Offshore wind power

The advantages of exploiting off-shore wind power are that the wind over the ocean is stronger and more stable than on land and the areas available for generation are greater. 70 percent of the earth’s surface is covered by sea. There are challenges however. These primarily consist of greater costs due to immature technology.

At Sheringham Shoal, off the British coast, 88 windmills planted in the sea bed will begin to turn in 2011 and provide electricity for 220 000 households in the Norfolk area. The Norwegian firms Statkraft and Statoil are jointly responsible for this offshore wind park. But this will be a modest plant compared with the plans that British authorities have for the rest of their coastal areas. Zones are being allocated for what it is hoped will yield 25 000 MW of wind power. This is 1,000 times more than Statkraft’s first onshore wind park in Britain, which opened this year in Wales.

It now looks as though the greatest concentration of wind power in the North Sea will be built on the British and German sides. These countries are investing heavily by offering subsidies for offshore wind power. The development of bottom-mounted windmills is focused initially on the shallow parts of the North Sea basin, where the turbine towers can be built directly on the sea bed. The deeper sea areas along the Norwegian coast require floating platforms and far more robust technology, which will not be fully developed and competitive for another 10-20 years.

At the end of September 2009, the turbine blades of Hywind, the world’s first floating windmill, began to turn and a transmission cable delivered the first kilowatt hours ever produced by a floating wind generator to the shore. The Hywind turbine will be tested for a two-year period and provide some answers about how floating windmills can be built on a larger scale.

The development of renewable energy in Europe will increase dramatically towards the year 2020, and it is anticipated that wind power will be responsible for 50 percent of the growth. Together with Scotland, Norway is the country in Europe with the greatest potential for offshore wind power. A study from Enova shows that the potential for energy derived from the Norwegian seas is 14 000 TWh. This is almost as great as the world’s total electricity production! Not all of this will be environmentally responsible or profitable to develop, but the potential is nevertheless enormous.

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Offshore wind power