Wind Farms Take Root Out at Sea - NYTimes.com - 0 views
-
“If you want to do wind on a big scale with power plants based on wind, you need to go offshore,
-
Wind farms are no longer engineering experiments or small pilot schemes. They have grown very large, to the point where they are of the same scale as gas- or coal-fired power stations.
-
Siemens figures there are about 3.3 gigawatts of offshore wind power connected to the grid in Europe. That is similar in size to a large contemporary nuclear power station.
- ...4 more annotations...
-
Offshore wind has advantages beyond the presence of sea breezes. The seabed is relatively cheap real estate, and much larger wind farms can be built there than on land. The vast expanses available at sea allow economies of scale that may bring down costs.
-
The key to cutting costs, Mr. Hannibal said, is to simplify the installation process and turn manufacturing of turbines into a cookie-cutter industrial process. The latest turbines are made of just a few components that are relatively easy to anchor to the sea bottom.
-
Still, costs remain stubbornly high. Mr. Hannibal figures that the power to be produced by new German offshore wind projects will cost 130 to 140 euros, or $175 to $185, per megawatt hour, which is about triple the wholesale power price.