World Wind Watch | Green Energy News

June 5, 2005 – Vol.10 No.11

WORLD WIND WATCH.

Amazing. If built - which is likely - it be the largest wind power facility on the planet. Nearly a quarter of London’s electricity supply could come from one wind farm - the London Array.

Royal Dutch/Shell and partners have submitted plans and applications to build a 1000-megawatt offshore wind farm about 60 miles as a crow flies from downtown London.

To be built where currents from the Thames meet the chill waters of the North Sea, the $2.7 billion (GBP 1.5 billion) project will supply enough power for more than 750,000 homes and meet 10 percent of the U.K.’s target of getting 10 percent of its energy from renewables by 2010. It will also avoid 1.9 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year.

Shell’s partners include the renewables offshoot of Germany-based E.ON and Core Ltd, a joint venture between Farm Energy and Energi E2 of Denmark.

If the U.K. government gives the go-ahead soon - without lengthy delays - the project would be complete by 2010 -11. Visit Shell at http://www.shell.com/ .

At least in one study, bird collisions with offshore wind turbines aren’t much of a problem, if a problem at all.

Birds flying near offshore wind turbines either fly around the entire facility or fly a path through the maze of turbines and avoid being hit by the slowly turning blades. In other words, birds that fly over the ocean can figure out that something is in their way, is dangerous, and should be avoided.

The study of possible bird strikes with offshore wind turbines began in 1999 at the site of what is now the Nysted wind farm off the coast of Denmark in the Baltic Sea. Nysted, complete since 2003, has 72 turbines with a hub height of 69 meters above the waves.

Researchers Mark Desholm of the Environmental Research Institute in Ronde and colleague spent 3 days a week perched in a radar shelter near the sight, watching birds and making radar plots.

Their study showed that fewer than 1 percent of birds come close enough to turbine blades to be in danger of collision.

The study could be of enormous help to wind developers like Shell WindEnergy looking to build large offshore wind projects. The study has been published in Biology Letters of the Royal Society of the U.K. Visit the Biology Letters at http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/biologyletters.shtml/ (Purchase for $20 or by subscription)

Imagine a wind farm that generates electricity more than 90 percent of the time and operates at full capacity 47 percent of the time when, on average, most wind farms generate full rated power only 23 percent of the time.

Imagine a wind farm that’s a money maker from day one - without subsidies.

That’s Project West Wind, to be built in New Zealand.

The proposed 210-megawatt wind farm, with 70 turbines, is to be built near Wellington and will provide enough power for 110,000 Kiwi homes. Meridian Energy will build West Wind in an effort to help New Zealand comply with the Kyoto Protocol.

Another Meridian wind project - White Hill (58 MW) - is set to begin construction in July and Te Apiti (57 MW) is complete and commissioned.

Visit Meridian at http://www.meridianenergy.co.nz/