Trimming the costs of wind power

As governments, businesses and environmentalists from around the world gather for the United Nations climate change summit meeting that begins today in Copenhagen, one of the featured attractions will be the array of windmills just off Denmark’s coast.

Some of the enormous machines, which provide about 4.5 percent of Denmark’s power, can be seen from Copenhagen’s shores. And an offshore blade made by the Danish manufacturer L.M. Glasfiber, the world’s longest at 61.5 meters, or 202 feet, is on display outside the conference hall.

Delegates wanting a close-up view of the machines in operation can sign up with an outfit called EnergyTours, which offers a boat trip to an offshore farm that opened in 2001. That was before most other countries began getting serious about windmills on land, much less in the sea.

What began in Denmark even further back — in 1991, when the world’s first offshore wind farm opened — has spawned a movement around the world. Turbines have popped up in the seas around Europe, particularly in Britain, which has passed Denmark to become the country with the most offshore wind capacity.

The efforts should not be exaggerated. Across the European Union, offshore turbines are expected to account for 0.3 percent of electricity needs next year, according to a recent report from the European Wind Energy Association. If all goes well, the association hopes that figure will inch up to around 4 percent, give or take, by 2020.

Denmark, whose quest for energy independence dates back to the oil-price spikes of the 1970s, aims especially high. By 2020, wind could account for 50 percent of the country’s power, according to Jan Hylleberg, chief executive of the Danish Wind Industry Association, who added that about half of that figure could come from offshore turbines. Including both land-based and offshore turbines, wind now accounts for about 20 percent of Denmark’s electricity.

Things are moving: In September Denmark announced that Horns Rev 2, the world’s largest offshore wind farm, had begun operations; it is supposed to provide power for 200,000 households. [In November, it shut down owing to cable problems; Horns Rev 1, or Nysted, had to have every generator and transformer replaced immediately after completion, and then shut down again almost 3 years later because of transformer problems --NWW]

Other regions of the world are also gearing up for action. China got its first offshore turbines in May, when three 90-meter-high turbines were placed in Shanghai Harbor. The machines, built by Sinovel, a Chinese company, are the “largest wind turbines that are being domestically produced in China,” said Jason Fredette, director of corporate communications for American Superconductor, a company that makes turbine components. More are planned.

In the United States, wind power advocates are eagerly awaiting the debut of offshore facilities. Last week, officials in Massachusetts said that Cape Wind, the long-delayed project in Nantucket Sound, would begin negotiations with a major utility, National Grid, to sell the power it plans to generate.

The announcement was hailed by supporters as a major step toward getting turbines into the water.

“It answers the question of is there going to be a purchaser of this power,” said Ian Bowles, the Massachusetts energy and environment secretary. He described Cape Wind as “the only offshore wind project that has any possibility of being built in President Obama’s first term.”

But significant challenges remain before the industry can achieve its potential. Chief among those is cost.

Under outlooks used in the Department of Energy report, producing energy from turbines in shallow seas currently costs about 50 percent more than with land-based ones. Offshore installations must be built to endure tougher conditions, and it is also challenging to get the electricity to shore.

George Hagerman, an ocean-energy specialist at Virginia Tech, said the United States in particular would have to think creatively to keep costs down, because the government — unlike many in Europe — is unwilling to subsidize clean energy projects too heavily. This could mean, for example, figuring out a way to assemble turbines on land and float them out to sea, rather than using expensive seagoing cranes.

“If we just repeat what the Europeans do, we’ll end up with probably not the most cost-effective projects,” said Mr. Hagerman, who is also the director of research for the Virginia Coastal Energy Research Consortium.

A reasonable price on carbon emissions would help make offshore wind competitive with traditional electricity sources like coal and natural gas, he added.

A related factor is improving technology. Clearly, offshore wind development is still in the early stages. Some Danish turbines, for example, have suffered from corrosion, as my colleague James Kanter has reported.

The concept of floating turbines — out in the deep ocean, where there are better winds and fewer boaters and fishermen — is being tested in Norway by StatoilHydro and Siemens. This past June, a pilot turbine was towed out to sea for a two-year trial.

Turbines are likely to get bigger. Today, many offshore turbines average about three megawatts in size, Mr. Hylleberg says. “In the future, we will see five to six megawatts, maybe even bigger turbines,” he predicted.

Sinovel, the company with turbines in Shanghai’s harbor, should have a five-megawatt prototype ready by the end of 2010, according to Mr. Fredette, of American Superconductor.

There are plenty of subtler but important new ideas, too. Mr. Hagerman of Virginia Tech noted that the project recently inaugurated in Denmark was not only the world’s largest offshore wind farm, but also the first wind facility to build an “accommodation platform” — so that maintenance crews can bunk up nearby, rather than having to go back and forth to shore in potentially bad weather by boat or helicopter. It is a concept that has long been used by oil companies.

“There’s still lots of innovation to be done, and things to be learned,” Mr. Hagerman said.

By KATE GALBRAITH

The New York Times

www.nytimes.com

6 December 2009

Tags: Wind power, Wind energy

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