Vestas launch 15MW Offshore Turbine

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

1 hour ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

Ammonia is a massively important commodity chemical, so its production will need to be integrated with these new methods regardless. 

Problem right now is that ammonia plants need to be guaranteed a price for hydrogen that wouldn't be sustainable for capital payoff on wind farms. 

Vesta and Orsted are looking at a fully integrated system that generates the ammonia on site at the (far offshore) turbine. I have absolutely no idea whatsoever if this makes economic sense, but the economics do not depend of selling hydrogen to onshore ammonia plants. Competition will occur in the delivered price of the ammonia instead.  Since there is already a  commercial market for ammonia delivered by ships, I suspect that this would be the initial competitive market.

At the extreme, the floating turbines themselves could act as "filling stations" for ammonia-powers ships, but I have never seen such a whacko idea published. I do think that collector ships could deliver ammonia to ammonia bunkerage systems in major ports competitively.

[NickW + 2,714]

2 hours ago, ronwagn said:

I love the Great Lakes and they are my prime vacation target. Within a few hours of my house. I have no objection to them beyond the horizon but am wondering if Greenies would. Why not build where the wind is best and in fresh water. The great north needs the work too. I am surprised they are not already there. Are there any off the rich coast near the big cities yet? The area should be enough to electrify the Midwest and East with no problem. Possibly the whole country. 

NE Coast makes the most sense - large coastal population. Excellent wind resource. 

I think it would be reasonable to apply an invisible clause to wind turbines when the same criteria is applied to gas wells and CCGT power stations. 

[NickW + 2,714]

1 hour ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

Isn't offshore typically 40-50% capacity factor? 

The Uk offshore fleet average is 40% but bear in mind some of these farms are relatively small (3-4MW turbines) and close in shore.

UK offshore wind capacity factors (energynumbers.info)

As the new big farms with >10MW turbines get deployed further offshore that capacity factor will rapidly rise. 

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

2 hours ago, ronwagn said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density Ammonia is low compared to LNG.

Very interesting. I am in favor of the best technologies, considering all factors over the long run. 

Yes, the energy density (by both mass and volume) is lower than LNG.  However, converting offshore wind power to ammonia is (apparently) more energy efficient than converting power to methane, and it's a lot easier (i.e., less energy-intensive) to liquefy.  As a practical matter, leaked methane is a potent greenhouse gas, leaked ammonia is not, but it will kill you faster than methane.

[NickW + 2,714]

2 hours ago, ronwagn said:

Can you give examples of ammonia used for fuel? How would it compete with LNG? Many have promoted methanol, but no acceptance. 

Belgium used it to run diesel buses in WW2. 

Converting diesel engines is quite straight fwd. You need a bigger fuel tank and obviously one that can hold ammonia as the energy per litre is about 1/3rd of diesel. 

[Symmetry + 109]

10 hours ago, notsonice said:

80 meters now . Build a longer blade and truckers will find a way

Indeed and that blade is probably light.

Meanwhile in the oil industry...

96 meters long 800,000Kg...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/edmonton-splitter-dacro-industries-1.4968053

 

[NickW + 2,714]

1 hour ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Capacity factor is an arbitrary unit, but as arbitrary units goes... is completely and utterly dependent on the local wind resource conditions and has zilch to do with said turbine.  Same turbine in a different location could have a capacity factor twice as small/large than another location. 

Land based Capacity factors likewise work the same way.  Best wind locations have CF's ~50%, poor locations... as low as idiot fools install said political boondogles go...

Thats evident in the UK. Many of the earlier wind farms were built in the shallow southern North Sea or irish Sea Wind resources not as good but one advantage is relatively close to big population centres - London / Liverpool

 

[NickW + 2,714]

59 minutes ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Actually, partially true/false, assuming you wish to play the CF circle jerk game.  I was doing a study for 60% back in early 2000's in Kansas.  The only hinderance was tower height and we guessed that for a CF of a nominal turbine would require at least 150m height.  Well, biggest turbines today: 120m blades with 30m of ground clearance for ocean models.  Now if this was land 30m ground clearance would not work and you would destroy your gearbox pronto, but for an ocean blade with very little turbulence?  Probably.  Though frankly I doubt it unless they have some SERIOUSLY expensive load alleviation equipment that works on EVERY revolution on the down blade.  At least the blades spin rate is low enough the deployment of said devices(spoilers usually) should be doable.  Then again, haven't read anything about them using spoilers, but I have been out of it for a decade.  BTW: Isn't Beatrice in Scotland already working at 55% CF last year?  True, it is brand spanking new which means in 5 years or 10 years it will drop ~5% down to 50% or so, but still. 

PS: GE Hallide X 12MW just "miraculously" ... get this, became the Hallide X 13MW turbine or is it 14MW now?.... no change in rotor diameter, just switch out/add generator capacity... Gosh golly jeepers, its CF is going to take a hit!.... oh wait it is probably collecting 10% more power though... oh right no one cares about CF if you have something to balance the grid with. 

If you look at the rolling capacity factors on these UK wind farms they don't appear to decline over time in most cases. Some of these farms are up to 16 years old.

UK offshore wind capacity factors (energynumbers.info)

This is Scroby sands commissioned in 2004. 30 2MW turbines

 

 

 

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

1 hour ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

oh right no one cares about CF if you have something to balance the grid with. 

Are you sure about that? 

The bulldozer that runs 90% of the workday pays itself off faster than the one that runs 20% of the workday. 

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

@footeab@yahoo.com Before you jump, yes I understand that the cost and the difficulty to produce the extra CF can destroy the benefit of the extra CF. 

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

30 minutes ago, NickW said:

The Uk offshore fleet average is 40% but bear in mind some of these farms are relatively small (3-4MW turbines) and close in shore.

UK offshore wind capacity factors (energynumbers.info)

As the new big farms with >10MW turbines get deployed further offshore that capacity factor will rapidly rise. 

Good to know. 

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

44 minutes ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

Vesta and Orsted are looking at a fully integrated system that generates the ammonia on site at the (far offshore) turbine. I have absolutely no idea whatsoever if this makes economic sense, but the economics do not depend of selling hydrogen to onshore ammonia plants. Competition will occur in the delivered price of the ammonia instead.  Since there is already a  commercial market for ammonia delivered by ships, I suspect that this would be the initial competitive market.

At the extreme, the floating turbines themselves could act as "filling stations" for ammonia-powers ships, but I have never seen such a whacko idea published. I do think that collector ships could deliver ammonia to ammonia bunkerage systems in major ports competitively.

I should mention that the price of hydrogen matters if we don't want to screw farmers with $1200/ton of ammonia. It's just a matter of competing with gas. Difficult, but eventually possible (I think). Right now the opportunity cost and conversion efficiency are the largest limiters. Not to mention the cost of enough electrolytic cells to support a standard sized anhydrous plant. 

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

23 minutes ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

I should mention that the price of hydrogen matters if we don't want to screw farmers with $1200/ton of ammonia. It's just a matter of competing with gas. Difficult, but eventually possible (I think). Right now the opportunity cost and conversion efficiency are the largest limiters. Not to mention the cost of enough electrolytic cells to support a standard sized anhydrous plant. 

The price of hydrogen delivered to an onshore ammonia plant affects the price of that plant's ammonia, which in turn affects the price as delivered to the farmer. The farmer will be perfectly happy to buy ammonia produced at an integrated offshore wind turbine if it is delivered at a lower price. If the offshore ammonia eventually gets cheap enough, the onshore ammonia plants will go out of business. Time will tell.

[markslawson + 1,058]

13 hours ago, NickW said:

Rather than desperation going large is what has made wind competitive with other technology. Higher hub height means more consistent wind resource, higher capacity factors and higher availability time. 

You missed my point - the desperation part is going offshore, although that move also allows for larger turbines.. as going offshore is so much more expensive. The rest of your post would seem to confirm that. Sure you can have fancy technology linking these things with the shore and so on .. I have no doubt that larger turbines would be more efficient but the basic problems remain. Leave it with you.. 

[markslawson + 1,058]

20 hours ago, Meredith Poor said:

Have you tried hauling 350 foot (118 meter) wind turbine blades around on freeways?

"The An-225's pressurized cargo hold is 1,300 m3 (46,000 cu ft) in volume; 6.4 m (21 ft 0 in) wide, 4.4 m (14 ft) high, and 43.35 m (142 ft 3 in) long". In other words, the largest aircraft in service would have one of these blades sticking out both ends.

At some point, structures get so large that they can only be carried around on ships.

Meredith - like NickW you almost totally missed my point. Building these things is bad enough but you're trying to build structures actually driven by wind to withstand full sea gales. The fact that the blades are easier to transport by ship - two lifting helicopters might do it, incidentally, but that's beside the point - is just one of a number of factors to take into account in what is essentially a daft idea. Just sit down and think of the engineering required and then the costs in servicing and regular replacement of parts. I might point out in passing that you're talking about putting these things in the Great Lakes, so you have to get the parts across land to a lake port, and then they have to be  built to withstand lake storms, which have quite different patterns to those of ocean storms, or so I understand. Obviously a lot of wind generators have already been built at sea but to propose that its somehow cheaper and more convenient that land turbines is clearly absurd.. they are built offshore because they have to be.. anyway, teh conv ersation has gone about as far as it can.. leave it with you.. 

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

31 minutes ago, markslawson said:

Meredith - like NickW you almost totally missed my point. Building these things is bad enough but you're trying to build structures actually driven by wind to withstand full sea gales.

Yep, totally ridiculous.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cutty_Sark_(ship,_1869)_-_SLV_H91.250-164.jpg

Here mainmast is about the same length as the hull: 212 feet.

[Symmetry + 109]

Ammonia is just way too poisonous to be used everywhere. 

Leak natural gas or hydrogen and essentially nothing happens other than maybe an explosion and some global warming. Leak anhydrous ammonia and people, fish, will probably die. Even small amounts is unpleasant to be around.

Connecting several off-shore hydrogen plants to one ammonia plant on the beach sounds better.

 

[Meredith Poor + 895]

6 hours ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

Isn't offshore typically 40-50% capacity factor? 

The newer ones have higher capacity factors.

[Meredith Poor + 895]

21 hours ago, turbguy said:

Maybe use a Hindenberg (or two) instead?

 

Certainly an interesting question. Take a lighter than air blimp delivering a 350 foot long blade into a high wind area paved over with rotating blades. What could possibly go wrong?

Actually, it would work fine. There has been research on lighter than air 'heavy lift' vehicles fairly recently. They don't resemble the Hindenburg. They could lower the blade using winches, so the airship would stay well out of the way of ground obstructions/blimp blenders.

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

5 hours ago, NickW said:

If you look at the rolling capacity factors on these UK wind farms they don't appear to decline over time in most cases. Some of these farms are up to 16 years old.

UK offshore wind capacity factors (energynumbers.info)

This is Scroby sands commissioned in 2004. 30 2MW turbines

 

 

 

If you dig into the numbers, I'll bet they kept adding turbines from 2006 til ??? and then you have seasonal variations.  Peak 2016... windy year, or maximum number of turbines operating?  And yes, you have erosion/UV damage on blades creating more drag, less lift over time and yes it becomes significant to the point they replace the blades.

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

42 minutes ago, Symmetry said:

Ammonia is just way too poisonous to be used everywhere. 

Leak natural gas or hydrogen and essentially nothing happens other than maybe an explosion and some global warming. Leak anhydrous ammonia and people, fish, will probably die. Even small amounts is unpleasant to be around.

Connecting several off-shore hydrogen plants to one ammonia plant on the beach sounds better.

 

"The global industrial production of ammonia in 2018 was 175 million tonnes":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonia

It is already "used everywhere". Placing the ammonia plants far offshore may make them safer, not less safe. I assume the electrolysys and ammonia production units would be below the sea surface. Any ammonia that leaks into the ocean will immediately be converted into innocuous products.

[turbguy + 1,544]

47 minutes ago, Meredith Poor said:

...so the airship would stay well out of the way of ground obstructions/blimp blenders.

Airship "cuisenarts"!

 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

6 hours ago, NickW said:

NE Coast makes the most sense - large coastal population. Excellent wind resource. 

I think it would be reasonable to apply an invisible clause to wind turbines when the same criteria is applied to gas wells and CCGT power stations. 

How do you think that will work out in scenic areas. Not well I hope. Power stations make up maybe 1% the visual pollution that wind or solar does. 

[turbguy + 1,544]

1 hour ago, Meredith Poor said:

Certainly an interesting question. Take a lighter than air blimp delivering a 350 foot long blade into a high wind area paved over with rotating blades. What could possibly go wrong?

Actually, it would work fine. There has been research on lighter than air 'heavy lift' vehicles fairly recently. They don't resemble the Hindenburg. They could lower the blade using winches, so the airship would stay well out of the way of ground obstructions/blimp blenders.

When you think further, you could deliver all three blades in one trip, and pick up any old blades for rework/disposal on the return trip.

[notsonice + 1,255]

17 hours ago, ronwagn said:

I love the Great Lakes and they are my prime vacation target. Within a few hours of my house. I have no objection to them beyond the horizon but am wondering if Greenies would. Why not build where the wind is best and in fresh water. The great north needs the work too. I am surprised they are not already there. Are there any off the rich coast near the big cities yet? The area should be enough to electrify the Midwest and East with no problem. Possibly the whole country. 

Just place them on land in Illinois where the power is consumed and deal with it. Placing them in others backyards so you do not see them is your only solution? If they were to be placed in the Great lakes IE Lake Michigan, they will need to be within 10 miles of shore where the lake is shallow enough.