Off Shore Wind Farm NCD

Corsendonk

LeoB wrote: »

To come back to a local proposal, Would anyone here be in favour of a windfarm off the east coast? Well off the back of Lambay, Rockabill or islands of Skerries.

I decided to start a thread on your idea to see what people think and to look more closely at the idea as its a very interesting concept to just throw aside.

First of all I am a fan of Wind turbines, I actually think they some how add to the landscape besides providing a source of renewable energy. Downside is that they need a steady source of wind but not too much as the turbines will switch off to prevent damage in high winds so its not a save the world from the Climate change solution on its own.

Currently 4 windfarms off the East Coast in various stages of contruction.
Oriel WindFarm- 55 turbines- 330MW
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriel_Wind_Farm
http://www.orielwind.com/project_information.html

Saorgus Kish Bank- 145 turbines- 520MW- stalled
http://www.saorgus.com/projects/dublin_array.html

Codling Wind Farm- 220 turbines- 1100MW- will be one of the largest in Europe when fully constructed.
http://www.codlingwindpark.ie/

Artricity Arklow Bank- 9 turbines 25 MW- phase 2 never happened
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arklow_Bank_Wind_Park
http://www.ceoe.udel.edu/windpower/docs/arklow_infosheet_final.pdf


Certain areas of the offshore are prohibited for use due to Navigation routes into ports or Department of Defence zones. The area North of Skerries is a DOD zone(Gormanstown?)

http://maps.seai.ie/wind/

Sampling of the sea bed and environmental impact studies will have to be conducted before any construction starts. The UK seems to have fast tracked large scale windfarm construction in the coming years while the Irish find it hard to connect to the Grid.

UK developments
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8448203.stm



Notice how far out at sea the UK Wind Farms are? So if any Wind farm construction happens off NCD more than likely the farm will be behind Lambay Island rather than obsuring your view of the Island.

Export of renewable energy to Europe/GB
For windfarms to be viable, excessive enery production must be exported to other areas of consumption or aid in the generation of other forms of energy such as Hydro. Denmark exports excess wind energy to Norway which they in turn use to pump water for Hydro dams. The East-West Interconnector will allow this excess energy to be exported into the greater European Grid.

Presentation on the Interconnector by ABB

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWY4OczlH9s

Serveral Different ways to construct and assemble Off Shore Turbines. From floating turbines at sea, floating them out on concrete boats, to sinking foundations into the seabed. To put Off Shore Turbines into context, the Turbine in the Video generates 5,000KW, Country Crest Turbine generates 850KW.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKTaS1pFt-0

dan_d

Good idea on the thread.
Are you agreeing or disagreeing? I think they will have to be quite far out, as close to the shore, I doubt there's enough wind.They aren't the worst looking structures.
Personally I've no problem with them.The infrastructure would be there with the East-West Connector, might create a few jobs....be a bit of joined-up thinking, which rarely happens.
Don't see any problems which can't be overcome, myself.Thanks for all the info.

bcmf

I personally think its a sin that we dont have wind farms. As an island surely its one of the most obvious sources of renewable energy.

Corsendonk

dan_d wrote: »

Good idea on the thread.
Are you agreeing or disagreeing? I think they will have to be quite far out, as close to the shore, I doubt there's enough wind.They aren't the worst looking structures.
Personally I've no problem with them.The infrastructure would be there with the East-West Connector, might create a few jobs....be a bit of joined-up thinking, which rarely happens.
Don't see any problems which can't be overcome, myself.Thanks for all the info.

I agree with it. Germany with its smaller coastline opened its first in 2010 and has 25 more farms planned. The downside for Ireland is that they have a history of turbine manufacture as do Denmark so any creation of Irish Off Shore Farms would involve importing Turbines from either of those countries. Judging by the scale of assembly Dublin Port might be the best assembly point for any farm off NCD.

LeoB

bcmf wrote: »

I personally think its a sin that we dont have wind farms. As an island surely its one of the most obvious sources of renewable energy.

And this was my reason for suggesting it. The most westerly place in Europe and only a handful of turbines. We should be market leaders in this type of energy.

A mini island maybe 1 mile off Lambay (East side). I do think the problem will be getting one department to talk to another.

As an inital starting point Fingal C.C should investigate generating its own Electricity with the aim of providing cheaper electricity and making a profit to invest in Fingal infrastructure, potholes, roads, streetlights, schools.......... We could go on and on....

Davy

The thing is, for every MW of wind power your build, you need to have 1MW on standby from a fossil fuelled generator. Not to mention the shear cost of building these and cost to replace them down the line. The life span was only ten years, has this improved? I just dont see the plan being as ideal in reality

BroomBurner

I think it was on an episode of Eco Eye from about 6 years ago that someone said wind was a €3billion a year sector ready for exploitation in Ireland. I'm all for it, anything that helps to reduce our dependency on foreign gas and oil is only a good thing. With relations between Russia and her neighbours not being the best, we are completely vulnerable to supplies being shut off for petty political reasons, and the price hikes that come with it.

Thanks OP for the informaiton given above.

Hauk

I think it's a great idea, and anyone that bitches and moans about them is just someone looking for an argument.

323

Davy wrote: »

The thing is, for every MW of wind power your build, you need to have 1MW on standby from a fossil fuelled generator. Not to mention the shear cost of building these and cost to replace them down the line. The life span was only ten years, has this improved? I just dont see the plan being as ideal in reality

Would be very interested in seeing where this figure of 1 MW of fossil fuel based generation for every 1 MW of wind generation comes from?

We are talking about Ireland? How often does the wind stop completely?

As weather systems move through, no wind on the east coast, it still blows elsewhere and vice versa.
This can be overcome with a decent electricity distributon system, possable with systems which are literally available off the shelf.
But first must overcome a few biggest quangos.

New grid connection to UK and Europe allows connection to their renewable and nuclear generation, allowing import/export potential (in planning for years), again, available technology.

Our offshore/onshore wind resource is many times what we require, and has the potential for hugh energy exports.

The cost of providing a secure future, huge employment and inward investment, is in fact much less than has already been given to the banks.

God knows why this is not being followed up. The potential is colossal.

And NO, I am not a green, environmentalist. I have spent most of my working life in the offshore oil and gas industry.