be to generate and store hydrogen fairly close to the windfarms at times of grid overload and then use it to power turbines to inject electricity into the grid when the wind’s insufficient or too strong to provide power.
What the implications would be in terms of size of development in the landscape I don’t know, but hopefully with good design it wouldn’t be objectionable. As a side effect there would be an end to the practice of paying lots of money to windfarms not to generate electricity when the grid can’t cope, and it would be good to know what stage the technology development has reached – I didn’t know of the office in Methil.
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Hydrogen would be better used to power a fuel cell that would produce electricity when the wind turbines aren’t operating. The Hydrogen Office building is an example of this. Another storage mechanism is to use the surplus electricity to grow algae that can then be used to make biodiesel (or aviation grade fuel). This can then be used in cars, HGVs boats, planes, diesel generators etc so rather more flexible and cheaper than hydrogen production and storage. Both techniques are pretty unobtrusive and take up only minimal areas. The technology to do this is rather more advanced than sciebce fiction but both technologies are quite expensive.
Scotland is blessed with a wealth of marine related renewables but we are being pretty unambitious if our only vision for that power is to merely warm the wires southward.
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I use the “what if” argument when it comes to this and it’s clear that if they’re right about global warming then the consequences will be major and not easily reversible. Believe or not believe, the consequences of being wrong make betting insane. So renewables it is!
We need to learn to love renewables in whatever form they take. As an ordinary punter, not schooled in the details of technology, I’ve often wondered why we don’t make wind turbines our own – make them something to love. Do they all have to be white? Can we have some blue ones with clouds on, or some done up like black-eyed susans or spinning birds? Or could we plant a broadleaf forest round the edges of every site? Or provide free energy for anyone living within, say, a one mile radius? Could we lead the deniers and nimbys into a debate which is more about creating something suited to their environment than making turbines someone else’s problem? Maybe the answer to most of these is no, but I just wonder if we had a bit less of science lessons and more of genuine and creative engagement whether we might improve the general attitude to these installations. If Tiree is to be imprisoned within a ring of white giants, then what can the giants provide that will radically improve the fortunes of the Tiree people? When we answer those questions we may have the start of renewable Scotland.
Meanwhile, brilliant article and great to see the commitment and energy that’s going into the industry.
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Anne,
I’ve voted SNP at every election since – well quite a long time ago – but am increasingly hesitant due to commitment given for nonsense ‘green’ initiatives for the Church of Global Warming.
These fly in the face of common sense, the actual climate we experience, and the fact a pseudo religion is growing around the subject.
Your use of the word ‘deniers’ leads one to suspect you will tend to ignore anyone with a contrary view which is a concern to me as a voter, given your position within the SNP.
My own efforts in ‘green’ energy are nothing to do with ‘green’. I simply want cheap energy (as do the voting public) and am exploring methods of doing it myself.
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It’s not a wise idea to plant trees near wind turbines as these introduce turbulence that means the turbines will not operate as effectively.
All the studies I know of suggest that communities very quickly come to not just tolerate but even like their turbines once they are up (even without fancy paint jobs!).
I am all in favour of turbines benefiting their local communities first and only exporting energy that cannot be used locally (there are technical reasons why swapping between local and grid supply isn’t straightforward but this is what is behind the Smart grid concept).
AS has been said before, the great thing about wind turbines is that they can be dismantled and removed in the future without much evidence that they had ever been there. Not something that can be said for nuclear power plants (or indeed hydro).
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For Dr Douglas Mackenzie from Lynda: Agree that consequential impact of redundant wind turbine installations is relatively light – and that people get used to them. We admit to positively liking them, in general.
Your point about hydro is interesting – provocative – because it is a reminder of the equilibrium in this particular energy source: something is lost and something is gained, visually and historically both – to the point where the big gain is renewable functionality.
As a child, I saw a substantial wide mountain valley flooded to create a dammed reservoir. Knowing that the little township – largely abandoned by then, would be drowned was imaginatively powerful. Seeing it half drowned, with a couple of roofs and the peak of the little church still above the water was strange. When the dam was full, the knowledge of what lay beneath it was quite grip[ping – a tiny lost rural world with its narrow road winding through it. (Do divers ever visit such places?) And then the beauty of the reservoir itself and the architectural feature of the dam wall, with the power of its functionality, became distinct and positive additions to experience and imagination. Adaptability is all – and an awareness of it in process is interesting – which is what you’re saying.
We see reverse pumped hydro as an important core resource in a country like Scotland. With Glen Sloy (Scotland’s first and most beautiful hydro station) installing a separate pumping system to add to its traditional unilateral turbines, this would seem to be a recognised perspective.
Glendoe will be back onstream eventually and we hope that the lessons of short termism are irrevocably learned form that one – and there is another massive dam project above Glen Morriston.
We need, though, to hear much more about hydro and how, as both a user and a provider of energy, it can stack up.
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Dr McKenzie: ‘warm the wires southward’ brings to mind the claims at the Scottish Renewables Marine Energy conference at Inverness this week of a £56 million likely charge (tax) for connecting Orkney / Pentland Firth marine renewables to the national grid compared with an £11 million subsidy for similar developments around the south west English coast. This all being dictated by Ofgem, who are reviewing their pricing strategy in the light of the steady changes in geographical spread of power generation as ‘green’ sources become more significant.
If the ‘travel cost’ of electricity is charged to consumers rather than generators, maybe we’ll eventually see gradual depopulation of southeast England in favour of places such as Inverness.
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It is a pity that Proven Eneregy were not building Off-shore wind turbines as the debate would be over.
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It is a pity that Proven Eneregy were not building Off-shore wind turbines as the debate would be over.
Care to explain what you mean by that? Are you perhaps celebrating the bad luck of a successful Scottish company with a 30-year track record? If so shame on you.
Icon Energy, a Kinross company, are trying to put together a rescue package to purchase Proven Energy and get it back into production with immediate effect and with a view to retaining and re-employing up to 70 people.
Apparently there is also interest in purchasing Proven from two other non-Scottish-based companies and there is a strong possibility that if either of them were to be successful the company would be asset-stripped.
Let’s hope that Icon manage to put together a successful package. I am sure that is also the view of Proven’s many customers, who will be somewhat stuck for spars/repairs if the company vanishes without trace. It might do to remember that these are small-scale machines and many of the smaller models are not grid-connected and are supplying electricity to places that otherwise would not have any.
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I will explain.
In my opinion wind turbines are hideous looking and totally ineffective at producing low cost electricity. If people did not receive huge grants for erecting wind turbines nobody would install them and there would more birds flying in the skies. Please tell me how many power stations have been decomissioned throughout the UK and Europe as a result of the installation of wind turbines.
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Servicing wind turbines is more that delivering a person to it. Servicing includes replacing parts that person cannot bring with him, it also includes replaing lubricants and coolants,inspection and repair blades surfaces.
No one of the presented designs are addressing these needs.
I was one of the contenders with a Catamaran Service Vessel (CSV), which address all these needs even during rough seas, thus roviding 90% of the time available for servicing wind turbines. It also provided capability for people to walk from CSV.
It was not presented in three dimentional view and with video simulation. Maybe this prevented Jury to imagine how it would work.
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For Sidney Belinsky: If you care to send us images and text on your proposition, we’ll feature them. Engaging with ideas like this helps all of us understand better the realities of offshore wind installations and of servicing them.
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Treblet,
Wind energy is in its infancy. The grid is inadequate, storage technologies are still below the horizon. People are working on it however – Rome wasn’t built in a day and all that.
Thinking about wind energy in terms of conventional generation methods or even in terms of conventional economics is not entirely valid. Our increasing understanding of potential consequences of the grand experiment with our planet’s atmosphere that we began unwittingly at the start of the industrial revolution means we must decarbonise the economy – and rapidly – or the environment our grandchildren grow up in is likely to be severely degraded.
I assume you are either one of those strange people who thinks they know better than the world scientific community when it comes to the consequences of greenhouse gases or you are from Tiree – or possibly both. If you are from Tiree I can understand why you might be upset about what may be about to happen to your island, but please don’t fob us off with yet another ‘wind turbines are useless’ rant.
As I type this wind is generating 2.5GW, or 6.1% of the UK’s current demand.
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Webcraft.
For a kick off I am not one of those strange people nor do I come from Tiree. As they say it takes one to know one.
I suggest that you ask the people in East Fife and Highland Perthshire if they are in favour of wind turbines being erected in their area. The people who receive the large subsidies from erecting numerous turbines on their own land rarely live close by. They usually live hundreds of miles away.
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Treblet: actual ownership of windfarms might be becoming even more interesting – for example the 20MW An Suidhe project near Inveraray was originally promoted by Powergen uk in 1995, was approved for construction in 2003 (by which time Powergen had been acquired by E.ON AG, based in Dusseldorf) but was then ‘sat on’ until sold (as not fitting the owner’s corporate strategy) on to npower Renewables (owned by RWE AG – Rheinisch-Westfalisches Elektrizitatswerk, based in Essen) who fine-tuned the design, built it and then sold it on to Green GECCO, half owned by RWE and half by a consortium of German local authorities – originally 26, now 29.
I’m intrigued by the way in which the green energy produced by An Suidhe is accounted for in the wider European performance of individual countries; I’ve asked George Lyon MEP if he could find out, and he’s asked the European Commission to elaborate.
Can you imagine Argyll & Bute council trying to make the case for buying a share of a wind farm in Schleswig-Holstein?
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Wind farms will only gain more general acceptance when they create a benefit commensurate with their impact in the communities they are sited. Perhaps the only solution will be for communities to start taking the bull by the horns and building their own.
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Webcraft.
The only reason that the wind turbines are generating 2.5GW today is because it is very windy. When there is a large area of high pressure over the UK the wind turbines produce next to nothing in electricity hence the reason that no UK power have yet been decomisioned. It is very easy to be selective with figures. I noticed that you conveniently avoided answering my question in your latest post.
In the future we are going to have a major problem when wind turbines have to be decomissioned. It is currently very difficult to recycle the blades which are made of various products including PET. If the blades are burnt they leave 60% ash which would then go to landfill which is not very “green”.
The Danish government have decided that the manufaturers of the wind turbines will to pay for the cost of recycling their decomisioned wind turbines. We already have a problem in the UK as Proven Energy have gone into receivership and I cannot see anyone who might them from the reciver being keen on having to pay this cost in the future.
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Treblet.
I often suspect windfarms are the ‘deeley boppers’ of a misguided generation. They stick up, look stupid, and with hindsight will be a terrible fashion mistake. Essentially, the product of those who are trying to un-invent the wheel.
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The only reason that the wind turbines are generating 2.5GW today is because it is very windy.
And our next candidate on Mastermind is Treblet, special subject ‘The Bleedin’ Obvious’
Yes, when there is an extensive area of high pressure over the whole of the UK in Winter and it is cold wind energy cannot make a contribution. That is when the new gas turbine power stations that are replacing phased out coal stations are fired up. These gas stations can be brought on line very rapidly and do not have to be left on ‘warm standby’, so they are not producing any significant carbon emissions while idle.
Then when the wind blows again – more carbon-free electricity, and the gas stations are put back on standby. Your argument is a classic red herring. It seems to go along the lines of ‘wind turbines cannot produce low-carbon electricity all the time therefore it is better if they don’t exist and never produce low carbon electricity’
The development of the European supergrid will also help. When there is high pressure over the UK there will be strong winds round the edge of the anticyclone, spinning wind turbines in another country and producing a surplus for thte European grid. Not to mention that at some point the quest for practical, affordable large scale power storage is going to pay dividends.
As for your claim that the disposal of wind turbine blades is going to present an insurmountable obstacle . . . well, if we can contemplate building nuclear power stations that incorporate a committment to storing dangerous waste for thousands of years then frankly I don’t see a few thousand lumps of inert material as much of a problem.
Face it Treblet, you don’t like wind turbines, probably because you have been affected by a development near you. That is quite understandable . . . I am slightly conflicted about the proposed windfarm three miles from my property. I feel though that you should ‘man up’ and admit that you have a personal hatred of the things rather than trying to cloak it behind a whole raft of spurious arguments.
(Top marks for the blade disposal argument though – that is a new on on me. Very creative.)
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For Webcraft: You are absolutely right about the European supergrid being the real route to utilising wind power efficiently.When marine energy comes onstream, the existence of such a grid will be even more important. This grid is an urgent common necessity.
Storage systems are also a core issue but we have a concern here – as logicians and not scientists – that, to be viable, this must involve serious compression and it’s hard to see how extreme compression of energy can be anything but another high level danger, possibly equatable with the nuclear risk.
Your point about the relative toxicity of nuclear power station materials and those in towers and turbines – and elements of the turbine themselves are upscale on this – is well taken.
Being as conflicted as we agree we are on this issue, carbon emissions are only part of our concerns. The other is the real issue of having inadequate energy supplies – which puts the gas turbine stations in a different context.
In general, days after the airline industry has announced a massive planned expansion of its fleets (which seems utterly irresponsible and remains unquestioned, no one is asking how we are going to fly planes when we have no oil.
We’ve been reading around this matter and those also interested might care to follow the USA’s experimental work on the SCRAM Jet – which burns air but needs to get to something lke Mach 10 before the right conditions obtain.
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Newsroom,
Air travel is a problem – electric planes are just not going to happen. There is a view that says that air travel is the only justifiable use for biofuels.
Re. storage – I guess the Hindenburg is still a powerful folk memory! As for other technologies – compressed air looks promising but what capacity could realistically be installed is another matter.
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Energy storage: perhaps small-scale localised pumped storage could be developed – which in an area of plentiful rainfall could have that extra energy ‘bonus’; significant capital cost, but well proven technology.
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g’day
I see from this post some comments re Tiree ( Argyll) Array, consequently I feel a voice from Tiree may assist.
Please note Tiree Array has still to be consented. The developer,Scottish Power Renewables (SPR ) does not expect to be in a position to make a planning application until 2nd Q 2013
I will introduce my self and what I represent. That will ensure no hidden agenda
I am Robert Trythall Secr of NTA (No Tiree Array).
Please refer to http://www.no-tiree-array.org.uk for further information
Now back to this originating post ie these 13 options and then I will address some of the Tiree-specific Issues that have been raised in the responses you have had so far.
(1) Basis 3m wave height .Then most of the options are inapplicable, or so constrained in their WC Scotland application as to be non-viable. Tiree Array’s Mean wave height is 2.26-2.5m
(2) Why, is the marketing of these applications always done in such balmy, windless conditions!
(3) The Aussie option would appear to be of more use to a tourist operator, trying to make a crust out of offshore windfarm tourism, as opposed to a serious attempt at landing O&M personnel. Skerryvore tourism, from Tiree, has never been economically sustainable. I am making this point because SPR has suggested wind farm tourism as an economic benefit for Tiree.
(4) Some of these options ie the mothership /within array O&M model offers practical solutions to the WC Scotland model. What I am at a loss understand is that a variation of this O&M model already exists, without any funding/research from the Carbon Trust see : http://www.seaenergy-plc.com
(5) The mothership option and variations thereof , if applied to Tiree Array would remove the essential foundation from the developers selling pitch to Scottish Government to consent Tiree Array. Tiree Array now represents 40% of Scottish Govt phase 1 offshore wind farm development, and is fundamental to Scottish Governments messaianism with regard to off shore wind farm development . Tiree Array is being ’sold’ to the Tiree Community as offering socio –economic benefit. Scottish government in July 2010 elevated Tiree Array as a “pilot to test participatory approaches to offshore planning”. So far nothing tangible has been proposed, and SPR is refusing to make any commitment to his O&M strategy. The O&M strategy is fundamental to offering Tiree any perceived socio –economic benefit.
With regard to this O&M option, Marine Scotland’s Scoping response states “This would minimise any interaction with Tiree ” ergo minimise any socio-economic benefit.
As to some of the specific Tiree points raised : eg tip height /swings and roundabout etc . 180 X10MW turbines @ 200m tip height or 300X6MW turbines @ 160m tip height. This is not swings and roundabouts… both represent significant negative visual impact /damage.
Re Skerryvore, the developer has very sweetly offered the ‘ grand gesture’ of a 1km wide corridor to retain and offer a “ clear view “ of this iconic lighthouse . This is offered from one exclusive viewing point, selected by SPR, and ignores the multitude of viewpoints any viewer of Skerryvore currently enjoys. SPR ignores the basic fact that Skerryvore, a 56m high structure, in the foreground will be dwarfed by rows of 160-200m structures to its side and in its background. Also what is conveniently forgotten by SPR , in making this ‘grand’ gesture, the developer had already pledged a 1Km corridor between turbines for Tiree ‘s fishermen.
The devil is in the detail. Caveat emptor
As to some of the other comments made
(1) Scottish Government is embracing an imbalanced energy policy which will “ lock “ Scotland into becoming a high energy cost economy , and as such may impinge on the international competitiveness of the Scottish Economy. The cost of this policy and its implications are coming under increasing scrutiny.
(2) The trajectory of current R&D (not in the UK ) is offering the very distinct possibility that in less than 20years, offshore windfarms can be placed exactly where they were originally intended ..off shore, out of sight and out of mind.
(3) Why, in the presence of all this wind abundance, and the largesse of subsidy to develop it, has no significant Scottish/UK manufacturer emerged to capitalize on its ‘opportunities’.
(4) And finally re “ what can the(turbine) giants provide that will radically improve the fortunes of the Tiree people? When we answer those questions we may have the start of renewable Scotland.”
Currently , 2.5 years into Tiree Array’s gestation , Scottish Government ,and the developer, have made no progress in identifying, or offering anything that will
‘radically improve the fortunes of the Tiree people’
I rest my case
Rgds
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Hi,
So the likes of the Tiree aka Array will be the target of such craft ?…and as the boffins who have decided that Atlantic ‘wind energy’ is the way to go have, yet have no clue of just how they intend to provide O&M coverage, they run a competition. Laughable.
Lets face it, as proven there. are enough days in the depth of winter when the waters off Tiree are mirror calm and, the likes of Scottish Power Renewables could find a weather window to do repairs, waters flat and the turbines are stationary. Obviously, the spring, and autum will be difficult…but less folk use electricity then so the need will be reduced. As for the summer months…well based on this years swell and the early arrival of the autumn storms there could be problems…but don’t they shut the turbines down if it’s too windy ? so there will be no damage ?
A good while ago now I supported wind energy in full…I still support community energy programs be it wind, wave, solar, hydro etc, etc… there used to be some form of morality involved, some community involvement…some sense integrated with minimum impact and maximum gain, gain for the community…no need for huge power grids, no need for destruction of our wildernesses.
It is such an immoral shame that yet again a good thing has been turned into a bad thing…hijacked by money grabbing multinationals that flash pseudo green credential around like get out of jail free cards. Investment used to go straight to the community, electricity feeds could have gone straight to the community…crown estate and landowner could have made some honest cash and, done it with social responsibility. The landscape would not have suffered from the indignity and rape we are all witnessing.
We could all have some pride and a common front, a commoners front, a community front…in the protection of our environment.
Maybe the wind companies should run a competition to see who could come up with a way to cut our electricity bills and stop their own reliance on our handouts…I am sure there are plenty of good answers out there.
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Webcraft.
I have just returned from a holiday in the City of Discovery. I will let you work out where that is. You are correct that I do not like wind turbines.
In my opinion if people receive grants to put in renewables then they should be totally independent from the National Grid. They should store the electricity they produce in batteries for use during spells of low production.
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Treblet
You may not like wind turbines, but you need to bring yourself up to date about how they are paid for. Grants for putting in domestic and small-scale renewables stopped some time ago. Payments are now through the feed-in-tariff scheme which positively requires a connection to the grid.
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Treblett,
The whole point of the FIT on domestic scale renewables is that any surplus electricity can be sold back to the National Grid for the benefit of all. There are many community turbines – such as Tilley on Tiree – that bring in a very useful income for local communities.
The City of Discovery is anxiously waiting to see if the Gamesa turbine factory is going to be located there or in Hartlepool. Dundee has a great potential future as an offshore renewables service centre as well, so I doubt if your views have much sympathy among its citizens.
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On the contrary the citizens of Dundee are currently up in arms because Forth Energy want to build a Bio-mass plant at the docks in Dundee. The docks are owned by Forth Ports and the Dundonians are corcerned about the omissions that this plant will create. Forth Energy intend to ship the wood for this bio-mass plant by ship from Canada. Goodness knows what the carbon emissions will be for these journeys from Canada.
Forth Ports also want to erect huge Wind Turbines in the dock area which will cause flicker over a large part of central Dundee. It is impossible to prevent flicker as the City of Dundee sits on the north bank of the Tay.
I will not hold my breath waiting to see if Gamesa build a turbine factory in Dundee (or Hartlepool) as turbine factories have not been a success in Sotland or the UK. Vestas have in recent years closed both turbine factories in Campbeltown and the Isle of Wight.
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Vestas announced in August that, as soon as sufficient orders are confirmed for its 7MW turbine, they would be building a new turbine factory in Kent.
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Error.
The second sentance should read.
The docks are owned by Forth Ports and the Dundonians are concerned about the emissions that this plant will create.
Sorry for the errors.
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What has biomass got to do with offshore renewables?
Gamesa’s decision between Dundee and Hartlepool will be made by the end of this month. I am keeping my fingers crossed for Dundee.
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It all comes under the green banner.
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Alex.
I would stop the 43.5p feed-in tariff and only give feed-in tariff rate of the current price per unit of electricity paid by domestic constomer ie. about 12p per unit.
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Treblet
Maybe you would, but if you work out that, by investing, say, £10-15,000 in solar PV panels (you don’t have to have a wind turbine of which you so clearly disapprove), you can get your money back in 9-10 years, through reduced electricity bills plus the FIT of 43.5p plus about 3p/unit sold to your electricity company (both indexed linked for 25 years), you might consider that this is a considerably higher return than leaving the money in the bank.
Think about it rather than reject it!
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Alex.
As I said previously I would only pay a feed-in tariff 12p per unit for any type of renewable product.
The returns on the solar PV panels may be very good providing they do not break down and the manufacturer of the solar PV panels does not go out of business.
Any company purchasing a business in administration is unlikely to honour any exsisting warranties.
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That’s a risk one takes with the purchase of any item – be it solar panels, a car, a household appliance, whatever.
As for a company taking over a business in administration, if you are thinking of the case of Proven – the manufacturer of small turbines – assurances have already been given that warranties, etc., will be honoured.
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I cannot understand why the Proven turbines broke down in windy weather because I understood that the blades on wind turbines were supposed to slow down when the wind became too strong. This was to prevent blades shearing off.
Was this a design fault with Proven wind turbines or do the blades of all makes of wind turbine keep turning no matter how windy it is.
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