Making sense (?) of UK Offshore wind farms

The UK DTI's Wind Energy Programme, was set up to "enable offshore wind power development and to support UK industry"

The first offshore wind project they supported was Blyth Offshore Wind Ltd . This was a commercial consortium of Border Wind,PowerGen Renewables (a joint venture between Abbot Group and PowerGen),NV Nuon Duurzame Energie and Shell Renewables.

This £4 Mn. 2 x 2 Mw offshore wind turbine project, 300metres apart, 800 metres offshore at Blyth, NE England, received financial support from the European Commission Thermie Programme. It is being monitored and evaluated as a part of the DTI's Wind Energy Programme. It hasn't produced any electricity for over a year. Nor will it produce any for at least 6 months.

Start here.

It must be remembered what the scale of financial support for "renewable energy" is both by the Renewable Obligation Certificates and directly ...as the National Audit Office reported (HC 210 Session 2004-2005 | 11 February 2005) .."Total public support for the renewables industry is expected to average £700 million per annum between 2003 and 2006. Around two thirds of this support will come through the Renewables Obligation, the cost of which is met by consumers and will reach up to £1 billion per annum by 2010 (the equivalent of a 5.7 % increase in the price of electricity). On Page 9 they state that ;

"For the transmission network (parts of the networks to be upgraded to cope with remote wind generation)this could cost between £1.1 billion and £1.3 billion by 2010..."

which ofgem have agreed (Dec 2006) for power transmission companies to spend and charge for to their users.

The Renewable Energy Federation (REF) says an average wind power station might earn 30% of its income from electricity sales and 70% from indirect subsidy (figure calculated on the basis of data in The Renewables Obligation: Ofgem’s first annual report, February 2004, and other official figures from Ofgem and the Non-Fossil Purchasing Agency Ltd.).


Their graph on page 8 (based on ofgem figures) shows that offshore wind was producing virtually no electricity in 03/04 and that by 2010/11 it would be generating 50% of the 10% target of renewables .

Originally the project was to use 750 Kw turbines but it was finally decided to use 2 V66 turbines with 33metre rotors at a hub height of 62 metres were designed and made by Danish company Vestas, using their "Opti Speed" system ensuring electricity generation even with varying wind speeds. The blades are also equipped with microprocessor-controlled pitch regulation, designed to ensure continuous and optimal adjustment of the blade angles in relation to the prevailing wind. The Predicted Annual Energy Output was 10,500MWh or 2,240 homes.

This decision to upgrade the power output, involved increasing the monopile foundation diameters from 2.5 metres to 3.5 metres.

The key contractors were the marine division of AMEC Capital Projects and Seacore, of Gweek in Cornwall, who surveyed the site with 20 metre boreholes in 1998 and in 2000 returned to install the 2 units in 8 (6 -11 m) metres of water with AMEC's Wijslift 6 jack-up(owned now by Seacore and renamed Excalibur) and used special large diameter sacrificial coring bits to assist with drilling deep sockets in the seabed rock to receive the turbines' steel 150 tonne monopile foundations in an impressive and successful underwater engineering project .Seacore had completed a similiar project in February 1998 for a similar 2.5 MW wind farm in the Baltic Sea off the island of Gotland for Vindkompaniet of Hemse, Sweden. Reading the details one might say this was constructed on the lines of a brick built outside toilet.

Amec erected the 2 turbines on top of the monopiles which were 6 metres above the water surface. which were commissioned and opened officicially by energy Minister Helen Liddell on December 6th 2000.

Powergen's executive director of UK operations at the time , Nick Baldwin, said: "We are confident that the Blyth project will demonstrate the robustness of the technology and lead to the further harnessing of the UK's substantial offshore wind asset."

It is worth noting what the NAO report previously referred to, says on page 56 (when Blyth had been in operation for several years) .....

"Offshore - There is relatively little direct industry experience of operating offshore. As such, the sector requires further development, demonstration and assessment before becoming a proven and commercial technology. The success of onshore wind provides some confidence, although uncertainty remains over the potential for a substantial reduction in costs."

Straws in the wind

The Oswald consultancy have conducted a detailed and excellent survey (pdf alert) (published 1st Nov 2006 for the renewable energy foundation) of the actual output of UK windfarms in their report for the UK. Page 18 shows the results for 2005 of the North Hoyle site and Scroby Sands ... but no information is presented for Blyth.... which puzzled Lord Patel. he found out why.

The reason was that the two expensive turbines at Blyth were not generating electricity.

Why ?

Well, the BBC consumer affairs program You and Yours and John waite on Friday Jan 7th 2006 at 12.00 reported that their man in the North East had checked up on the stationary rotors - and it turns out the cable, the thicknes of a man's upper arm, carrying the electricity ashore had not been buried. It was left on the rocky sea bed (which took some fine drilling skills to penetrate) and has broken / severed / rotted / rubbed despite underwater checks... anyway it isn't conducting any electricity.

Everyone seems a little uncertain when this happene, but it appears to have broken some time in 2005 ... and nobody seems keen to foot the bill to replace it - claiming that such cable is currently in "short supply" (Ho.Ho.Ho.) .. which would appear to be a limiting factor on erecting any more such units ?

The dreadful dickie bowed, Professor Fell seemed amused by this when questioned, especially as his New and Renewable Energy Centre (with which he is no longer connected) is quite handy for the site (Ridley Street, Blyth) . Indeed the website claims ...

"NaREC headquarters are situated in the shadow of the Blyth port onshore and offshore wind turbines. The North East of England is especially well-equipped for both onshore and offshore wind development and manufacturing, due to its experience in shipbuilding and deep sea oil rig development."

The Learned Dr Fell also admitted that lightning struck one of the original turbines before the Minister opened it to be replaced at a cost of "hundreds of thousands of pounds" by the Danes with a specially constructed barge.... which might go some way to explain the very high insurance costs for wind energy systems in Germany (see REF report)


The Royal Academy of Engineering report, The Costs of Generating Electricity (March 2004 ISBN 1-903496-11-X), estimated that wind power onshore and offshore were the most expensive form of generating electricity (expressed in terms of a unit cost (pence per kWh) delivered at the boundary of the power station site - transmission costs not included), at over 5p per kWh and 7p per kWh respectively, as compared to say coal and gas, which in their various forms are just under 2p per kWh or just over 3p per kWh.

It is worth pointing out that the New and Renewable Energy Centre says wind energy costs are somewhat different, estimated at 2.5p – 3.5p/KWh on shore in 2003 by the Carbon Trust but agree on offshore costs estimated at 5p – 8p/KWh in 2003 by the Carbon Trust.... adding ..."but costs are gradually falling".


Dong Energy published their report on the Copenhagen off shore wind farm last month
http://www.ens.dk/graphics/Publikationer/Havvindmoeller/havvindmoellebog_nov_2006_skrm.pdf
See post by Lord Patel December 6th and noted that "in 2004 the availability for Horns Rev was low due to a comprehensive repair of the gears and transformers on all the Vestas turbines."

Based on the (admittedly) limited experience of offshore wind farms the diversion of public funds and charges on consumers cannot easily be supported. It is time some very hard questions were asked about the further expenditure on these expensive and accident prone bits of kit.

1. They are expensive to build
2. They are expensive to insure, maintain and run
3. The electricity production costs are high in comparison with other sources and there is no evidence that costs will decline.
4. They impose huge construction costs on the current transmission networks
5. They may produce problems in transmission networks - see the recent European blackout which official reports so far point to wind energy units causing supply disruptions exacerbated by cascading load shedding tripping other units.

On this last point it is essential to read ...
See Interim Report - System Disturbance on 4 November 2006
union for the co-ordination of transmission of electricity

Section 5.1 Page 25

About 40% of the total generation units which tripped during the incident were wind power units. Moreover, 60 % of the wind stations connected to the grid at 22:09 tripped just after the frequency drop.

Sect 8.1 Page 51
"The events in the evening of 4 November 2006 have been the most severe disturbance in the more than 50-year history of UCTE regarding the number of involved TSOs and the amplitude of the registered frequency deviation."

Page 52
"During the disturbance, a significant amount of generation units tripped due to the frequency drop in the system which resulted in the increased imbalance. Most of this generation is connected to the distribution grid (especially wind and combined-heat-and-power)."

There is also a report (in German) here at the E-on / Netz website. It adds little to understanding and seeks to exonerate the company from blame.

FOOTNOTE Late News

On Jan 2nd E.ON UK Renewables placed an order with Vestas for an offshore wind power plant with 60 units of their V90-3.0Mw wind turbine on 130 metre high pillars, for installation in 2008 and operation from spring 2009 on the Robin Rigg Sandbank 9 Km offshore in Solway Firth, W Scotland. This £200Mn project received planning permission by the Scottish Executive in March 2003 after a long battle although the electricty generated will benefit Cumbria.