Offshore Wind Power
Willett Kempton
Center for Carbon-free Power Integration
College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment
University of Delaware
UD Energy Workshop
26 April 2010
Offshore Class Machines
•
•
•
•
•
RePower 5M (shown),
installed in 45 m of water
Vestas V90-3.0 (2 years
in production)
Siemens 3.6 MW (but 50
Hz)
Clipper 10 MW (produce
in UK, 2009)
GE 3.6s (3+ years in
water, not in production)
Tower enables depth range,
thus resource
Land-based, monopile,
jacket, spar buoy
Art: NY Times Magazine
US Developments Proposed
The conventional Wisdom on
Energy
• US wind Mainly in the Plains
• All renewables are small
• Renewable energy is expensive
• Can’t get major CO2 reductions in time
• Wind is intermittent
MISO Joint Coordinated System Plan
Wind power beyond the
coast?
• No airport meteorological towers
• Many wind maps stop at the coast
• How to measure?
• (Met buoys and satellite-QuikSCAT)
QuikSCAT
Met. buoy
Image credit: NASA
Image credit: Brazilian Navy
vs
Pimenta, Kempton and Garvine (2008)
Estimating turbine production
Image: Repower Systems AG
Power curve of REpower 5M
QuikSCAT
turbine output
1999-2008
Image: Repower Systems AG
RE 5M
kWa
The conventional Wisdom on
Energy
• US wind Mainly in the Plains
• All renewables are small
• Renewable energy is expensive
• Can’t get major CO2 reductions in time
• Wind is intermittent
The conventional Wisdom on
Energy
• US wind Mainly in the Plains
• All renewables are small
• Renewable energy is expensive
• Can’t get major CO2 reductions in time
• Wind is intermittent
Power Units
• 1 Watt = an iPod playing
• 100 Watt = light bulb
• ~1 kWa (1,000 Watt) = a house (a=average)
• ~5 MW (5,000 kW) = wind turbine capacity
• ~2 MWa = wind turbine, average output
• ~1 GWa (1,000 MW) = Delaware
• 73 GWa = the mid-Atlantic (MA to NC)
• 450 GWa = the United States
Large resource on Mid-Atlantic
•
Examine resource
of entire MidAtlantic
•
Vs. load
Needs
GWavg
Electricity
73
Cars
29
Heating
83
total
185
Needs vs. Resource
GWavg
m
Excl
GWa
Electricity
73
0-20
0.46
60
Cars
29
20-50
0.40
117
Heating
83
50-100
0.10
153
total
185
Total
330
All of electricity, cars and heating uses 2/3 of the wind
resource, dropping regional CO2 by 68%.
Drill, Baby, drill?
•
How much oil in the entire Atlantic OCS?
•
Compare delivered energy from Atlantic
•
•
Offshore wind 330,000 MWa
•
OCS oil 18,000 MWa (during 20 years)
Wind > 18 times oil !
from: Kempton et al Geophysical Research Letters 2007
Reduce oil imports?
•
One electric car draws 400 Wa (.4 kWa)
•
Mid-Atlantic cars draw 29,000 MWa
•
Atlantic OCS oil could run 20% of MidAtlantic cars ... for 20 years
•
Offshore wind would run 100% of MidAtlantic cars....
Reduce oil imports?
•
One electric car draws 400 Wa (.4 kWa)
•
Mid-Atlantic cars draw 29,000 MWa
•
Atlantic OCS oil could run 20% of MidAtlantic cars ... for 20 years
•
Offshore wind would run 100% of MidAtlantic cars....
Reduce oil imports?
•
One electric car draws 400 Wa (.4 kWa)
•
Mid-Atlantic cars draw 29,000 MWa
•
Atlantic OCS oil could run 20% of MidAtlantic cars ... for 20 years
•
Offshore wind would run 100% of MidAtlantic cars.... forever
The conventional Wisdom on
Energy
• US wind Mainly in the Plains
• All renewables are small
• Renewable energy is expensive
• Can’t get major CO2 reductions in time
• Wind is intermittent
The conventional Wisdom on
Energy
• US wind Mainly in the Plains
• All renewables are small
• Renewable energy is expensive
• Can’t get major CO2 reductions in time
• Wind is intermittent
Context-free price comparisons
are nonsense
• Electricity prices are REGIONAL
• Wind price depends on local conditions-wind speed, topography, etc
• Must compare wind price at site to the
local market price
• ... Makes no sense to price “wind” versus
fossil -- nor on-land wind versus offshore
High Electric Rates on Coast
● Congestion raises
prices all along MidAtlantic coast (map
shows PJM East).
● Limited generation
and transmission causes
congestion.
● Generation offshore
would address both
problems.
Note: Map information is based on PJM data for a single day at peak demand
Source: Conectiv Energy
2
What about Price for the
Delaware case?
•
In Delaware, the local utility is buying
dirty power at 11 ¢/kWh
•
A 450 MW size, offshore wind contract
came in at 9.9¢/kWh
•
•
(It doesn’t matter what electricity
costs elsewhere)
And, significant costs are going on other
parties' ledgers ...
But don’t get me started on
Price!
•
Delaware: 25-years of payments for
electricity (450 MW, @ 2.5% discount rate)
•
Investment ~ $1B to $1.6B
•
Total payments sum $3.6 billion
•
Two years arguing whether <5% over or
under “market” (± $180 million)
•
Health benefit of project was $1 B NPV
•
But PSC couldn’t consider this, required
to evaluate electric price only
The conventional Wisdom on
Energy
• US wind Mainly in the Plains
• All renewables are small
• Renewable energy is expensive
• Can’t get major CO2 reductions in time
• Wind is intermittent
The conventional Wisdom on
Energy
• US wind Mainly in the Plains
• All renewables are small
• Renewable energy is expensive
• Can’t get major CO2 reductions in time
• Wind is intermittent
The conventional Wisdom on
Energy
• US wind Mainly in the Plains
• All renewables are small
• Renewable energy is expensive
• Can’t get major CO2 reductions in time
• Wind is intermittent
You can't make that many wind
turbines!
•
108 GWa supplies all electric plus all cars
•
Assume that each wind turbine is 5 MW
nameplate at 40% CF, so 2 MWa average
output
•
Requires 54,000 wind turbines for midAtlantic
•
Can we do this in 50 years?
•
Have we ever done this before?
B-24E (Liberator), 1942
WW II Aircraft Production
(1,000s)
193
194 194
Tota
1940
1943 1944 1945
9
1
2
l
US
2
6
19
48
86
96
46
331
World
33
47
72
121
188
231
95
770
And that’s not to mention all the tanks, ships & guns!
54,000 for East Coast by year 4
How would we actually build
those turbines?
•
A WWII production effort
would do it in four years.
•
But what if we don’t have a
WWII (politically)?
•
How many factories are
needed?
•
How fast to build without
WWII urgency?
Rosie the Riveter Poster by J. Howard Miller
How many factories?
•
One factory, five days/week, three shifts- roughly 350 turbines/year.
• Assume similar rate for towers, blades
• How long to make 54,000 turbines?
• One factory takes 154 years, e.g., way
too late for climate change
• To build 54,000 in 30 years takes 5
factories; in 15 years, 10 factories
• So, need 5-10 manufacturing complexes,
depending on desired speed of CO2 cuts
The conventional Wisdom on
Energy
• US wind Mainly in the Plains
• All renewables are small
• Renewable energy is expensive
• Can’t get major CO2 reductions in time
• Wind is intermittent
The conventional Wisdom on
Energy
• US wind Mainly in the Plains
• All renewables are small
• Renewable energy is expensive
• Can’t get major CO2 reductions in time
• Wind is intermittent
Transmission N-S
on Shelf
• Weather data from
each station S1 S11
• Transmission
"pools" power
• How much
smoothing of
output?
Transmission N-S
on Shelf
• Weather data from
each station S1 S11
• Transmission
"pools" power
• How much
smoothing of
output?
•
Individual simulated wind farms, such as S2,
S10 show frequent, rapid fluctuation in output
•
Power from combined grid changes more
slowly, rarely reaches min or max power
•
Easier to manage, higher value
• Single stations have
many high or zero
values
• Combined grid
clusters around midrange values
The conventional Wisdom on
Energy
• US wind Mainly in the Plains
• All renewables are small
• Renewable energy is expensive
• Can’t get major CO2 reductions in time
• Wind is intermittent
The conventional Wisdom on
Energy
• US wind Mainly in the Plains
• All renewables are small
• Renewable energy is expensive
• Can’t get major CO2 reductions in time
• Wind is intermittent
END
More information:
www.carbonfree.udel.edu
Thanks to:
Delaware Sea Grant
Delaware Green Energy Fund
PV
FERC Office of Enforcement, Increasing Costs in
Electric Markets , Item No.: A-3 , June 19, 2008