Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 11
Danian Zheng
1
& Sumit Bose
2
1
Infrastructure Energy, General Electric Company, USA.
2
Global Research Centre, General Electric Company, USA.
Offshore wind plants have become a real option in the EU countries when
onshore wind plants quickly occupy the prime land for wind energy generation.
This chapter reviews the state of the art and some of the technical challenges
anticipated during the development of U.S. offshore wind power plants in the
U.S. It highlights challenges that are unique to the coastal U.S., e.g. hurri-
canes, in addition to the general challenges for the offshore wind industry,
irrespective of geographical location. It will be shown that experience from the
oil and gas industry is not completely applicable to the wind industry, although
it certainly should be leveraged and modifi ed to fi t the unique needs of offshore
wind. Finally, some of the research needed to further address these challenges
are outlined.
1 Introduction
Offshore wind presents a tremendous opportunity for the United States and Europe.
Onshore wind plants often face land use disputes, noise, and visual impact obsta-
cles. Moving wind plants offshore not only mitigates these problems, but provides
other important advantages including:
•
Availability of large continuous areas suitable for major wind plants
•
Higher wind speeds, which generally increase with distance from the shore
•
Less turbulence, which allows turbines to harvest energy more effectively
•
Reduced fatigue loads on the turbine
•
Lower wind shear allowing shorter towers
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