World Wind Watch | Green Energy News

April 10, 2005 – Vol.10 No.3

WORLD WIND WATCH.

As reported previously Talisman Energy and partner Scottish and Southern Energy have teamed up to build the world’s first deepwater wind farm. Deep water, in this case meaning 45 meters, about 150 feet.

The advantages of deep water wind? The deeper the water, generally the farther from land. Deep water wind farms could be far enough offshore to be over the horizon, completely out of view of oceanside homeowners. As offshore wind developers have experienced, oceanside landowners often don’t want dozens, if not hundreds of wind turbines detracting from their view, even if the turbines are only an inch high on the horizon.

Larger, higher output turbines, too, can be used offshore that can be used onshore. Again it’s a height issue. The monstrous turbines planned for use offshore would never be acceptable on land.

The disadvantages? The deeper the water the more expensive the turbine installation, thus the cost of electricity generated from them will be higher.

However in the long run the advantages of deep water offshore wind may outweigh the disadvantages. Larger turbines in the area of strong winds - far offshore - could mean cheaper electricity that could, eventually, be competitive with power generated from conventional sources.

The relatively small 10-megawatt project will go ahead with the first construction / engineering contract signed. AMEC, an international project management and service company, will design the installation and manage the delivery of the two 5-megawatt turbines to the site.

In the scope of the project, new technologies must be developed to allow the installation of the turbines in the deep waters. The site, in the North Sea is in Moray Firth about 70 kilometers northeast of Inverness, Scotland.

The project will be built near the Beatrice oil field where existing oil platforms will be used to aid in the construction of the turbines and be available for monitoring them. An existing cable connection from the platforms will be used to transmit power from the turbines to shore. The platforms, operated by Talisman, are typically unmanned. Visit AMEC at http://www.amec.com/ .