Offshore Wind in Crisis! What Can We Learn?
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- Опубликовано: 25 июн 2024
- In the quest for clean energy, offshore wind stands out - not just for its towering turbines which are already as tall as the Eiffel tower and set to grow further, but offshore wind also stands out for its surprising economics. Despite being about twice as expensive as its onshore counterpart, offshore wind is riding a wave of rapid global expansion. What drives this surge in investment towards seemingly pricier energy? In this video we’ll navigate the depths of offshore wind. We'll uncover the innovations making these titanic turbines possible, explore why their energy is more prized, and dive into the tumultuous waters of 2023 that nearly capsized the industry. Can offshore wind chart a course towards a more sustainable horizon? Let's set sail to find out.
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00:00 Intro
00:54 How do turbines need to be changed to suit offshore environment?
01:24 Different types of support structure for offshore environment
03:39 Size
04:58 Corrosion
05:29 Reliability
06:05 Advantages & Cost Offshore Wind
07:13 Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) of Offshore Wind
08:09 Offshore Wind in Denmark
09:27 Non-financial benefits of Offshore Wind
10:39 Value of Offshore Wind - Complementary Generation Profiles
11:21 Matching Generation with Demand
11:43 Offshore Wind in New York
12:08 Offshore Wind in Western Australia
12:51 Offshore Wind Crisis
Sources:
For data, images & graphs
www.sarens.com/about/news/win...
www.maritimejournal.com/indus...
turbines.dk/
ember-climate.org/insights/re...
www.renewableuk.com/page/UKWE...
www.ukri.org/news-and-events/...
www.reuters.com/business/ener....
www.linkedin.com/posts/aegir-...
www.wbur.org/news/2023/10/05/...
www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...
www.politico.com/news/2023/10...
www.energyvoice.com/renewable...
www.nsenergybusiness.com/feat...
Journals and Scientific Papers
www.lazard.com/research-insig...
www.researchgate.net/publicat...
www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/6/2....
www.researchgate.net/publicat...
www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/8/3404
The Engineering with Rosie team is:
Rosemary Barnes: Presenter, producer, writer
Javi Diez: Editor / javierdiezsuarez
Fatini Nur: Research and production assistant / fatinin 
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The UK imports about £100 billion of energy a year , so any energy produced in house has a large effect on the balance of payments and national debt.
Don’t you mean “ electricity ? Bad English there , “electricity” is the product of power stations not “ energy” ,
2022 was an abnormal year though.
In 2022, the UK spent about £63 billion on crude oil, petrol, diesel, and other oil-based fuels, with another £49 billion spent on buying gas. The rest was spent on imports of coal and electricity - making a total of £117 billion. In 2021, £54 billion was spent on energy imports, with £48 billion spent in 2019.
As long as the poor get poorer,the Tories are happy.In fact,it's all part of their plan.
That is why they are making the shift to Cando nuclear.
@@kenlydon1395 It's probably the result of who he's been talking to. Most, if not all, European languages typically use the word 'energy' when talking about electricity production.
I was told by a offshore gas worker in Taranaki that offshore wind will be good for his company, good for regional and national economy but super bad for the environment. His reason was the crane ship that comes from Norway to do maintenance is polluting. Then he proceeds to tell me the same ship is used by the fossil gas industry in Taranaki. This is otherwise a very smart person that has been programmed by the industry he works in, programmed to believe crazy.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
Wood it be inappropriate to suggest he might have been ‘gaslit’
I have also spent time in oil n’ gas in Taranaki and it’s a common & understandable blindness amongst people with a vested interest in the status quo..
@@electricAB agreed, if by understandable you mean disgusting..
i am somehow thinking that those claims like _salary depends on his not understanding it._ just normalize that disgusting behaviour.. am i wrong?
Do a elétric vessel
@@electricAB No it *would* not be inappropriate to suggest he might have been gaslit.
Wow, so refreshing to get detailed explanations from someone who clearly knows her topic.
It is actually really amazing when I, here in Perth, explain to people how well Solar and Wind Anti-collorate, you see it click for people that have just not thought about it before.
Well the bad news is they don't anti correlate enough and even a few times matters. So lets say there are 30 days a year (its actually more) where Wind is low at night. The problem is you need enough backup to cater for those nights and the NEM (East Coast not WA) runs between 20 & 30GW on average so at night you can get Supply Gaps that are 15-18GW deep and in Winter last over 12 hours ie A shortfall over night of 100+ GW's.
Rethink-x has an excellent study on how to meet demand using wind, solar and batteries. Essentially you overbuild wind and solar so the amount of battery storage need is greatly reduced. By building 3-4 times your energy needs, the number of days where there isn’t enough solar or wind goes down dramatically. The few days where there still isn’t enough energy, you have battery storage for those periods. They show that this system will also be the lowest cost in 2030.
Batteries are getting cheaper with projections being they'll reach $50/kwh in the next 5-7 years. Nothing can beat producing your own electricity and storing it for using it at night.
@@kylekleman That is just way more expensive than a gas generator, let alone the waste of overbuilding. Maybe that would be viable with hydrogen or methane production from the excess production, but the batteries need to be used to make it economically viable. The other hidden cost is the load management. It gets exponentially more expensive when you reduce the amount of base production and replace it with variable production.
Basically the low production days will become so expensive that it is economically viable to install the needed battery power while during sunny/windy times energy will be free or hold a negative price.
@@TimMountjoy-zy2fd With battery prices coming down so much, and manufacturing of them ramping up so much, I can see battery energy storage facilities playing a role here to smooth out the lulls in production when the wind is not blowing and the sun isn't shining.
Hi Rosie, I worked as a draughtsman dealing primarily with steel ship construction. The monopile and jacketed structure options puzzle me. We can build ships out of steel because we can pull them out of the water/drydock them to paint them every now and then, otherwise corrosion will chew away the structure once the paint system is compromised, which always happens sooner or later. Given all the other difficulties that have to be dealt with at great expense to get offshore wind turbines to work, it would be sensible to seek the longest possible lifespan. I would have thought the mere idea of fixing a steel structure in place like that so that it cannot be maintained, and then parking a very expensive wind turbine on top would be enough to give any seasoned engineer palpitations.
One of the most interesting video about windpower - thank you!
I found it very interesting as well ......
However ....
Huge solution to a virtually non existent problem
Interesting only to confirm benefits of nuclear.
Great video Rosie! Especially happy with your explanation of why offshore wind seems so popular despite its higher LCOE as reported in Lazard. The cute boat-Rosie animation was also great!
Glad you liked that part, that was the main reason I made the video. I am constantly trying to explain that point in my regular job, thought making a video I could refer people to would be less repetitive!
Well she Lied via omission. Where there is wind, there is no naval industrial presence anywhere else in the world outside of the North Sea due to presence of Oil and Gas naval assets for construction. This an gargantuan cost which is NOT tabulated. Best offshore in the world would be down around Patagonia... Guess what NO ONE is trying to build down in the HIGH wind sea zones of Patagonia which are FAR superior to ANY other region of the world other than Antartica? Wind Turbines is what. Also, no other region(edit I think Argentina Patagonia has some, but I forget their depth) of the world has shallow seas and High winds like the North Sea which automatically incrases cost by a presumed ~50% over that of shallow sea bases, so her stated 2X more expensive is an absurd joke anywhere not named NORTH SEA. Anywhere else we are looking at 3X-->4X cost of on land. Wind also must be present with copious quanties of NG. Other than North America, no one else has copious quantities of NG to balance the fickle nature of wind. Wind is a Northern Europe/Plains of USA and a couple other geographic regions rare phenomena(Mongolia, S. Africa, for instance or Patagonia) with maybe East Africa. E. Africa with the PErsian gulf close ~enough and its NG might work. China is via its Mongolian wind is hoping they can tap their very large hydro network, but even then their Capacity factor for their wind sits at ~24% via their own claims and this is with modern wind turbines. Europe/USA have ~34% capacity factor, but lots of OLD inefficient HAWT's and all their new installations usually hit 50% capacity factor using near identical turbines as the ones put up in inner Mongolia of China just as an example.
It's a cute little boat, but as a sailor - it looks like it's sailing backwards! It looks like the artist copied the outlines of sails from a number of photos and combined them in a way that makes no sense and results in an 'uncanny valley' effect.
@@w8stral I think you missed the point about being close to cities in small or densely populated countries with limited space for onshore wind.
Patagonia and Antarctica have few or no cities, and plenty of space for onshore wind. I'll wager they never develop their offshore wind resources, however vast they are.
Your point is well made that the North Sea has been the first place for offshore wind to gain popularity largely due to its established oil and gas engineering industry, with capital equipment in place and experienced workers. The same applies to the Gulf coast of Texas but there has been no offshore wind boom there because there IS plenty of space on land in Texas, and the wind boom has been onshore.
Gas is certainly useful for offsetting the variability of wind generation, but so are solar and hydro. Gas is not a necessity, it's just the incumbent. For now.
Uh, no, YOU miss the point, when NG is a SMALL fraction of the cost, why would ANYONE with a brain cell put in Wind Turbines? LCOE cost analysis NEVER adds in grid stability, making it a giant lie when you compare to begin with. Vast majority of the world has near Zero wind power potential. Wind potential is exceptional in its Geographically specificity. Same is true of solar. @@JonathanMaddox
LCOE is inferior to total system cost calculations. Solar and wind complementing each other, on average, does not negate reserve requirements (there's still too many times when both are providing low output). Batteries are not sufficient either given that they're typically only able to provide for 4 to 6 hours.
Hence LCOE is fine if your renewable penetration is relatively low (< 20% of installed capacity). But once penetration gets really high... 40%+, additional integration costs go exponential, and LCOE doesn't account for that.
Even at low levels, like 10% of the grid, renewables become extremely expensive.
Can't wait for the floating offshore one!
Neither can I, but probably not for the same reasons!
Floating wind is incredibly expensive just to build, but 2 of the 3 projects so far have failed from a reliability perspective, I’ll use US$. There have been 3 commercial wind farms, Hywind Scotland, Kincardine (Aberdeen Scotland) and Hywind Tampen in Norway to supply their oil and gas rigs, LOL.
H Scotland cost $10.97 billion per GW, it was established in 2017 and all the turbines are being towed back to Norway for a euphemistic ‘heavy maintenance’; a mere 7 years and the turbines are stuffed. Kincardine cost $8.9 B per GW, was commissioned in 2021 and had at least one turbine towed back to Rotterdam in 2023 for ‘maintainace’. H Tampen cost $8.49 B per GW and given it’s just been finished it’s too early to say how soon it will be till those turbines fail also.
Bear in mind that those astronomical construction and maintain costs are for assets that only generate 54% of their rated capacity. To put that in perspective, nuclear power in S Korea has a 96% capacity factor.
So basically renewable offshore generation is expensive. The latest auction failed because the companies wanted more minimum payments. In south of England already agreed projects were cut back because of visible farms in the channel
Indeed.. I am very doubtful that there are any offshore projects that are making decent money..
You neglect to mention that most equipment, blades, turbines, etc. come from China where they get 70% of their energy from coal. Similarly for solar panels. So, the costs for “clean” energy are much higher.
True. I guess we also have to factor in how much renewable energy is used to produce mining equipment and to power the mining operations for fossil fuels over time. If a turbine has an expected lifetime of say 10 years (this is an example, I don’t know the real world figure) we can factor how much co2 was needed to produce it and compare to 10 years of building and operating the mining and operation of a fossil fuel energy plant(coal, gas). I wonder how that would stack up. 😅
You do know that China has installed more renewable generation in the last couple of years than the rest of the world combined ?
I remember being told that few offshore oil rigs were terrible for the ocean ecosystem. How does having hundreds of times more offshore wind towers have no effect?
Thank you for clearing that up for me.
Every Kiwi who was around in the 80's knows of the Freemantle Doctor. Even if they have never been to Perth.
Yeah because of Wellington is windier.
Americas Cup?
@@LawpickingLocksmith hey: are you related to lock picking lawyer? Just wondering, seeing your handle
Thanks Rosie. I really appreciate such a thorough explanation by someone who really knows what they are talking about, and cites sources of information. As a retired Aerodynamicist, I have a reasonable understanding of the physical generation of power from wind, and with long experience of stability augmentation of flight control, the automatic control of a turbine and generator is also well understood. But the civil engineering, economic, oceanic, and weather spects that you brought out are real eye-openers to me.
She does not know what she is talking about, she is ignoring the nuclear option. Wind is not a 'renewable' energy considering the cost to repair and replace.
Such a thorough job of presenting this important topic, and your graphics make it easier to follow - great job!
Rosie, that was an exceptionally clear overview of all the issues involved in offshore wind. Thank you! 👏👏I’m looking forward to your episode on floating offshore wind!
Brilliant video, concise, clear, interesting... look forward to more.
There is a system called biorock reefs, basically uses a very low voltage current that causes calcium to precipitate out of the seawater and form a layer of minerals on rebar that is basically food that supercharges the growth of corals and shellfish. I've been obsessed with the idea of that being deployed on the underside of offshore wind turbines so that offshore wind farms also become massive biodiversity hotspots full of coral reefs.
These pilons after some years in operation get cleaned to prevent exactly that growth to occur, as that would increase shear. To avoid increasing risks of failure, those pilons would need to be a lot heavier, and more expensive. The anti-scouring protection at the base can serve as building blocks for ecosystems, and if you choose materials wisely, they may over time counter the harmful acidification process that results from the absorption of CO2 from the air into the sea.
Depends what the structure is, I think; and also the strength of the local ocean currents. The main shear stress would seem to be too come from the wind on the turbine, which is a huge force multiplied by a massive distance, this making a huge overturning moment. In contrast the water forces are probably lower, and certainly close to the base, leading to a lower overturning moment.
But I'm a physicist, not a wind power engineer, and is love to see Rosie's view on this. It's alreaydy possible that i may be mistaken. (AM i allowed to say that in a you tube comment?)
I remember reading that oil rigs add to bio diversity by being a place for various things to grow.
Very helpful, thanks
That's an impressively information-dense 16 minutes. Thanks for a comprehensive summary delivered in a thoroughly balanced manner. You are becoming a national, if not global treasure :-)
Aww 😊
True. An international resource, given that you started out with videos created in Denmark when you were working there. I still remember your one where you made a working wind generator out of cake. 😊
Never points to the bad side such as propeller coating with sea spray, damage to the marine/mammal life world wide and the number of whales beached since these wonderful 300 mtr towers were forced into the sea bed.
@@trueriver1950 still my favourite video!
Thank you Rosie!
Thank you for the informative video.
Being working in OW since 2014 designing farms all over the world, and this is a great video to explain this amazing industry!! Congrats
Slightly odd to put the UK in the category of countries not as blessed as Denmark with offshore wind resource when its coastal waters typically experience 10%-15% higher average wind speeds.
yes that's fair, UK is pretty blessed also!
"Blessed"?
This channel is a great find. Thanks for making such informative and well presented videos. Subbed! 👍
I can’t help thinking that some of the reason that the offshore projects failed was just because they wanted a slice of the pie of the higher electricity prices.
It (recent abandonment of some offshore projects) was mostly a result of inflation surge, and supply issues for
materials. The projected costs assumed that the trend line of decreasing prices for offshore wind would continue,
which did not occur ... so substantial cost overruns loomed menacingly.
You are utterly incorrect. The Wind Turbine and Solar electrical generation is EXTREMALLY expensive. Depending on the exact place (affects the cost of construction) and the origin of the product (cost of the product) this multiple varies between 4.5 - 6.5 times. And it means that your government has no choice, but increase taxation on YOU, in order to pay for this "renewable" electricity.
@@arney444 That is not true at all. Onshore wind is objectively the cheapest form of energy generation. Please do look into it. Also do the maths.
I just bought a share of an onshore wind farm, it cost £2000 for my share and that percentage will generate about 3000kWh of electricity per year. My average cost including maintenance will work out at 2.5p per kWh. That is insanely cheap. The construction is reviewing no incentive and because the ‘fuel’ ie wind is free is super cheap.
Take another example, solar PV. I can but a solar array (trade prices) at £64 for a 405w panel. 10 of those for a 4kW array, plus an inverter for £500, £500 for other bits so for less than £2000 I can have a 4kW solar array, which will generate around 3,700kWh per year. Just like the one that’s already on my roof, which had been there 9 years and as of today has 34,512kWh of electricity. That cost me £4,800 back then (they’ve since got better and cheaper) but even at that price, if it stops generating tomorrow my average cost per kWh has been only 13.9p per kWh, but it’s got a 25 year warranty, so it should continue to generate electricity.
It’s currently saving me more because the retail price of electricity right now is about 27p per unit. So every kWh it generates saves me 27p.
I can also use it to fill my car so I can drive cheap too.
Great video thanks.
Fantastic report. Learnt heaps.
Rhorough and knowledgeable. Thank you
Interesting stuff. Thanks for the video.
Excellent as always
I'm interested in Japanese offshore wind so I am looking forward to the floating turbine video.
How about cost of wind vs natural gas, coal and nuclear?
Wind and solar are infinitely-expensive, on a sustained basis.
Love your work and integrity 👏 👍 😊
Electricity - and its cost - is at the heart of modern industrial economies, and the backbone of our lives. Whenever you hear 'well, it is more expensive, but ...' , stop and think. We, all of us, have budgets. If we pay more for electricity, we have less available for everything else. It's not just what we pay for electricity in our homes. When businesses pay more for power, they have to raise prices. That includes hospitals, electric train lines, airports, and commercial office space. And of course the government - they have electricity bills too. So every one of us - including the poor and working class - have to do without something to pay the increased price of power. When are we going to hear about what people will sacrifice to pay for wind power?
In the UK Aldi supermarkets are the cheapest and have PV on the roof. After its returned its installation costs how much is the electricity? My home PV has paid for itself. All new infrastructure is expensive due to up front costs , in 2011 the UK grid needed £100billion spent but was underfunded because it over inflates prices. Its just another market to manipulate for profit.
Off shore windfarms are good for fish. Trawlers cannot operate in these areas.
Yep and the structure below will be colonised by seaweed and shellfish,etc.
OK for recreational fishing, I hope. @@chippysteve4524
Never thought about that!! That’s good then! (I’m vegan)
I was literally on a repair job in a north sea wind farm between the UK and Netherlands because a trawler damaged one of the subsea power cables. It took 7 weeks to complete the repair. Our vessel was $100,000 per day and burned 20 cubes of heavy fuel oil per day. We also had a mass flow excavator come in on another vessel at the end of the job to bury the repaired cable omega loop.
Multi million pound repair all because of one trawler who's trawl doors caught a cable that had came out of burial.
@@Nada-Mal Wow. I hope the trawler was fined
Offshore wind has the benefit of working as a transition option. Infrastructure, like ports and ships and workers can be repurposed from fossil extraction to building renewables. And the inherent "big project nature" with centralization, large investments, complex legal matters is perfectly tailored for those companies that previously build coal, oil and gas plants.
Transition to what?????
@@thamesmud
Poverty ?
With my fuel costs doubled to solve a
non existent problem ......
A balanced explanation of the pros and cons, opportunities or setbacks or challenges, logistics, inflation, economy, comparative energy pricing and demand cycles, geographic conditions and adaptations, population density, environmental concerns.
Very clear explanation and slick presentation. I would love every village to have a sandbattery and district heating linked to renewables
According to UN statistics around 40% of the world’s population lives
Wrong. 90% of that population lives in poor countries, which cannot afford even the cheapest electricity, i.e. generated by the coal-burning plants. The so-called "renewable" energy is 6 times more expensive. Now, a question to you personally: would you agree to have YOUR PERSONAL TAXES to be increased by 2-3 times, so YOUR GOVERNMENT could pay those countries for that hugely expensive electricity? The most important reason this extremally stupid idea about "renewables" became super popular - that the 90% of the population have no idea about the cost of producing and distributing of electrical energy. On the other hand the uneducated, morally perverted and completely corrupted politicians ban the professionals from taking this issue in their hands.
@@arney444 First I suggest you look at the LCOE for coal versus renewable options. Second, a key advantage of wind and (especially) solar is that it can be built incrementally, one panel or turbine at a time, whereas a 2GW coal (or nuclear) power plant takes years and $100m before it produces a single watt.
@@Richardincancale Thank you for an attempt on education. I am a professional electrical engineer with over 40 years of experience in design/constriction of the power power plants of all kind. Plus transmission lines. Your message shows that you have no idea about the cost of construction: building a fossil-fuel plant within one time increment cost much LESS than installing an equal generation capacity in 20-23 phases. But the most important is that you are trying to change the topic, by ignoring the fact that electricity produced by "renewable" source is still 4.5 - 6.5 times more expensive. Where is your answer to the question: how could people afford to pay for such super expensive energy? Do you PERSONALLY agree to have your taxes raised by 2-3 times to pay for that?
@@Richardincancale to continue on this topic (read my first reply first): the world largest manufacturer of the electrical power equipment - Siemens AG - has been desperately trying to sell its wind-turbine manufacturing divisions for the last 1.5 years. Why? Because the European countries, which had been super-entusiastic about wind power, finally realized that they simply don't have money to continue to subsidize this business.
And I know Siemens very well, as it has been my major competitor for the last 15 years. The people at the top of the company are extremally knowledgeable about their business and are very good at analyzing the perspectives. BTW, I don't know where you live, but in the US it takes only 2 years to build and commission a combined-cicle gas combustion plant with output of 1,050 MVA (1,050,000 KVA) (my latest project)
@@arney444 I also worked in the electricity industry for a national utility with both renewable and fossil sources. The cost of renewables is now well below fossil fuel. “For the last 13 to 15 years, renewable power generation costs from solar and wind power have been falling. Between 2010 and 2022, solar and wind power became cost-competitive with fossil fuels even without financial support. The global weighted average cost of electricity from solar PV fell by 89 per cent to USD 0.049/kWh, almost one-third less than the cheapest fossil fuel globally. For onshore wind the fall was 69 per cent to USD 0.033/kWh in 2022, slightly less than half that of the cheapest fossil fuel-fired option in 2022.” - IRENA.
Thank you Rosie, extremely clear and informative but as to your last point for consistency in messaging. Unfortunately when governments et. al. give a diktat and a lie then when the truth sinks in there will obviously be reversals and back pedaling. The UK have been old that we HAVE to be zero carbon and that renewables are UNDENIABLY cheaper and will create masses of UK jobs. That failed bidding process alone should put this in some doubt. These jobs will actually just add to a massively over inflated public sector making our energy industry an immensely costly addition to our civil service paid for by taxes and poverty inducing energy costs (in turn destroying local production and economies).
There is a place for these projects in our energy mix but there needs to be more honesty about the challenges and the costs of the unpredictability (helped by offshore), transmission infrastructure, storage, back-ups, environmental impact to birds and sea-life and decommissioning costs and impacts.
Then we can talk honesty about the pace and cost of investment. It may well be different elsewhere but in the UK we are being told that we must do this AT ANY COST as apparently the global sustainability of the planet hinges on our 1% (and falling) of Global emissions as once we cripple ourselves economically the rest of the world will apparently follow us into the wilderness.
Sorry to unload Rosie you do great work but unfortunately the engineering and many other points you make so well have to be viewed through an unfavorable political lens.
As a UK taxpayer how does importing £100+ billion of "cheap" foreign energy help the UK? Hinckley point C got £100 a Mwh for EDF and French taxpayers
Thanks Rosie. Looks like the 'economical unsustainability' of offshore wind is just a commercial glitch. I was thinking recently about when offshore wind blows (largely driven by sunrise/sunset?) and how it aligns well with domestic consumption, which should reduce the demand on storage. Maybe the LCOE should be commuted to the consumer cost to factor in aspects like storage & even energy supplier markups (which home generation doesn't have).
Hi Rosie, thanks for another interesting and informative video! @11:19 you briefly mention energy storage in connection with offshore wind pg. As a possible solution, this might be achieved with local to offshore wind turbines by having offshore pumped storage hydroelectricity. The way pumped hydro might work offshore is by having an undersea chamber, (or series of chambers) submerged at a certain depth. As power is generated by the wind turbines, water is pumped out of the chambers and replaced with air, creating a storage of gravitational energy potential. When power is required, the chambers could be reflooded, and the transfer of air/water used to drive similar machinery (hydro turbine). The process seems pretty straight forward, combining different elements of existing technologies, making it cheap to implement and convenient to locate. Contrary to expectation, I have not heard or seem much about such an energy storage technology, which could potentially ratchet up to advantages and possibilities for expanded offshore wind prospects. I was wondering if the idea sounds interesting to you and if so, would be willing render some pros and cons?
Also an illustration of how the so called economics of renewable energy is dependent on govt. decisions , not just supposedly objective market conditions. Also raises the question of whether these govts. , the Tories in England for instance are really trying to bring in renewables or just look like they are.
Great video!
Rosie truly wears Rose tinted glasses where the size and profitability of the oil companies is concerned. Her engineering has no hope of addressing the global crisis we are facing in a timely manner. I wonder if she believes the humanity could be facing extinction ?
There was a report out of Sweden that analyzed if their future energy needs out to 2045 (which current production capacity can't meet) were produced solely from wind or nuclear, it was concluded that 40% more CO2 would be released if that future additional energy was met by wind power alone. There was a second paper signed by 8 Swedish professors that stated wind power in Sweden is a guaranteed bankruptcy without national intervention.
One comment about the USA - they can't use European ships to install wind turbines there as ships have to be built in US (quirky old law) - which also delayed projects.
It's called the Jones Act of 1920.
U.S.A. should lose the Jones Act. At least initially, allow those robust Europeans demonstrate how their investments
proved offshore wind affordable.
This woman admits she has a vested interest in renewables. These turbines are futile for the climate and horrific for power bills but great for investors !
Thanks Rosie, really informative. It would be very interesting to see the comparison of dollars of energy generated between onshore and offshore wind turbines given the production graphs you showed. Especially given the massive daily price fluctuations.
This all sounds fine. So let’s start by ridding ourselves of the euphemism windfarm. Let’s call it what it is, an offshore wind driven power station. Let’s get assurance that the components from mining to manufacturing are produced with no carbon emissions, slave or child labour. Installation and disposal of components with no damage to the environments we are doing this to protect. Finally, let’s see some politicians, particularly the Australian Teales put their money where their mouth is and advocate installation of these offshore from their own electorates. Given these simple expectations, I’m behind this 100%.
None of that can be done without emissions.
Will we also get similar assurance that all coal plants, nuclear plants etc will be built with components that are zero emissions, child labour free etc and we will build them in Australian Liberal (which is the Conservative Party in Australia for those are a bit perplexed by their name) heartland. Not likely
The one disadvantage for offshore wind that you didn't mention is that, like Nordstream, it's exposed to attack by the rogue major state.
Always a bad idea, the bats and birds suffer the most
...worth pointing out, 50GW's of offshore wind at 32% efficiency factor is about 145TWh's/annum. Current UK domestic electrical consumption is around 98TWh's/annum, but that's relying on around 80-85% gas and oil heating to homes. The only way we'll get 26 million homes (plus a million extra the government is saying they'll build) to run on 145TWh's/annum will be by either leaving all homes running on gas/oil, or by upgrading all existing homes (around 22 million) to current new dwelling building regulations standard with heat pumps running at an average COP of 3... to do this by 2030? That's upgrading 3.6 million homes per year, and installing 3.6 million heat pumps per year (last year we installed 36,000 according to Carbon Brief)... and then also worth pointing out that the electricity will be generated throughout the year whereas the lions share will be needed for winter heating, so you'll be needing to store 72.5TWh of the wind energy generated by the 50GW's generators for up to six months for winter heating. At current storage costs per KWh... that's kind of insane.
"50GW'S of offshore wind at 32% efficiency factor..."
It's called *_capacity factor._*
@@aliendroneservices6621 ...sigh
Jevon’s paradox.
Off course the actual output of the wind is higher in the winter. While the solar is greater in the summer. So you do have seasonal balancing. Pumped hydro is good addition to this mix. Using current costs for anything in this transformational process is meaningless with traditional cost learning curves clearly in play.
@@colinpalmer9070 apologies, but if you're under the impression that cost curves are going to bring the price of energy storage down sufficiently to avoid the trillions of pounds needed to do the job, then I'd say I'm impressed by your optimism. Also I do this for a living.
Great video from an expert in wind. As a commissioner for a small MA light dept, we have 3MW of onshore wind in town, but we need the high capacity factor of offshore wind to meet our requirements for a non-cabon emitting portfolio. There is more than 40GW of offshore wind on the East coast of US in the pipeline and we know costs will fall as we gain experience and build a supply chain.
Outstanding informative video. I’d love another video about floating offshore wind.
Other than it not being true: Only offshore wind is in Europe in VERY shallow seas, with base mounts which are NOT present anywhere else in the world other than a reef somewhere maybe. Using Lazards GUESS is absurd unless you think you can get away with it as you are talking to complete ignorants on the topic. Also the oil and gas offshore infrastructure is right there in the North sea whereas VAST majority of coast line where there is wind will have ZERO or near zero naval capability to build in the ocean with the sole exception being the Gulf of Mexico, or Persian gulf, both of which have ~zero wind so one CANNOT double use the existing infrastructure defraying costs. Offshore therefore is ALWAYS projected to cost at MINIMUM 3X if not 4X onshore anywhere else in the world not named(North Sea). Its a joke.
@@w8stralEast and Southeast Asia has pretty good capacity for steel fabrication and ship building. With fixed turbines already a common sight in Taiwan as the first mover in Asia and in progress for Vietnam and Philippines. Japan and Korea only have small area for fixed base but they're already starting, their big rollout however has to be floating due to water depths
@@w8stralcry me a river.
@@w8stral ' Only offshore wind is in Europe in VERY shallow seas' If you wish to make absolutist claims, check your data: ' The 11 Siemens Gamesa 8.0-167 DD wind turbines will be moored at a site 140 km offshore where winds are consistently stronger in water depths of up to 300 metres.' This is Hywind's floating turbine array.
It is admittedly modest, but so is everything initially.
You just made my point for me.. Only in very shallow seas with oil and gas infrastructure all around saving half the up front cost and they have great wind resources. No other region of the world has this other than Patagonia minus the naval assets. And those 11 turbines are a trial to see what the costs are as they have no idea. Claiming they will be great and cost effective is a nice joke. Good one. @@davidmartin3947
Great video
very interesting, and cool
Good thing Denmark has an interconnect with France!
And the UK too!
Actually, heard it is linked to Norway with loads of hydro. Match each other well and close by.
What a surprise they already thought of that.
@@lawrenceheyman435the Uk has links to Norway, Denmark, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Ireland. And one is in planning with Morocco. And I hear rulers about one with North America, which is actually about the same distance as Morocco. Though that is only to NE Canada- it will still need to go quite a way more to any population centres.
@bertiesmith3021 look at a map, which is closer to Denmark?
Also by your logic, the UK is being backed by all of the above - lucky you. It's not a one way street
Terrific as usual. This stuff is so important as we heat up from carbon burning. Lead time is needed. The little goofy sail boat could be better but we can't have everything. 😀
No we need fusion and now not polluting the ocean with more oil trash.
To reduce corrosion, why not use Bell Lab's 'Intercept Technology' to sacrificially remove corrosive ions from trapped airspace?
A question to the Engineer. When calculations of cost/MWh are made. Does that include how long they will last? Today a Nuclear power can very well live on for 80 years, tecnicaly for ever since every components can be swapped out in many cases. And better design is coming all the time. A wind farm live for 25- 35 years. In reality much less. Then it has to be demolished and replaced. So you have to build the wind farm many times as the reactor keep running. Costs of maintenance has to be included. But do they consider cost of grid building is much higher for the wind farms then the nuclear plant. And then you need baseload for the grid. And you need additional power often fossils when the wind or sun is not there. In Sweden we have long cold winters, not much sun or wind the coldest period and then the need for energy is peaking. So you get additional casts for wind and sun. And finally nuclear tend to deliver over 90% of running time. Wind and solar obviously much less. Resulting in energy when no one need it and no energy when needed. Toxic waste in nature from the blades, dead birds and big impact on nature is other wind energy-costs. The wind-solar alternative come with a terrible need for area and material, when a nuclear plant is very much the opposite. My impression is that calculations are maybe not made with realistic data. Politics often sounds very naive when speaking or at least very biased. Making bad investments is just bad, and we see a lot of that. And no atoimc waste is not a big danger, and it is relative very safe. The use of coal is killing so many more, right? We must see things for what they are. If we wan't to do good. .
For every windmill, they need a full backup system to produce when the wind isn't blowing. So you really need 2 systems. For a nuclear plant, the grid will cost about the same as the plant. For windmill farms and distributed production, the grid will cost twice as much as the windmills. Windmills at sea will probably last less then 10 years.
China is burning 4.5 billion tons of coal each year - what about that? Anyway, the ocean will eat all excess CO2 anyway. We are dealing with a rediciliouss doomsday sect here - don't try to make sense of anything.
The timescale for finance and implementation is a critical problem for some nuclear power in Europe. Perhaps the offshore electrons can be seen as a bridging supply technology before other fabled systems appear at commercial scale? Fusion, Thorium reactors etc...By the next century (if humans ever get there) the polar regions may become colder and drier overall due to the slowing global sea currents (currently observed), the tropics possibly uninhabitable in parts. The CO2 hangs around a long time: 'Once it’s added to the atmosphere, it hangs around, for a long time: between 300 to 1,000 years. Thus, as humans change the atmosphere by emitting carbon dioxide, those changes will endure on the timescale of many human lives'. science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/greenhouse-gases/the-atmosphere-getting-a-handle-on-carbon-dioxide/
@@JHawkins-jf6bs RE: CO2 hangs around a long time
That's pure hogwash. The air is in chemical equilibrium with the ocean. If we doubled the concentration in the air by tomorrow, most of this doubling would be eaten by the sea within 1 year, and almost all (98%) within 5 years.
If we remove all CO2 from the air tomorrow, most will be back within 1 year, and 98% within 5 years.
The ocean is leaking CO2 as hell, but when the pressure between the air and ocean is in equilibrium, the leak will stop. If the pressure in the air is higher, the ocean will immediately start eating CO2.
We do not have a CO2 problem whatsoever. It is pure fantasy. No CO2 problem whatsoever in any case.
Solar power, when used as agrivoltaics, removes much of the land area conflict.
1:35
Kettle of fish....that's got to be a deliberate reference
Could it be meaningful to rinse off salt dust periodically to reduce corrosion? I mean, as long as the nacelle is well over 10 meters over the sea level a vacuum pump and a cold trap is all that would be needed to distill water. And when air temperatures up there is well below the ocean water temperature no external energy would be required to power the distillation process.
For onshore wind farms in Europe, the issue is not only the availability of space, but also whether it is possible to get to where the wind is. You can't simply flatten a forest or a village to transport +25m long blades. So the cost of construction in the US is irrelevant to Europe because they have a lot of flat wasteland on the plains. Where the plots have almost no value compared to land in Europe.
Offshore projects cancelled by a major energy company in the Netherlands last month ( March 2024) because they are too expensive and therefor not profittable anymore...
So what? The overall trend is in the opposite direction.
There will always be individual projects which fail or are cancelled, for all kinds of reasons, but off-shore wind as an energy source is here to stay and it's adoption will continue to increase in future.
Thanks!
Thank you!
Awesome! Rosie for PM!
I've scuba dived an oil drilling platform near Los Angeles - eye-opening to see that each is an underwater skyscraper in a hostile environment. Daunting.
(Correlation MUST be added to LCOE!)
Cool stuff
New York canceling offshore wind projects might have something to do with the success of the city of Montreal just a few hundred km to the north being able to be at 100% renewable for electricity generation with the price that people pay on their bills being about a third of what New Yorkers pay, because of the use of a better form of renewable.
I appreciate all the nautical puns that surfaced throughout the script!
Thanks
Offshore wind farms are being mooted here in NZ. Frankly, I’m very sceptical. You talk about the challenges of scaling up the turbines and mention corrosion. I think you need to consider fatigue on metal or composites. You mention better average wind speeds at sea. But numbers are crucial. I look out my bedroom window and look at the northern Tararua wind farms. These operate on land with average wind speeds of about 9.5 m/s - amongst the highest in the world. But there are reliably issues. You also need to talk about subsidies. Many governments offer incentives that result in crazy decisions being made. (I’ve seen north facing solar panels in far north Scotland.)
I’ve worked in offshore wind since 2008
Offshore windfarms is a wet dream. The turbines themselves are more expensive but nobody seems to take into consideration the cost of the infrastructure needed to bring this energy ashore. The durability of these turbines are also questionable. A few months ago the German and the Spanish state had to pay 88 billion euros to prevent Siemens Gamesa to go bankrupt. In addition they got state guarantees for an other 165 billion euros. The reason for this was that the turbines did not live up to their expected lifetime. It is easy to take big risks if other pay for the losses. An other thing with wind turbines is that the more of them there are the less profitable they become. Wind systems affects large areas over Europe and when it blows all these turbines produce electricity. That means that there will be too much energy available so the spot price drops and can in fact be negative for the producers. When it is not blowing the producers have to buy their electricity elsewhere to fore fill their obligations. This is what happened in Markbygden One in northern Sweden. They went literally bankrupt due to an optimist deal they made with Hydro Energy back in 2017. The Swedes have done an estimate over the earnings of around 3000 wind turbines in Sweden. This estimate goes from 2010 to 2022. In this period the earnings were 35 billion Swedish kroner while the losses were 47 billion. That is a loss of 37%. I guess that as long as the state subsidies the losses and the taxpayers get the bill it is alright. The Swedes have started realizing the problem and started planning for new nuclear plants. An other problem with wind turbines is that they are asynchrony and that and that you need a big synchronized generator to prevent the electric grid to collapse. Electricity is a commodity that is consumed the moment it is produced. Wind power can maybe produce 15% of the electricity on a grid, the rest have to come from large generators that are either powered by water, hydrocarbons or nuclear. The energy also has to be planned to meet the demands at any time. Big energy hungry industries have to know that the energy they need is available at all times. Shutting down a steelworks takes weeks and getting it up again even more. Think what will happen if a server park has to shut down due to lack of electricity. Will these have priority over ordinary consumers? The environmental consequences are and other issues with the blades killing birds, pollution from micro plastics and leaks of oil and other chemicals, and not to forget how the low frequency noise from these turbines will affect fish , wales and seals. These noises will carry a long distance under water. Just remember that the big wales communicates with each other over extreme long distances.
Excellent information as always. Thanks!
Super interesting
In Britain, we need more onshore wind. Half the cost.
Rosie, Hope the subsequent Floating Platform Offshore Wind post. Will include a section on the possibility of it also generating electricity from secondary power sources, such as from wave energy, not only from wind?
Which would also reduce the correlation of the power output. Increasing its marginal value. And reducing the need for storage for the grid.
Seems like a natural synergy. That would also reduce the need for energy storage for the grid.
Has a submerged floating island, as a platform for numerous wind turbines, ever been considered or tried? Possibly out of a calcium carbonate CO2 sequestering, air infused material? Seems like it would also have environmental benefits too, in terms of attracting sea life too?
I wonder about adding gearing to turbines. Perhaps the forces are just too high, but by using a concept of even a 3 speed gearbox, you could significantly increase the safe operational wind speed
Most onshore wind turbines have gearboxes, most offshore don't. The reason is mainly reliability, the gearbox needs more maintenance than other components which is expensive offshore so they mostly avoid it.
I think there is some overlooked science that can envelope what I consider very valid points you have made. The whole approach to renewables has been from an engineering perspective and demanded irrationally by society.
More the subject of a paper and is multi discipline in nature but in essence all life on earth GAINS energy.
This is how plants work. They burn some of the energy they transduce from sunlight which has a max energy density a day variable by weather by photo synthesis for their own internal operation. Thus we have a simple equation total energy transduced /energy used. That is set by the DNA of the plant. That cycle is started in a seed which has three components A packet of building material, mitochondria with the DNA package and a packet of energy. All in herited from the old plant. A bio version of the starting system on internal combustion engine. The seed produces a root and shoot and the building of a new plant begins. Plants are the enetgy source for animals, bacteria and fungi including humans. Our agricultural society exploits this natural energy feedback circuit (it is not a cycle) to power by industrilised monoculture useing mainly grain crops eight billion people. So a field of wheat can be considered as solar collector to supply human energy. Some of that energy will have power the farmer and industrial workers who supply equipment and chemical products to agriculture. So we have the basic equation which powers our society. Total useful energy out of agriculture/total amount of energy used for humans for farming. The energy GAIN factor of our agriculture. This must be greater than one, otherwise the system is not self sustaining. We now have a new way to analyse our full industrial society based on science principles of energy conservation and not the misleading monetary economic system.
When the agricultural gain of energy is sufficiently high it can support more people. If GAIN gets sufficiently high then we can for simp,icity divide people into two groups one is the farmers with energy feedback and the other everybody else. Eventually forming a duel society farmers and every body else. With the invention of energy technology starting with where wheels and wind mills plus animal power we now have third group of people producing energy from technology, electrical oil gas ect. Some of that tech energy is fed back to keep the tech energy sector running and some to assist with increaseing the GAIN of the agricultural sector. So our society has a triple energy feedback circuit.
The rub is just as the agricultural output is dependent on the plant DNA our industrial energy is dependent on the efficiency of our energy transducers and the high density of the energy sources, fossil fuels and nuclear available 24 hr. Electricity generation is a special case as there is a huge multiplier effect from this energy source.
The big problem with renewable energy technology is the source energy density is low and inconsistent and conversion efficiency low and inconcosistent. So the GAIN factor is lower than for fossil and nuclear.
If you look at human population the increases in population correspond to the increasing GAIN of our bio and energy technology. In other words by a natural selection process humans have always adopted energy technology with a higher GAIN factor.
For the first time in human history we are selecting an energy technology with an inferior ENERGY GAIN CHARACTERISTIC. The major energy technology impacted is electricity with big mu.ltiplier effect. If the GAIN drop is sufficient then the implications for society could be far worse than climate change.
The writer intially qualified and was trained in heavy electrical power engineering manufacturing and career in power electronics. Later life degree studies in computer science and multi disciplinary science. The above is later derived from those studies.
It seems to me that a quantified way of comparing the demand by time of day, with the production by time of day, is pretty essential to have conversations that are productive. LCOE seems like a nearly useless measure, when talking about renewables (or any source that you can't turn on or off at will...but that's essentially renewables).
We will know how well offshore wind holds up after a couple of hurricanes.
Puntastic opening!
An interesting look at on and off shore wind power, the idea of floating arrays is interesting, obviously each one would need it's own pontoon, and for a large generator you would need a suitably large raft, just how big a raft would be good to know, also how the blades react to the "gusting" effect as the mast sways in the wind and waves, engineering problems you never get on a fixed site.
That Perth afternoon wind is very often lacking. There is little certainty around the Fremantle Doctor -- and it can make for a night of wretched stagnant heat.
Yes, a lot of grid storage will need to be built for 100% renewable energy to work, but the price of LFP batteries is dropping like a stone and they should last for 10,000 recharge cycles (i.e. 30 years).
@@amosbatto3051 Bill Gates Breakthrough Energy backed a company which is making batteries suitable
for stationary utility service, based on technology from Stanford U, which costs ~ 1/5 the price of lithium ion
batteries (as of 2022). Lithium is best present option for automotive/transport use, due to low density of lithium.
Rosie, you may forget that the on ground grid may need to be reinforced in the area where the power from the Offshore wind parks arrives on ground, and there is usually also a need for a converter from DC to AC current. it is usually not part of the price for installing a new wind park, and not in the cost by teh company, this lies on the public distribution and will anyway be paid by the end user.
Is there really a business case for offshore wind with fondations deeper than 60m ? this was one of the limitations highlighted in a wind farm in south west france, where there was a huge debate to move it further out of a marine protected area. engineering company did not want to go further and agrued with a technical limitation.
Another great video Rosie. Very informative. It's such a shame to see this resource not yet being taken advantage along the Victorian and NSW coasts. Concerted anti-wind farm campaigns from big and small media and local NIMBYs are really disappointing. Hopefully this all gets resolved soon and we can start producing clean energy from offshore wind in Australia.
What a great video
I had not realized how well Offshore wind complements other renewable energy sources. Here on the East Coast of the US offshore has also encounter NIBY opposition.
So offshore wind power cost up to twice the onshore cost per kWh......in other words , without government mandates and subsidies, these facilities would never be built in a free economy!
Thank you for a clear presentation Rosie.
How will the ever-rising cost of land in Australia affect the choices between offshore wind and all forms of on-shore power production?
Hi Rosie, you make great videos, I hope your consultancy does well. You deserve it. Just one thought I had. I have heard the Fremantle Doctor was actually the Fremantle Docker as it was useful to dock ships that had sails and no engines. Obviously from a time when engines were not available. I don't live in WA and have no history on this but being 65, I know the English language can change. Anyway, well done with your RUclips channel.
Lots of people in the UK rubbish nuclear for being too expensive, but a strike price of £77/MWh for wind must compare badly with £90/MWh for nuclear once you add in storage?
And the reliable availability 24/7 52 weeks of the year. No hot standby needed either.
Standby is needed for wind power.
i guess you missed some costs as well. what is about the build of the power plant, the cost to store of waste nuclear material
@@imtheeastgermanguy5431
Go for Thorium and there is very minimum waste .
But those huge turbine blades were supposed to last 25 years ,
in reality they are done for in about 5 years.
We are still learning on this
It's bigger generation , more often, with less turbines and faster to deploy plus construction can work without stopping ( fish are not complaining)
Much better to go with high density energy production from nuclear fission.
The new definition of sustainable seems to be: lasts for a decade or 2 before replacement or significant maintenance required. Replacement assumes unlimited raw materials over the long term. Short term thinking. LCOE is not accurate, FCOE should be used in future (Full, not Levelised)
I know this is an aside ecological benefit of these wind mills is that they are breeding grounds for undersea habitat. I would assume fishing in these areas would be limited and also fish fish breed near sea floor interruptions. I am not sure if the interruptions are enough in them selves due to my lack of knowledge on the specifics. But any areas protected are a boon to the natural wildlife.