Wind Power Offshore

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The demand of electricity is increasingly important. So the commercial impact on this field is significant. There are many companies which trying to do a place in this field. However, in the first instance, there are many technical problems to install and to create wind turbines which could support the maritime environment and the deep of the seabed. In the article of BOEM, they say that there are prospection projects to install wind turbines in deep water of 60 meters. The wave loading has also an impact on the stability of wind turbines. We can understand that it is a huge technical engineering project which industrials attempt to resolve. The other major technical problem is the corrosion. There is scientific research on materials which support submarine and marine environment. The NREL has written, "Offshore turbines are typically equipped with extensive corrosion protection, internal climate control systems, high-grade exterior paint, and built-in service cranes. To minimize the expense of everyday servicing, offshore turbines may have automatic greasing systems to lubricate bearings and blades as well as heating and cooling systems to maintain gear oil temperature within a specified range". Wind turbines have already technical modifications on the nacelle to insulate of sea breeze.

After this technical problems, wind energy has advantages in particular on the power. Winds are faster than on the land, so offshore turbines have the double of the power of a land turbines. The areas are bigger than the areas on land, thus industrials may develop powerful turbines. In each offshore wind farms, there is a station which serves as a common electrical collection. This substation send the energy to the land by submarine cables in DC voltage. There are several disadvantages of offshore wind turbines. At first instance, the surface taken to fishermen. There are conflicts to delimitate the place of production energy and the place to overfish. The other point is the visual pollution. A part of the coastal population does not want to see wind turbines in the horizon. So industrial must to implant wind farms far away and it creates important costs due to the price of cables and new technologies for deep water. There is also the problem of storage when the turbines produce too much energy, industrials must to shut down the installation.

We have seen that offshore wind energy is an important renewable source of energy. It could be reduce the footprint carbon of the world, the field create an important investment, 200€ billion, and it create jobs. According to the Global Wind Energy Council by 2030 it creates 2.4 million new jobs and reducing CO2 emissions by more than 3,3 billion tonnes per year.

Bibliography :

https://www.boem.gov/Offshore-Wind-Energy/ : Article

http://www.gwec.net/global-figures/global-offshore/ : Article

http://www.gwec.net/publications/global-wind-energy-outlook/global-wind-energy-outlook-2016/ : Article

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8btlmWn0xdY : Video