UK’S HELM WIND TO CUT OCEAN WIND COST

New approach for offshore wind turbines could cut costs by a third, ETI reports
April 18, 2011 (Earth Technologies Institute)

"Offshore wind turbines of the future should have much larger blades resulting in lower costs and cheaper electricity, according to the Energy Technologies Institute…The ETI’s Helm Wind project was set up to deliver step-change improvements in the economics of the offshore wind power station of the future.

"…[Helm Wind] brought together multinational power companies with wind energy and offshore experience from E.ON and BP, power systems and engineering expertise from Rolls-Royce and the research and design capabilities of the University of Strathclyde…Offshore wind turbines have generally been designed for onshore use and then adapted for deployment at sea. This has led to high capital and operational costs, reliability issues and a cost of energy that is higher than from onshore turbines."

click to enlarge

"There is huge potential for offshore wind to reduce carbon emissions and create economic prosperity, as well as increasing energy security of supply…[but] costs need to be competitive with current onshore wind costs by 2020 and with conventional generation by 2050, annual offshore farm availability needs to be increased to 97%-98% or better and technical uncertainties reduced to allow farms to be financed in a manner, and at costs, equivalent to onshore wind today."

click to enlarge

"The project found that costs could be around 30% less than current state of the art offshore wind turbines with the potential for additional savings as the technology is developed further…

"Helm Wind was one of three ETI offshore wind projects that looked at new turbine design concepts along with Deepwater and Nova, which have already been completed.
The insights from all three projects will be used by the ETI to develop its offshore wind strategy which will see an offshore wind demonstrator project commissioned during 2011…"