Offshore wind farms are typically financed with an assumption of a 35-year operating life. No data has come to contradict this. If anything, O&M costs have turned out to be lower than initially budgeted.
"an industry with 30- or 40-year assets" - 1st I've heard that. I thought wind, and especially offshore wind, was not expected to have a lifetime longer than 20 years, even with continual maintenance and replacement of moving parts.
Good article. But I think there is a fundamental set of assumptions that also undermine many of the decisions in the energy sector, particularly wind.
The first assumption is that energy generation should be designed to feed into a national grid. This was/is legitimate in a time of nuclear power (as in France still) and an electrified rail network (again France). But not so much in Britain, where the wind assets are so far from the users of that power that the infrastructure costs, maintenance and power losses are huge, and the grid system is actually connecting many smaller electricity producers that are or could be more local to users.
I would suggest that Britain is better suited to distributed power, such as for every new commercial building having a solar roof, and grants to retrofit all current industrial and commercial building with solar roofs, and grants for communities to fund one or more local wind turbine(s) and a battery storage system, than more investments in very large, distant wind farms and solar farms.
There is another compelling reason: Recent climate research increasingly proposes that AMOC will shut down within the investment and energy production life of new and existing offshore wind turbines, fixed or floating. On one hand, such a disparity between cold seas and hotter land masses in Europe would likely generate stronger and more frequent storms and higher wind speeds that could, in theory, generate more wind power. But it would also cause more damage and more maintenance in more difficult conditions. I also presume that the design criteria for existing installations hasn't taken such future conditions into account, not least because we really have little idea just how powerful such weather conditions might become, or how quickly.
I understand that the current energy financing model requires billing customers for an energy supply via the national grid, however costly and inefficient, and that all energy suppliers are scared that distributed and local power systems may well end their monopolies. But in resilience, efficiency and future-proofing terms, surely it is time for more serious consideration?
Not sure I understand your first point. We have a national grid, and it works, and it is needed (and large grids are much better are managing imbalances, which can more easily be offset against each other at scale than if you need to have perfect local balance everywhere). what is true is that with new generation sources in new locations, the movement of electrons in the existing system changes. Decentralized power like onshore wind and solar actually help the grid in general; large plants like offshore wind may create the need for new connections from that generation to the backbone lines, but that is part of what gets built whenever a large plant is brought online.
I can't comment on AMOC but can tell you that storms in the North Sea are already as violent as it gets, and turbines are also designed to withstand typhoons in Taiwan, so strong winds is something that can and will be managed.
National grids are not costly and inefficient, they are the exact opposite, actually
Maybe the British Government can help de-risk the sector through Great British Energy, though we shall have to wait for that. Maybe also some of us in Aberdeen can drop into the new office and ask!
Offshore wind farms are typically financed with an assumption of a 35-year operating life. No data has come to contradict this. If anything, O&M costs have turned out to be lower than initially budgeted.
"an industry with 30- or 40-year assets" - 1st I've heard that. I thought wind, and especially offshore wind, was not expected to have a lifetime longer than 20 years, even with continual maintenance and replacement of moving parts.
Good article. But I think there is a fundamental set of assumptions that also undermine many of the decisions in the energy sector, particularly wind.
The first assumption is that energy generation should be designed to feed into a national grid. This was/is legitimate in a time of nuclear power (as in France still) and an electrified rail network (again France). But not so much in Britain, where the wind assets are so far from the users of that power that the infrastructure costs, maintenance and power losses are huge, and the grid system is actually connecting many smaller electricity producers that are or could be more local to users.
I would suggest that Britain is better suited to distributed power, such as for every new commercial building having a solar roof, and grants to retrofit all current industrial and commercial building with solar roofs, and grants for communities to fund one or more local wind turbine(s) and a battery storage system, than more investments in very large, distant wind farms and solar farms.
There is another compelling reason: Recent climate research increasingly proposes that AMOC will shut down within the investment and energy production life of new and existing offshore wind turbines, fixed or floating. On one hand, such a disparity between cold seas and hotter land masses in Europe would likely generate stronger and more frequent storms and higher wind speeds that could, in theory, generate more wind power. But it would also cause more damage and more maintenance in more difficult conditions. I also presume that the design criteria for existing installations hasn't taken such future conditions into account, not least because we really have little idea just how powerful such weather conditions might become, or how quickly.
I understand that the current energy financing model requires billing customers for an energy supply via the national grid, however costly and inefficient, and that all energy suppliers are scared that distributed and local power systems may well end their monopolies. But in resilience, efficiency and future-proofing terms, surely it is time for more serious consideration?
Not sure I understand your first point. We have a national grid, and it works, and it is needed (and large grids are much better are managing imbalances, which can more easily be offset against each other at scale than if you need to have perfect local balance everywhere). what is true is that with new generation sources in new locations, the movement of electrons in the existing system changes. Decentralized power like onshore wind and solar actually help the grid in general; large plants like offshore wind may create the need for new connections from that generation to the backbone lines, but that is part of what gets built whenever a large plant is brought online.
I can't comment on AMOC but can tell you that storms in the North Sea are already as violent as it gets, and turbines are also designed to withstand typhoons in Taiwan, so strong winds is something that can and will be managed.
National grids are not costly and inefficient, they are the exact opposite, actually
A very good article.
Maybe the British Government can help de-risk the sector through Great British Energy, though we shall have to wait for that. Maybe also some of us in Aberdeen can drop into the new office and ask!