World Wind Watch | Green Energy News

December 17, 2006 – Vol. 11 No. 39

WORLD WIND WATCH.

Britannia once ruled the waves. Now the mighty empire is in bits but the Kingdom is still looking for a leadership role in the world; and it may be finding one. No, the leadership role is not military might. Its leadership role may be mitigating climate change. One person has been leading the charge for his country - Tony Blair.

While the small nation with a big history might be few in renewable resources on land, the water around it has plenty. The waves Britain once ruled are driven by the wind that the nation now wants to put to work.

With two announcements this week the UK has pulled into the lead in offshore wind. The government has given consent to build two more offshore wind farms, one the world’s largest, the other impressive enough in itself.

London Array will be as awesome as it sounds: 1000 megawatts of power, enough power for 750,000 homes (a quarter of those in Greater London) and up to 341 turbines sticking out of the shallow waters 20 kilometers (12 miles) off the Kent and Essex coasts.

The lesser is awesome too. Thanet Offshore will have 100, 3-megawatt turbines for 300 megawatts of power. Its nearest point will be 11 kilometers (7 miles) off the Thanet coast in East Kent.

The British Wind Energy Association (BWEA), which monitors wind development in the UK, said that overall 630 megawatts of new wind capacity were commissioned in 2006 - an increase of 50-percent over 2005 - and there is another 625 megawatts under construction in the country as well as another 2120 megawatts that have been approved for building in coming years. Over half of that amount would be from London Array and Thanet.

The BWEA says that there are potentially 8700 megawatts of offshore wind projects at various stages of development or construction.

Visit the BWEA at http://www.bwea.com/ the London Array at http://www.londonarray.com/ and Thanet Offshore at http://www.warwickenergy.com/thanet.htm

Offshore wind for the US is getting off to a slow start. It’s not only the long approvals process and the opposition from ocean view residents that are stalling efforts, it’s the lack of good sites. Generally speaking waters off the US coast are fairly deep near shore making offshore wind an economic impossibility for now. (Floating turbines would change that.)

Still wind developers keep trying. Here’s the latest.

Bluewater Wind of Hoboken, New Jersey has submitted a proposal to Delamarva Power and Light to plant up to 200 turbines at least at one of three sites near the mouth of Delaware Bay, or in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of the nation’s first state. None of the sites chosen is closer than 5 miles from land with the furthest being 10 miles offshore.

If Delmarva Power agrees to the project, the approvals process could still take a couple of years - or more - depending on resistance from ocean front land owners. Wind and wildlife studies would take more than a year, though, concurrent with the permitting process.

The time line for construction of offshore wind farms, so far has been optimistic at best. Cape Wind, the 420-megawatt wind farm planned for waters off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, was first announced in mid-2002. Developers said then they were looking for completion by the end of 2005.

Visit Bluewater Wind at http://www.bluewaterwind.com/