The University of Maine at Orono will develop an alternative floating substructure design for a 10–12 MW wind turbine in place of the currently planned two 6-MW turbine floating offshore wind demonstration project planned for deployment off Monhegan Island, Maine.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the selection of 13 projects to receive a total of $28 million to advance wind energy nationwide. While utility-scale, land-based wind energy in the United States has grown to 96 gigawatts, significant opportunities for cost reductions remain, especially in the areas of offshore wind, distributed wind, and tall wind.
The funding selections were announced by DOE’s Assistant Secretary for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Daniel R Simmons, at the American Wind Energy Association Offshore WINDPOWER Conference in Boston, Massachusetts. “These projects will be instrumental in driving down technology costs and increasing consumer options for wind across the United States as part of our comprehensive energy portfolio,” said Simmons.
The selected projects span the technology development spectrum—including testing, demonstration, integration, and technical assistance—and cover all three wind energy sectors: distributed, offshore, and land-based utility-scale wind.
Four Wind Innovations for Rural Economic Development (WIRED) projects will receive a total of $6 million in federal funding to support rural electric utilities by developing technology to integrate wind with other distributed energy resources, and by simplifying distributed wind energy project development through standardized solutions and technical assistance.
Six projects will receive a total of $7 million to conduct testing in support of innovative offshore wind research and development utilizing existing national-level testing facilities. Two of these projects involve upgrades to the facilities.
Two offshore wind technology demonstration projects will receive up to a total of $10 million to conduct additional project development activities that enable demonstration of innovative technologies or methodologies to reduce offshore wind energy risk and cost.
One project will receive up to $5 million to validate manufacturing innovations and demonstrate cost-effective tall tower technology that can overcome the transportation constraints currently hindering tall tower installations in the United States. Taller wind turbine towers can enable access to higher wind speeds, thereby increasing energy capture and reducing cost, but continued economies of scale are currently limited by transportation constraints.
Learn more about DOE’s wind energy research on the Wind Energy Technologies Office website.
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.....the current state of the art for Floating Offshore Wind Turbines (FOWT) is too massive and expensive for practical deployment.......FOWTs are currently designed to be large and heavy to replicate more familiar onshore wind turbine dynamics, maintain stability, and survive storms. However, this approach fundamentally limits how inexpensive FOWTs can ever become.
Kenneth Capron
If whales had a vote, they'd veto this idea.
Oct 23, 2019
Willem Post
"The University of Maine at Orono will develop an alternative floating substructure design for a 10–12 MW wind turbine in place of the currently planned two 6-MW turbine floating offshore wind demonstration project planned for deployment off Monhegan Island, Maine."
U-Maine will waste a few million FEDERAL dollars to keep hopes alive of Offshore wind aficionados and pay for propaganda forums (fora?), such as high school students "designing" floating wind turbine contraptions, which is off-the-charts nuts.
ANYTHING "OFF MOHEGAN ISLAND" HAS TO BE ABOUT !5 MILES AWAY TO REDUCE LOW FREQUENCY NOISE and adverse visual impacts such as strobe lights.
Here is the Norwegian design. Make sure to watch the videos.
First Commercial Floating Wind Turbine Plant in Scotland
Hywind Scotland project is the world's first commercial wind turbine plant using floating wind turbines.
It is located 29 km (EIGHTEEN MILES) off Peterhead, Scotland to minimize visual impacts from shore.
It has five Hywind floating turbines with a total capacity of 30 MW.
It is operated by Hywind (Scotland) Limited, a joint venture of Equinor, Norway (75%) and Masdar, Kuwait (25%).
In 2015, Equinor received permission to install 5 Hywind turbines in Scotland.
Manufacturing started in 2016 in Spain (wind turbine, rotor), Norway (tower, underwater base, assembly), and Scotland (various parts)
The turnkey capital cost was $263 million for five 6 MW turbines, or $8,767/kW.
They were designed to float on the surface, with about 180 m (600 ft) above the sea water level and 80 m (265 ft) submerged below the seawater level.
Total steel weight is about 2300 metric ton, total ballasted weight is about 20,000 metric ton.
Heavy weights in the bottom of the submerged parts serve to keep them steady and upright.
The turbines were assembled at Stord in Norway in the summer of 2017, using the specialized Saipem 7000 floating crane, and then towed to the north of Scotland by sea-going tugboats.
Make sure to see the videos showing the crane assembling the entire wind turbine.
Nothing like that exists in Maine, or in the rest of New England.
That means offshore wind turbine assembly and servicing would largely be performed by foreign companies, which already have built the infrastructures and other facilities during the past 25 years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUlfvXaISvc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmkA6hbJ_j8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQVU7UaMuck
The huge, sea-going, specialized, crane (14,000-metric ton lifting capacity) is required for partial assembly on land and final assembly in an area close to shore with a very deep harbor, before towing, fully assembled, to the site.
The finished turbines were towed to Peterhead, Scotland.
Three cup anchors hold each turbine in place.
About 2400 meter of chain is required, weighing 400 metric ton, for each turbine.
The Hywind Scotland project was commissioned in October 2017.
Oct 24, 2019