MORE POWER FROM WIDESPREAD WIND

Offshore Wind Farms in U.S. Should Be Linked, Researchers Say
Jim Efstanthiou Jr. (w/Romaine Bostick and Larry Liebert), April 5, 2010 (Bloomberg News via BusinessWeek)

"Power from planned wind farms off the U.S. East Coast would be more reliable if the projects were connected by transmission lines, researchers at the University of Delaware said in a study.

"Linking the farms would reduce fluctuations in power when the wind fails in one area, said Willet Kempton, a professor at the university’s College of Earth, Ocean and the Environment in Newark, Delaware. The study used wind data from 11 meteorological stations spread over 1,553 miles (2,500 kilometers) along the East Coast to examine the theoretical effect on wind farms."

The unique value of spending for offshore wind and interconnecting transmission is that it is immediately adjacent to a huge chunk of the U.S. population. (click to enlarge)

"The U.S., the largest windpower producer in the world, has no offshore farms. Six projects off the coastline from Massachusetts to Delaware are being planned independently to meet power demand in adjacent states. Electricity from interconnected farms would be easier to manage and more valuable than from wind at a single location, according to [Electric power from offshore wind via synoptic-scale interconnection]…

"The U.S. had 35,159 megawatts of windpower capacity last year, followed by China and Germany…About 300 gigawatts will be needed, 54 gigawatts from offshore turbines, to reach an Energy Department target of producing 20 percent of U.S. power from wind by 2030…Wind power accounts for 2 percent of U.S. electricity generation and is ahead of schedule to meet the 2030 target…"

The EU is already planning a transmission system just being hypothesized in the U.S. (click to enlarge)

"Leveling wind power with transmission lines is cost competitive with the traditional methods of using reserve generators and redundant power line routes, and ‘far more’ economical than utility-scale electrical storage, according to the study. Linking all the planned Atlantic Coast offshore projects with 350 miles of undersea cable would add $1.4 billion [10%] to the $10.5 billion estimated construction cost…

"During the five-year study period from 1998 to 2002, power from a theoretical offshore transmission grid never dropped to zero. Fossil fuel generators have a 5.6 percent planned outage rate…Two-thirds of the offshore wind power in the Northeast can supply all electricity, light vehicle transportation fuel and building heat for states from Massachusetts to North Carolina, according to the study."