Going coastal: Offshore wind installations
"Any technical challenges unique to offshore installation can be solved," said Bartholf, "The real issue is cost. Recent figures show offshore projects at roughly double the cost for equivalent installed capacity on land. Currently, what major wind turbine manufacturers are involved with the design and manufacturing of these off-shore wind turbines? Most of the major ones."
The DOE’s 20% Wind Energy by 2030 calls for 54 GW of the overall 300 GW of wind operating in 2030 to come from offshore installations, Anthony emphasized. It is more expensive than onshore wind due to the need for more robust components to endure the challenging conditions of a salt-water environment. However, offshore wind energy offers all of the positive economic and environmental benefits of onshore development and, in many cases, additional positives, including these:
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Offshore projects tend to generate more power than onshore projects due to higher wind speeds and more consistent winds.
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There is less turbulence offshore, which reduces wear on components, and larger turbines can be used because transporting them is easier via water.
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Offshore projects can be built in close proximity to demand centers (coastal cities), eliminating concerns about transmission line bottlenecks.
Even though GE does have experience in the offshore wind power arena (in 2004 it installed the first multi-megawatt offshore wind turbine at the Arklow Bank Offshore Wind Park in the Irish Sea, a 2005 POWER Top Plant), Lowe pointed out that the company is less enthusiastic than the DOE about the near-term future of this type of wind energy. "We believe that offshore wind is a limited opportunity in the near term," he said. "Offshore wind farms are two to four times more expensive to build than onshore facilities and maintenance costs are substantially higher. Based on the rich land-based wind resources that we have in the U.S., wind power can be generated from onshore wind farms for approximately $0.08 per kWh — versus $0.20+ per kWh for offshore farms."
Lowe further noted, however, that in areas with poor or limited onshore wind resources, the high premium for offshore wind power may be justified. Indeed, the only active offshore markets today — the United Kingdom and Germany — demonstrate significant offshore incentive "adders" beyond the policy support levels for onshore wind.
Protecting wildlife
"Virtually any tall man-made structure will pose a collision risk to birds, but the risk from wind turbines is very small when compared to buildings, communication towers, and transmission towers," Lowe said. "Today’s tubular tower design gives no reason for birds to be attracted [to them] for nesting," as they were to the older, scaffold design. "Wind turbines pose less risk than other man-made structures, and proper siting is the most important aspect to reduce risk to birds. Sites should be studied to determine the migratory and local avian patterns."
According to Lowe, GE recently helped launch the American Wind-Wildlife Institute — an industry-nongovernmental organization collaboration to proactively address siting and permitting issues to ensure that the development of wind projects proceeds in an environmentally sensitive manner.
Likewise, the wind energy industry and the National Wind Coordinating Collaborative, of which AWEA is a founding member, are dedicated to ensuring that wind is developed in a way that minimizes potential impacts to bird populations.
According to Anthony, after the initial discoveries in 2003 of bat deaths near wind farms in West Virginia, supporters of wind energy and bats reacted quickly and formed a new organization, the Bats & Wind Energy Cooperative (BWEC) later that same year. BWEC includes AWEA, Bat Conservation International, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. This initiative raises millions of dollars to fund studies designed to reduce bat mortality. BWEC is focused on finding good site screening tools and testing mitigation measures, including ultrasonic deterrent devices to warn bats away from turbines.
On the horizon
"In the short term future (during the next five years), wind will continue to provide both large-scale utility power in the form of wind farms that continue to increase in size and scale (multi-megawatt) as well as in more distributed fashion, such as single turbines for public facilities," Bartholf predicted. "I think we will also see a continuation of a recent trend to bundle multi-megawatt projects into multi-gigawatt projects in order to justify the cost of the new transmission infrastructure that will be required to transmit the new generation to the load centers most appropriate for this type and quantity of power."
According to Anthony, the domestic supply chain for wind energy components is expanding. "Over the last 18 months, at least 41 new manufacturing facilities have been announced, expanded or opened in the U.S. — many in states like Arkansas, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, and North Carolina, which have suffered severe economic loses over the last several years in terms of manufacturing jobs," he said (Figure 3).
3. Getting a second wind. Wind energy is providing a boost to the beleaguered U.S. manufacturing sector. The average wind turbine installed in the U.S. in 2005 was made of about 30% American-made components. In contrast, turbines installed in 2008 contained nearly 50% domestic components. Courtesy: GE Energy
In addition, as the wind supply chain continues to expand, efficiencies in manufacturing and delivering wind turbine components will contribute to cost reductions, he commented. As the industry ramps up production, it will need experienced workers.
Wind energy will not attain its full potential in the U.S., according to Anthony, without a consistent, long-term federal policy that fosters investments in domestic renewable energy sources, just as federal policies have in the past and continue today to support conventional power technologies. There are several critical components to such a policy:
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A federal renewable energy standard to support a long-term, consistent market for affordable, clean energy sources in our national portfolio.
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National investment in transmission infrastructure and restructuring that provides an "interstate transmission superhighway" for transporting electricity from rural windy areas to urban areas where demand is greatest, and regional coordination/cost allocation policies to foster proactive planning for new energy resources.
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Climate change policy that takes full advantage of wind power by financially recognizing its emission reduction contributions.
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Improved siting regimes and coordination to minimize potential environmental impacts without unnecessarily delaying wind projects.
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