Renewable Revolution

First Power Generated At 400 Megawatt Rampion Offshore Wind Farm In England 

November 30th, 2017 by Joshua S Hill

SNIPPET:

Located 13 kilometers off the Sussex coast of England, when completed and fully operational next year the 400 MW project will generate electricity enough to supply the equivalent of 347,000 homes each year. The Rampion Offshore Wind Farm is jointly owned by E.ON, the Green Investment Group (formerly the UK’s Green Investment Bank), and Canadian multinational Enbridge, which announced its investment in the project in November of 2015.


Full article with more pictures:     

https://cleantechnica.com/2017/11/30/first-power-generated-400-mw-rampion-offshore-wind-farm-england/

December 14th, 2017 by Joshua S Hill

SNIPPET:

“Over the course of the month Scotland’s windfarms generated the equivalent of 77% of our total electricity demand.  If we are to build on this success the UK Government must set out a route to market that encourages continued investment in onshore wind.

“Successive Scottish governments have set out a vision for renewables that has enabled the sector to flourish, drive down costs, create jobs and cut greenhouse gas emissions.  The forthcoming energy strategy needs to build on this strong foundation and set out the ambitious vision and steps we need to take to heat our homes and make the transition to electric vehicles.”

Full article:

https://cleantechnica.com/2017/12/14/november-another-strong-month-scottish-renewables/

December 16, 2017

Author: Greg Alvarez

If all you knew about the beach was what you saw in the movie “Jaws,” you’d never go. Yet 58 million Americans a year go to the shore.

Context matters. And that’s exactly what is lacking in a recent report by GateHouse Media that amplifies the complaints of a small number of the millions of Americans living near wind farms, while downplaying the vast majority who welcome the benefits of a new cash crop for rural America.

GateHouse appears to have set out to write a negative story about wind energy. First their reporter probed the idea that foreign companies were buying up American cropland. (They aren’t. Farmers keep their land and get lease income.) GateHouse then was fed anecdotal reports by opponents of wind farms online, while declining multiple offers to interview people satisfied with their local wind farm.

For nearly six months, both AWEA and wind developers responded to pointed questions and offered much-needed context to the GateHouse reporters. When offered positive accounts of wind farms in rural America, however, we were told they wouldn’t be included because the story of positive experiences had already been written.

The result, according to a watchdog group’s in-depth look at the origins of the GateHouse project: Its “anti-wind article leans almost entirely on anecdotal evidence” that “flies in the face of actual science.”

It paints a deeply inaccurate picture of wind power in America, based on a cherry-picked sampling of unhappy individuals. And it perpetuates baseless claims, in most cases without offering any evidence, which is as bad or worse of a journalistic practice than selectivity.

Vast majority of wind neighbors report positive experiences

As with other large-scale infrastructure projects, residents living near wind farms will have a variety of experiences. Undoubtedly, there are some people who do not like living near wind turbines. We are sympathetic to those individuals. AWEA and its member companies strive to ensure that wind farms are good neighbors, while leaseholders and communities around wind projects have the best possible experience.

But the context is that the vast majority of people living near wind farms report positive experiences. In the U.S., 20 million people live in counties with wind turbines. Around the world, tens of millions more live near wind turbines without issue. Once wind farms are built, as shown by polls taken recently in states such as Texas and Iowa where wind turbines have been widely adopted, concerns tend to diminish and support for building more of them has increased to 85%, 90% or even higher.

However, GateHouse refused to speak with people willing to tell their positive stories about living near wind farms.

For example, we recommended that their reporters connect with Paul Jackson, Director of Economic Development for Benton County, Indiana. Benton County is home to nearly 600 wind turbines, and the community is overwhelmingly supportive, yet Gatehouse declined to speak with Paul. Here’s a sample of what they would have heard about living with wind had they made the call:



Communities across the country echo Benton County, as in upstate New York:



And in Texas:



Or Colorado:



Health concerns

A variety of recent research shows that wind energy saves lives and improves health. By cutting air pollution, wind and solar power helped avoid up to 12,200 premature deaths, 2007-2015, and wind avoided $7.4 billion in health costs in 2016 alone, according to an AWEA analysis of data from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Over 20 peer-reviewed scientific studies have considered whether proximity to wind turbines causes physical harm and concluded it does not. Credible research from MIT, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the Wisconsin Department of Public Health, and Canada’s equivalent of the Department of Health and Human Services bears this out.

New research into the “nocebo effect” (the opposite of the well-known placebo effect) shows that the perception of effects from wind farms can actually be caused by the spread of misinformation.

The development process

Developers spend years planning wind farms prior to construction, informed by advances in modeling and siting and over 35 years of experience operating the now over 52,000 wind turbines in America. Issues such as sound and shadows are considered and addressed in state or local permitting processes. In case after case, wind developers bend over backwards to address local concerns.

It is unfortunate that someone may be unhappy with the outcome of a permitting process, but that is true of any type of development. The reality is that no human activity garners a 100 percent approval rating -- from roads to cell towers to farming operations.

Communities are the lifeblood of wind energy

The U.S. wind industry will continue working hard to ensure that farmers and ranchers who obtain turbine lease, and communities that host the resulting wind farms, have the best possible experience. We’re proud of the good jobs and economic opportunities our projects create for rural America, and we want to get as close as possible to 100 percent approval. By choosing to completely ignore the overwhelming number of positive experiences with wind energy, GateHouse’s reporters have done their readers a disservice and may be causing the nocebo effect themselves.

For another look at the GateHouse report, see this in-depth analysis.

Read more.

January 6th, 2018 by Jesper Berggreen

SNIPPET 1:

Numbers have just come out this week from danskenergi.dk, the Danish energy organization whose members support companies in delivering steady green power to the Danes, with an impressive uptime of 99.99% at competitive prices.



SNIPPET 2:

Lars Aagaard, CEO of Dansk Energi, emphasizes that it is very important we utilize the combination of this amazing wind resource and the ability to supply incredibly stable power supply. “Electricity must replace gasoline, oil and gas,” he says.


Although wind turbines deliver a steadily increasing share of the Danish electricity supply, that does not mean that the number of turbines increases. On the contrary, today there are about 20% fewer wind turbines in Denmark than in 2001
, when the number of wind turbines peaked. In 2017, about 6,100 wind turbines were in service according to the Danish Energy Authority.

The turbines have become bigger and more efficient. In addition, the majority of Denmark’s offshore wind turbines have been installed since 2001. Overall, capacity in Denmark has more than doubled since 2001, with today’s 5.3 GW wind capacity installed on land and water.

full article:

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/01/06/44-wind-denmark-smashed-already-huge-wind-energy-records-2017/

February 6, 2018 by Reuters

SNIPPET:


reuters logoBy Nina Chestney and Christoph Steitz LONDON/FRANKFURT, Feb 6 (Reuters) – British offshore wind project Triton Knoll has attracted the interest of several large investment funds, according to three sources familiar with the matter, in a sign of the growing competition for assets in the fast-changing sector.

German energy group Innogy , owner and developer of the planned 2-billion-pound ($2.8 billion) farm off the coast of eastern England, is looking for partners to get it off the ground.

The project has drawn interest from a number of infrastructure and pension funds, including Australia’s Macquarie , Switzerland’s Partners Group and Denmark’s PFA Pension, the three sources told Reuters.

Innogy, Macquarie, Partners Group and PFA all declined to comment on Triton Knoll. Offshore projects of this size typically have more than one investor alongside the developer.

The demand for the 860-megawatt (MW) Triton Knoll is indicative of the wider interest in offshore wind projects among funds. The returns on offer – typically 6-9 percent – outstrip interest rates, while competition has been heated up by the fact the number of profitable new projects becoming available is declining because fewer can secure government subsidies.

New data from industry group WindEurope, provided to Reuters ahead of its publication, reflects this rising institutional investor interest, as well as the decline in the building of offshore farms.

Infrastructure funds, pension funds and asset managers accounted for 35 percent of offshore M&A activity in Europe in 2017, up from 27 percent in the previous year, according to the data. At the same time, spending on new offshore capacity in Europe declined by 60 percent to 7.5 billion euros ($9.3 billion) last year, the first annual fall since 2012.

“There is definitely competition. The larger the project, the larger the investors which look at them,” said Oldrik Verloop, head of client advisory services for real assets at Aquila Capital, which manages 3.6 billion euros of renewable assets.

MEGATURBINES 
The wind sector is undergoing structural change that is altering the calculus for investors.

While returns on offer beat interest rates by a wide margin, they are still lower than the double-digit percentage returns projects yielded before governments across Europe started to cut the generous subsidies that have cradled the wind power sector since its inception in the early 1990s.

Last year, auction systems were introduced which involved lower government handouts and drove down margins for projects.

The reason investment funds remain interested lies in the long-term revenues and stable cash flows wind farms generate, much like other infrastructure projects, plus the fact that technological advances are bringing down costs.

In the last decade, turbines have grown larger, with some now standing taller than the giant London Eye Ferris wheel which graces the skyline of the British capital – and even larger “megaturbines” are in the works. Bigger turbines sweep a larger area and harness more wind, cutting costs per megawatt. 

Full article:

http://gcaptain.com/british-offshore-wind-project-draws-investment-heavyweights/

February 16th, 2018 by Joshua S Hill

The world’s first floating wind farm, the 30 megawatt Hywind Scotland, is outperforming expectations and operating at levels consistently above that of its seabound offshore brethren, according to project developer Statoil.

First approved by the Scottish Government back in late 2015, the 30 megawatt (MW) Hywind Scotland floating offshore wind farm is made up of five 6 MW wind turbines floating 25 kilometers off the coast of Peterhead, in Scotland. The project began generating electricity in October of last year.


According to project developer Statoil, a Norwegian multinational oil and gas company, Hywind Scotland isn’t just generating electricity, it’s been doing so at a level that surpasses expectations through its first three full months of production and beating out the average accomplished by bottom fixed offshore wind farms.

It’s important at this point to remember that a wind turbine doesn’t generate 100% of its potential electricity capacity 24 hours, 7 days a week — to do that would require very disturbing wind conditions that pretty much don’t exist anywhere on earth. According to Statoil, wind farms that are affixed to the seafloor generally generate at around 45 to 60% — in other words, they are generating 100% of their potential electricity capacity around 45 to 60% of the time.

Conversely, according to Statoil, during November, December, and January, Hywind Scotland generated at an average of 65% — and has encountered hurricane Ophelia in October, Storm Caroline in early December, and waves in excess of 8.2 meters. Storm Caroline did force the farm to shut down during the worst of the winds for safety reasons, but the turbines automatically resumed operation afterwards.


“We have tested the Hywind technology in harsh weather conditions for many years and we know it works,” said Beate Myking, senior vice president of offshore wind operations in Statoil. “But putting the world’s first floating wind farm into production comes with some excitement. Therefore, it is very encouraging to see how well the turbines have performed so far.

“Hywind Scotland’s high availability has ensured that the volume of electricity generated is substantially higher than expected. In addition, it has delivered without any HSE incidents.”

The importance of these results is more than just representative of the success of Hywind Scotland.   

“Knowing that up to 80% of the offshore wind resources globally are in deep waters (+60 meters) where traditional bottom fixed installations are not suitable, we see great potential for floating offshore wind, in Asia, on the west coast of North America and in Europe,” explained Irene Rummelhoff, executive vice president for New Energy Solutions in Statoil. “We are actively looking for new opportunities for the Hywind technology.”

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/02/16/hywind-scotland-worlds-first-floating-wind-farm-performing-better-expected/

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