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First US Offshore Wind Power Park In Delaware
Dekortage writes "Offshore wind power company Bluewater Wind has announced an agreement to build America's first offshore wind turbine park off the coast of Delaware. 'Each turbine [will sit on] a pole about 250 feet above the waterline... the units are to be constructed to withstand hurricane-force winds. From the shore, the park will be visible only on clear winter days, and the turbines will be nearly invisible during summer months when Rehoboth Beach fills with vacationers. Each blade on the three-blade rotor is to be 150 feet long.' The wind farm will power 50,000 homes in Delaware, using about half of its capacity."
Technical data here...
Bluewater Wind agrees to build a 150 turbine, 450MW wind project 12-13 miles off of Rehoboth Beach. Delmarva Power agrees to buy up to 300MW at any one time. The cost to Delmarva ratepayers for energy and capacity will be 10.56 cents/kWh in 2007 dollars. Delmarva is also purchasing Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) associated with its energy purchases.
So evidently these are 150 x 3MW turbines. Generally turbines of this class have a blade space diameter of 100m.
It is interesting to note that while Delaware has no nuclear reactors, it is across the river from the Salem dual 1.1 MWe PWRs and the co-located Hope Creek 1.0 MWe BWR in New Jersey, for a total of 3.2 MWe of nuclear in the neighborhood.
Better visibility in the winter. All the water vapor freezes out of the air, basically.
I can't imagine that they're going to build wind turbines that can rotate into the wind. A vertical axis wind turbine wouldn't have that problem.
Horizontal axis wind turbines turn to face the wind using servo motors. If the wind is too powerful, the mill is turned perpendicular to the wind.Furthermore, this is only half the capacity. In theory they can sell their surplus to other utility companies.
I actually live in Delaware, and for those fools who aren't in the know, Delaware has some of the lowest property taxes in the area, good rail transit, and good gun laws.
Now, the windmill battle in Delaware was an EPIC battle. On one side, you had the utility that wanted to build a gas turbine, and on the other side, you had the windmill people.
The backdrop is that the utility already doubled rates because of rising fuel prices, and the state was already importing a great deal of energy at spot (read high) prices. To work around this, the state needed its own generation.
Now, the utility wanted to build a new gas turbine facility, because the capital costs were pretty cheap and they had enterprise experience with both operating and constructing them. The windmill people wanted a windmill farm, and, they probably would have lost on merits of costs, because the windmills are nearly twice as expensive as a cheap gas turbine station. However, I think what's happened is that, between everyone being so spooked by the perpetually rising fuel costs, and, a newly enacted state sustainability law, they more or less had to build the wind mill.
It will be cool if it works, but I'm cynically betting on rolling blackouts on calm, hot summer days.
This is my sig.
I Bet the turbines are similar to these: http://www.reuk.co.uk/OtherImages/repower-5mw-wind-turbine.jpg
There is a motorized & computer-controlled 360 Degree bearing surface where the generator housing nacelle attaches to the vertical supporting column. The computers on-board each generator keep their own weather sensors for wind speed and direction as well as for power demands of the cluster of wind generators and they calculate how best to pitch their blades and what direction to point or if they need to feather their pitch because of an incoming storm, etc...
General Electric has a detailed drawing of one of their models here: http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/products/wind_turbines/en/36mw/index.htm
Why is it bad for the tourists? I don't think that I've ever seen a wind turbine with my own eyes. What's wrong with it?
A lot of wealthy and powerful people have bought homes in places that look out over the ocean, and they want to see the ocean, not a bunch of wind turbines or oil rigs or boat people. These people will say anything do stop the project, so if the area gets money from tourism, they say that tourists will stop coming. I agree with you, I don't see anything wrong with it. While I like looking at mountains or the ocean, if I was going to buy a home because of the view it would be a view of the Chicago skyline.
Also, the web site and the submission didn't mention why it would only be visible in winter. I thought that it would be visible in summer and not the winter, if anything. Does anybody understand why?
In the summer the humidity is higher and the air holds more water which reduces visibility. In the winter there is less humidity and visibility improves. It isn't stated in the summary, but it is implied that they are referring to clear, sunny days (which probably occur less often during the winter, but do still occur occasionally).
Sorry for the hijack, but I'm going to attempt to insert some of the backstory here. See, I've lived in Delaware for the last 4 years (I'll gladly accept your pity)
Getting this deal done was a seemingly never ending political nightmare. Delmarva, the recently deregulated power company has fought against it tooth and nail. They seemed to have been under the impression that signing a 25 year power deal at a fixed price was a bad idea because you know, the price of oil might go down in the future...
Our governor was initially pushing a "clean coal" plant and against this deal. Blue Water Wind finally got the deal done due, in a large part, to netroots action pressuring the state legislature to force a deal down Delmarva's throat if they didn't start to negotiate in good faith. Delaware doesn't have ANY power generation, and buys all of it's power from other states. Delmarva wanted to continue to do this in spite of the rediculous congestion on our power infrastructure.
Tommywonk has been doing a fantastic job covering this issue, and if anyone wants anymore information I'd suggest they head there. (Surprisingly he doesn't have an update about the deal being inked yet)
Anyway, a warning to green power advocates, if this case is any indication, expect the entrenched interests to fight you every step of the way.
It's interesting to note that most of the wind maps agree that offshore is the best place to stick a wind turbine. If you've ever stood by the ocean, there's always a stiff sea breeze coming from the ocean onto the land.
-Rob
Biblical fiscal responsibility
The winds are much, much, much, much more constant and also stronger off shore than on.
There's also more wind away from the coast. It would be cheaper to build it on land, but it also wouldn't produce as much power.