by Zachary Shahan, via CleanTechnica
The world’s first 6-MW offshore wind turbine went up in the North Sea this week. Wind company REpower and C- Power NV, a Belgian offshore development company, installed the wind turbine, the first of 48 for the Thornton Bank II wind farm, which is being constructed approximately 28 kilometers off the Belgian coast.
The wind turbine is actually rated at 6.15 MW and is the first turbine of phase 2 of this offshore wind project — REpower has an interesting interactive image on its site where you can explore its 11 main features. “In the early hours of 21 March the rotor star was connected to the nacelle by a team of C-Power and REpower engineers and the crew of Neptune, the installation vessel of GeoSea (DEME group) carrying the components for the turbine,” REpower writes.
Here are more details:
The offshore turbine REpower 6M has the dimension of two family homes and the rotor star has a diameter of 126 metres, with a swept area greater than two football pitches.
The installation of the first 30 turbines for phase 2 of the wind farm is planned for 2012, and a further 18 are designated for installation during a third extension stage by mid-2013.
Phase 1 of the Thornton Bank II wind farm was constructed in 2008 and 2009. It includes 5-MW wind turbines. More details: “The offshore wind farm, located around 28 kilometres off the Belgian coast in waters between twelve and 27 meters deep, was officially put into operation at the end of June 2009. Since it started operation, Thornton Bank generated almost 350,000 megawatt hours of electricity.”
Belgium intends to get 13% of its energy from renewable energy sources by 2020.
Zachary Shahan is the editor of CleanTechnica.com and PlaneSave.com. This piece was originally published at CleanTechnica.
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It’s not true everyday, but today, I’m proud to be a belgian!
These are very good become they generate more power and interfere less, if placed properly, with feeding and migrating animals.
Output from solar panels and wind turbines is highly unpredictable, which strains the stability of the power grid and has forced utilities to pay renewable generators to shut off supplies on some days. Last month, the Czech government complained it was close to a blackout because wind farms in northern Germany overloaded the grid. ( http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-03-18/germany-s-270-billion-renewables-shift-biggest-since-war#p2 )
Waste needs to be considered in these installs.
The doomsayers have often predicted a grid meltdown, but nothing actually happened apart from a few minor, isolated incidents. And so they resort to using non-incidents as ‘proof’.
The European electricity industry association reports that the number of grid incidents from such sources has grown from 300 to 1000 per year in northern Europe.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/10/grid-blackout-threat-renewables
Lack of major incidents at 5-15% wind does not guarantee anything about much larger amounts of wind. Pretending that there is not an issue will not make it go away.
As referenced in the link below, German engineers understand the challenges & have addressed the issue. Pretending they haven’t doesn’t make it so.
Citizens and politicians should step out of the Pretend World and make things happen.
Flat, windy eastern Germany has more wind than they can use. The solution lies in balancing supply and demand by upgrading existing HV transmission corridors. Those lines will link Clean Power to customers in the Rhine and South. That need was recognized in a 2005 study by energy agency DENA. They recommended upgrading 200 miles of existing HV and new HV lines of less than 3 miles. [bullet point 1, pg 9]
Sadly those necessary improvements have been delayed by property-rights kooks.
Wind is not always the best solution but if designed well, it is a good thing. Big wind is not a favorite…small wind is much more manageable and reliable. It takes a lot of wind to turn these 6MW.
Actually, the opposite is true.
Bigger wind turbines are higher and therefore catch stronger winds.
And I strongly doubt that a wind farm of 5860 50 kW models (which is considered ‘small’) would be easier to manage than just 48 of these 6 MW turbines.
Wind is better than fossil, but not without it’s problems. One issue is the need for raw materials, which puts a lot of pressure to open new mines, which pollutes local environments and communities. There was an interesting report touching this issue released a while ago by the Gaia Foundation: “Opening Pandora’s Box – A New Wave of Land Grabbing for the Extractive Industries and The Devastating Impact on Earth”.
Sum: best option: reduce energy use – second best: some renewables.