Posted on 06/11/2021 12:16:43 PM PDT by Red Badger
A single Windcatcher floating offshore grid could power 80,000 European homes at grid-parity pricesWind Catching Systems VIEW 4 IMAGES
Norway's Wind Catching Systems (WCS) has made a spectacular debut with a colossal floating wind turbine array it says can generate five times the annual energy of the world's biggest single turbines – while reducing costs enough to be immediately competitive with grid prices.
Standing more than 1,000 ft (324 m) high, these mammoth Windcatcher grids would deploy multiple smaller turbines (no less than 117 in the render images) in a staggered formation atop a floating platform moored to the ocean floor using established practices from the oil and gas industry.
Just one of these arrays, says WCS, could offer double the swept area of the world's biggest conventional wind turbines – the 15 MW Vestas V236 – and its smaller rotors could perform much better in wind speeds over 40 to 43 km/h (25 to 27 mph), when larger turbines tend to start pitching their blades to limit production and protect themselves from damage. The overall effect, says WCS, is a 500 percent boost in annual energy output, with each array making enough power to run 80,000 European homes.
Rather than using massive single components, these Windcatchers are built with smaller pieces that are much easier to work with. Once the floating base is installed, most of the rest can be done on deck, without cranes or specialized vessels, and the grid design allows easy access for ongoing maintenance. WCS says these arrays are ready for a 50-year service life, as opposed to the 30 years of a single large turbine.
The company says it's ready to start delivering offshore wind power on debut at grid parity – meaning at a levelized cost of energy (LCOE, taking capital costs into account) matching or beating the price of grid power. In Norway and the USA, that currently averages out at about US$105 per megawatt-hour. The US Energy Information Administration currently projects the capacity-weighted LCOE of new offshore wind assets coming online in 2026 to average $115.04 per megawatt-hour, with some regions capable of getting that under US$100.
To give you a sense of scale, WCS has pictured the Windcatcher grid alongside the 1,063-ft-high Eiffel Tower, among other thingsWind Catching Systems So this will still be a relatively expensive way to generate electricity, especially compared to land-based wind and solar, but it could still be a cost saver for offshore wind. And WCS says its projections are based on an initial installation size that it believes will become significantly more economical as it scales up.
The company has the backing of investment companies North Energy and Ferd, and has developed the technology in conjunction with offshore wind supplier Aibel and the IFE Institute for Energy Technology.
WCS has not yet released further details about prototypes or first installations, so while it does have the appearance of a legit technology, it seems we'll have to wait some time before it proves its claims.
Source: Wind Catching Systems
https://windcatching.com/
It’s a great employment opportunity for Norway’s Muslim migrants. Give them each a sledge hammer and the can climb up and down the structure breaking up the ice.
And monkeys could fly out my butt.
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BUMP!
What an abomination.
Wow, that’s a mega seabird killer! Wonder how it will fare in a hurricane? How far will it travel? Let the betting pools begin
Yes, Coal is cheaper and how many homes does one power plant serve? A lot more than 80,000 and much cheaper and less ugly.
How many birds will they kill each day?
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Unlike land bird kills, sea birds will quickly disappear under the water. So they will never be counted. Imagine there is no wind and a bunch of gulls land on it or there is a bait school under it and the gulls start diving just as the wind come up and the thing starts turning. Mass instant kill. Killing gulls brings real bad luck, so there is that.
Put a few hundred of these off the coast of Florida and the hurricanes won’t dare move ashore.
Well, your electricity bill may just be reduced. The price may go up, but you may have rationing of power due to lack of availability.
Washington State is no where near able to survive on non fossile fuel electric power unless all available hydroelectric power is re allocated. Maybe not even then.
“WCS has not yet released further details about prototypes or first installations”
so nothing yet but pretty pictures and pie-in-the-sky “projections” ...
100% chance this thing will never actually get built: anyone with more than two functioning neurons can see that it would crumple like wet tissue paper during the first major oceanic storm ...
One word
Hurricane.
while the US and Europe are closing their coal fired power plants, India and China are building them like no tomorrow - China is planning 247 Gigawatts of new coal fired power plants. If the enviro wackos have their way, picture the above graphic with only the top segment generating power. Now add in the EV demands ... now look at your power bill (when you have electricity to read it); the scarcer the power, the higher the demand, the more they will charge. Your choices will be: charge your EV, run the fridge and run the lights; pick one.
Cool in theory. Lame in practice. Nothing beats the efficiency of an integral fast reactor. Solar takes 75 years to pay off. Wind and geothermal are not worth the effort. 1000 feet is massive. The tallest skyscraper in Los Angeles is 1,100 feet and it is massive.
“How many birds will they kill each day?”
Agreed! And that would attract sea life that consumes the poor fliers, which would change the sea-eco system below the surface at that location, which would exacerbate climate change. BAN THEM!
Picky, picky, picky.......
In other news, unicorns COULD fly out of my butt
Not only is there a corrosion issue, there is a marine growth issue. For example on some floating bridges, the cables anchored to the bottom, end up being the perfect location of marine organisms to attach and grow as foods/nutrients are swept past them. On some such anchoring wires, the weight of the organism grows exponential until they have to be scrapped and constantly cleaned. Cleaning is never perfect so once cleaned there is an easier way for the marine organisms to attach again.
Then the next red flag is the whole size thing. During a windstorm at maximum power production the “effective sail area” of the combined wind turbine blades will create quite a moment trying to capsize the floating wind farm. That is something that can be designed for or anchored for, but it will be a big deal. One of the problems in most large wind turbines is breaking or feathering blades during high winds and gusts to prevent over-speed trips.
Don't get me wrong. Given enough money, you can do just about anything. Unfortunately, many things, no matter how desirable can be forced to be economic.
It shouldn’t be hard for them to prove it.
They claim it can do this, it’s not so tough to prove it.
Build a single poll, scale it up.
But no. They want money.
That would be good eating when the geese migrate.
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Chop up birds 24 hrs a day.
And it needs Govt subsidies. If it’s so good, why does it need subsidies?
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