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5MW with location picture [updated with videos]

by PeWi Tue Jul 17th, 2007 at 09:02:39 AM EST

In one of the recent energy diaries the 5MW Turbine came up. And since we are all a little bit of nerds, and I happen to be working for a company involved, here are some pictures, that I hope you will enjoy. Warning, this is a picture heavy dairy, and might sound like a press --- release...

Second Turbine for Beatrice

Unfortunately, I am not involved in the project, but anyhow...

From the diaries ~ whataboutbob


The world's biggest offshore wind turbine is currently being finished 25 kilometres off the east coast of Scotland.

Here, two 87-metre high structures with blades 61 metres long are being installed at a cost of about £35 mil.

The Jack on land

Jack on land

Jack out at sea

Draggin the Jack out

Rambiz sinks the Jack

First Installed Turbine

Turbine is being prepared on land

turbine in scale

that's the generator

On Dry land

the generator is being lifted

Lifting the Generator

ready to be shipped

; turbine on land

Turbine is being towed

Moving the Windturbine

Turbine is being lifted onto the Jack

Getting the Turbine on

close up

Getting the Turbine on close up

for some reason I don't have any pictures of the installed turbine in-situ (strange actually...) but here a scematic:

Field Layout

also explaining what they are doing there in the moment - providing the Beatrice platform with some energy.

In short: The Turbines are in a water depth off approximately 45 meters
- The size of key components include:
  -- Sub sea jacket height (including transition piece) - 70 meters
  -- Piles - 44 meters below sea bed level
  -- Tower height - 59 meters
     --- Giving an overall hub-height of 87 meters above sea level
  -- Rotor blade length - 61.5 meters (Giving an overall height from subsea to rotor blade tip, of 234.5 meters)
- Total weight:
  - Rotor blades and hub - 125 tonnes (blades are 17.5 tonnes each)
  - Turbine - 305 tonnes
  - Tower - 225 tonnes
  - Subsea jacket and associated equipment - 760 tonnes
  - Piles (4) - 120 tonnes each
- Power Produced - 5 mega watts for each turbine, giving a total of 10 mega watts for the Demonstrator Project.
This is enough power to provide about one third of the electricity need to operate Talisman's Beatrice platform.
- Power costs - Talisman expects to pay about 7.5 million GBP for electrical power needed to operate Beatrice during 2006.
- Key suppliers:
  -- REpower - turbine, tower and blades
  -- Burnt Island Fabrication - sub sea jacket, transition piece and piles
  -- Engineering Business - landing system
  -- Isleburn Mackay and Mcleod - assembly contractor
  -- Scaldis - tower installation vessel
  -- Global Marine - cable installation contractor
  -- JDR - cable supplier

(UPDATE): youtube has two videos:

and

Display:
Sorry that it sounds like a press release
by PeWi on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 11:54:41 AM EST
Ah ... but a great press release ... Great info to have.

Sorry, forgot to let you know.  Used this (with link to here) to do a short piece over at Ecotality Sunday:  "Five MW wind turbines going up ..." (http://www.ecotality.com/blog/2007/five-mw-wind-turbines-going-up/)

Thank you.

Blogging regularly at Get Energy Smart. NOW!!!

by a siegel (siegeadATgmailIGNORETHISdotPLEASEcom) on Tue Jul 17th, 2007 at 09:48:42 AM EST
[ Parent ]
This is an excellent overview for a non-tech, like me.  Thank you.

Our knowledge has surpassed our wisdom. -Charu Saxena.
by metavision on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 12:27:27 PM EST
How energy intensive is oil extraction on this platform? with 10*3=30MW from the grid, how much oil/day do they pump out?
by Laurent GUERBY on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 12:41:55 PM EST
the pdf that brings that information always says internal information, so hmmm.

but this site:

states:
Field Name    BEATRICE   
1975 to 2001    20,372
2002                    357   
2003            270               
2004            212           
2005            185       
2006            106   
Cumulative total    21,502

but the main advantage of the platform is, that it has a powercable te back, and is therefore connected to the grid. This gives it the potential to act as as a relay, in case the whole field is to be build, and/or not enough wind is being produced, also "normal" platforms are energy independent, with their own power generation - will see if I can dig up some figures for that...

by PeWi on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 01:33:18 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Thanks for the link and table!

If I don't screw up: 106 000 tons per year (2006) means 290 tons per day, one ton of crude is around 42 GJ so that's 12.2e12 J per day, 30 MW for a day is 2.6e12 J so a bit more than 1 unit of "electricity" energy to get 5 unit of "oil" energy (not counting refining, further transport, etc...).

Of course in the begining when they pumped out 750 000 tons per day the ratio was 7 times better.

by Laurent GUERBY on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 02:25:04 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Are those Imperial tonnes?

It plays bloody hell with your numbers when you start looking at vehicles and think that the British have super efficient little vehicles that all get 50 miles gallon. Until you realise that one imnperial gallon is 1.2 US gallon, so it's a less impressive 40 US mpg, not 50 mpg like you think.

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg

by ManfromMiddletown (manfrommiddletown at lycos dot com) on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 02:48:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Usually "tonne" is written to mean the metric ton of 1,000 kg.

Yet more complications...

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 03:16:35 PM EST
[ Parent ]
As I remember it Metric-English inconsistencies has caused at least one space probe to crash into Mars.

The lesson here?

It's about time that all us Anglophones just drop the act and learn to use metric.

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg

by ManfromMiddletown (manfrommiddletown at lycos dot com) on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 03:52:41 PM EST
[ Parent ]
that was designed by undemocratic technocrats in a centralised way.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 05:49:51 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I understand that there were French people involved as well.

I guess we'll stick to liberty miles.

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg

by ManfromMiddletown (manfrommiddletown at lycos dot com) on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 05:54:08 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The legend on the table (from the link provided) says: "Crude Oil Production '000 Tonnes (M3*Density) Per Year (UK Share)", and I took "toe" to convert in energy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ton_of_oil_equivalent

by Laurent GUERBY on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 03:33:48 PM EST
[ Parent ]
oil is in metric tons pretty much universally since the 80's if not in bbls.  (at least that's when I first started playing).
by HiD on Tue Jul 17th, 2007 at 03:52:34 PM EST
[ Parent ]
sorry, that is the oil they produce, not the platforms energy consumption. I think that is about 17MW (I read this somewhere)
by PeWi on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 03:10:56 PM EST
[ Parent ]
According to yourselft, the platform's energy consumption is about 30MW:
Power Produced - 5 mega watts for each turbine, giving a total of 10 mega watts for the Demonstrator Project.
This is enough power to provide about one third of the electricity need to operate Talisman's Beatrice platform.


Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 03:12:56 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Yes that's the source of my 3*10=30MW. But I suspect it's more since I believe 10 MW reported is peak (as the convention is for wind projects IIRC what Jerome said).

Also please replace "750 000 tons per day" to "per year" (on the 1975-2001 period) in my post, the ratio "7" is valid though.

by Laurent GUERBY on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 03:31:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]
have 40-50% availability, so an offshore MW produces half as much MWh as a base load generator (nuclear or coal or gas) as opposed to a third or a quarter for onshore wind.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 03:36:09 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Just a bit of clarification, you're referring to capacity factor, not availability.  Availability is the amount of time a wind turbine is available to operate, completely independent of whether the wind is blowing or not.    Current wind turbines aim for availability factors of up to 97%, and rarely reach that, though are often above 92% and higher.  Newer turbines usually struggle to reach 95%, and availability is often a function of how much extra service attention a machine gets.

Capacity factor is the percentage of full load achieved over X time, usually a year.  No plant, including base load, achieves 100% capacity factor, in fact, many base loads are in the 70's (though some reach in the 90's).  Nuclear power, for example, often produces capacity factors of 100% while they're operating, but of course like any plant, 0% while they're shut down.  In fact, in the US, nuclear power capacity factors have just reached fractions above 90% in two years since the early 70's, and did not reach above 80% until 1999.  (EIA)

According to the Nuclear Energy Institute, the average capacity factor in 2006 was 89.9%, compared to coal at 71.1% and nat gas ranging from 17.2% to 39.9%.  (This is because coal plants need significant maintenance downtime, while natgas is burned primarily in peakers.)

No question offshore has higher potential capacity factors than on land, because the wind is both stronger and more consistent.  What's also most advantageous about offshore is the lower turbulence intensity. (TI is a wind turbine's enemy number one.)  This is because there's nothing to increase surface roughness for thousands of kilometers, except waves and more waves.  On land turbulence is increased because of terrain changes like hills and valleys, and buildings and bridges, and cell phone towers and carnival rides, and the odd wind turbine here and there.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

by Crazy Horse on Sat Jul 21st, 2007 at 04:42:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Oh, wait, are these nominal? Then 10 MW (nominal) = 4MW (effective) and Beatrice consumes 12 MW.

Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 03:40:02 PM EST
[ Parent ]
What I want to know is, what do they use all that electricity for?  Pumps?
by NHlib on Mon Jul 16th, 2007 at 12:57:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]
gas compressors are even bigger energy hogs.  You either have to push the gas back into the field or pump it off to market.  but pumps are serious users as well.  There's often other processing equipment as well.
by HiD on Tue Jul 17th, 2007 at 03:54:14 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The photos are fabulous, and the dimensions bogglesome - more than 60 metres a rotor blade, I'm just imagining that laid out on the ground here. And 45 m below sea level is fairly deep water.

What will be done with these two when the Beatrice platform closes down?

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 12:43:57 PM EST
none of the pics are mine (all nicked from the intra net and the press releases.

my press link shows some faq with regard to the platform.

Q34. Why has Beatrice been chosen as an appropriate location for the Demonstrator?
A34. The Beatrice oilfield is approaching the end of its lifespan.  The Demonstrator Project has the potential to test technology, utilise the power generated to run the Beatrice platforms while at the same time displacing the power supplied by the national grid. It could ultimately
lead to a reuse opportunity for the Beatrice infrastructure. The Moray Firth offers weather conditions that are close to ideal for an offshore wind farm.

Commerciality
Q35. What are the long term plans after five years?
A35. The two Demonstrator turbines will displace power supplied to the Beatrice platform from the national grid for the duration of the Demonstrator Project or the commercial life of Beatrice, whichever is the longer. After this time the turbines would either be decommissioned with the Beatrice platform or incorporated into a commercial development as described below.
Q36. How many units make up a commercial deepwater wind farm? What area would this cover and what would be the size of the machines?
A36. The simple fact is we don't know at this stage and that this is the very essence of the Demonstrator learning process. A two turbine Demonstrator Project is clearly not a commercial wind farm but will help us determine what one might constitute.
The commerciality of a larger wind farm will be determined by many factors such as turbine size and fabrication and tie-in costs. Depending on what we learn from operating the Demonstrator, we may be able to define what will constitute a commercial wind farm.
Q37. Will the turbines be removed at the end of five years?
A37. While the turbines are prototype machines, assuming they are still operational at the end of the Demonstrator Project they will form part of the oilfield infrastructure and remain there until the field is decommissioned. If the Demonstrator proves successful the turbines
could remain in situ and form part of a commercial wind farm development.

by PeWi on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 01:42:50 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Q36. How many units make up a commercial deepwater wind farm? What area would this cover and what would be the size of the machines?
A36. The simple fact is we don't know at this stage and that this is the very essence of the Demonstrator learning process. A two turbine Demonstrator Project is clearly not a commercial wind farm but will help us determine what one might constitute.
The commerciality of a larger wind farm will be determined by many factors such as turbine size and fabrication and tie-in costs. Depending on what we learn from operating the Demonstrator, we may be able to define what will constitute a commercial wind farm.
Hmm, they don't know?

As a convenient rule of thumb one can assume that a wind farm will produce on the order of 1 MW/Km^2 on average. Bigger turbines have to be spaced farther apart (up to 15 blade lengths away) so there's no gain (except possibly being able to build taller turbines to take advantage of higher wind speeds farther from the surface).

So, at 1MW/Km^2, Beatrice's 30MW would require 30Km^2 (e.g., 5Km x 6Km) of wind farm. Each of these 5MW turbines would stand in the centre of a 5Km^2 circle (1.3 Km radius)

A 1GW field would have a radius of about 18 Km. Beatrice is 25 Km away from the coast, so a 36 Km-diametre field would cover 80 degrees of the horizon.


Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 03:06:19 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I think, they really only answer the first question, is this going to be commercially viable way to create energy - they are not really concerend with the other questions, but you are quite right.
by PeWi on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 03:13:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]
As a matter of interest, starting at (say) 250kW and doubling to 500kW then 1Mw, 2Mw and 4Mw, what are the costs per Mw, approximately?

And what about the density per km^2 ?

Is it REALLY the case that big is always better?

I'm also thinking about the availability of baby ones etc etc

I read somewhere that oil refineries don't necessarily scale the way you might think.

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 03:21:40 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Is it REALLY the case that big is always better?

Yes, taller is always better, because the farther away from the ground the larger can the wind speeds be while staying within the laminar (as opposed to turbulent) boundary layer. The surface of the sea is smoother than the surface of land, which also helps.

The density per square kilometer is at least 1 MW/Km^2 (effective). Depending on the average capacity factor (25%, 30%, 40% - I think it is larger on the sea than on land) this is between 2.5 and 4 MW/Km^2 (nominal). But this is a function of wind speeds (goes as the cubic power), which are better at higher altitudes and on  water (back to boundary layers).

Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?

by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 03:34:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Distance between turbines is usually 7 rotor diameters, i.e. less than a kilometer. So in that case that would give you 8MW nominal per sq.km, or close to 4MW real per sq. km.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 03:40:17 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The power depends only on the wind speed, given that the 7 diam rule is respected as the size of the turbine increases.

Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 03:44:06 PM EST
[ Parent ]
the key issue here is the cost of deep (> 30 metres) offshore wind energy.  if 2 turbines with average output 4 MW cost 162 million (is this GBP?), installation cost per GW is about 40 billion GBP.  For comparison, nuclear power stations cost about 1.25 billion GBP per GW to build.  

Shallow offshore wind energy is much cheaper, but even for the UK realistic estimates are that the area available can't provide more than about 100 TWh/yr out of a total energy consumption of 2700 TWh/yr.  

by paulm on Wed Jul 18th, 2007 at 06:37:32 AM EST
[ Parent ]
well the faq states:
Q43. How much do you anticipate it will cost to develop a fully operational offshore wind farm?
A43. The full development would cost in the region of £1 billion.

The two turbine cost is £35mil - the 162 (actually 163 is the asci code for the pound symbol , which might have crept in when the diary was transfered to the front page...

When I asked my colegues about the future they were very cautious. as described in q44:

Q44. How confident are you that the commercial project will go ahead?
A44. The commercial project depends on many things including the future price of electricity and the performance and learning associated with the Demonstrator Project. It is impossible at this stage to give any definitive answer, but it certainly should not be regarded as an inevitability.
by PeWi on Wed Jul 18th, 2007 at 07:27:30 AM EST
[ Parent ]
two further notes

I edited the diary to correct the error with the asci code

the other thing I have not mentioned is of course, that one of the other reasons, why this is being build where it is, means it is not visible from the coast (further than 15km away) and unlike the situation with Jeromes project cannot be built on a sandbank, but needs the seafloor, a (I would suggest - but really haven't got a clue as to what I saying) far more likely scenario at that distance to a shore.

Maybe Jerome could give some indication as to what the overall cost of his project is coming to?

by PeWi on Wed Jul 18th, 2007 at 07:39:06 AM EST
[ Parent ]
i.e. those that are actually being built, cost around 3,000 EUR/MW (notional), so that would be 6,000 EUR/MWe.

But then you have to take into account the cost of operating these, the cost of fuel (nil), and the cost of decommissioning (usually required to be provisioned upfront for wind projects, I wodner why there isn't such a requirement for nuclear plant, or for all factories, for that matter) for the cost that realyl has relevance, that per MWh.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Wed Jul 18th, 2007 at 02:02:40 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Those are really, really big blades indeed.

I hope they don't have ground^H^H^H^H^H surface resonance effect like that:

Or for the side view:

Granted, wind turbine are not spinning in the same direction but every time a machine has such a moment of inertia, interesting things can happen.

:>

by Francois in Paris on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 06:05:18 PM EST
[ Parent ]
As you know, I recently worked on a project which will also use the Repower 5M turbine, although the design of the foundations is different and the construction methods will not be the same.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 01:45:26 PM EST
As I said, I got nothing to do with anything regarding this, so nothing to offer with regards to luring... - but luring you to the North of Schotland in general .... :-)

i think, the jack was being used as the main commercial company involved (Talisman) is a oil company and they are used to thinking about Jacks and therefore using this kind of substructure, what substructures are involved in your project?

by PeWi on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 01:53:51 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Yours seem to be 50m overall shorter, and your average water depth is only 16m compared with the 50meters at the Beatrice farm

but I noticed you are also using Rambiz to transport the foundations and rotors...

by PeWi on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 02:08:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I take it as a sign that I spend far too muc time here, that I had only read 5MW, and instantly knew it was a diary about an offshore turbine.

I'm shocked that they were able to sink this in water 45M deep.  I've written on the wind power potential on Lake Michigan in the United States.  The biggest issue is that Lake Michigan is very, very deep but being able to go out to 50M deep would open up a lot of the lake to developmement.  

And if you can get beyond the horizon, it's a lot less likely to piss off the locals.  I personally think that this is a huge resource that's largely been ignored.  The reason largely being that we in the American Great Lakes region have extremely cheap electricity from coal fired plants in clustered down on the Ohio River.  Illinois and Indiana have large coal mines in the same area, and we have access to even more cheap coal from Wyoming and to a lesser extent the Appalachians.  

It's only been very recently that wind power has come to the area, but construction is starting on a large wind farm in western Indiana.  I've heard that it was going to be 300 MW, but it looks like the plan is for 67 1.3MW?turbines at the moment.

I saw the way that windpower took off in Spain.  I can only imagine the economic impact that something similiar could do in the United States.  There is a large industrial base here in the Great Lakes region that's idling down as the American auto industry is circling the drain.

One of the real problems that I see in my state is that the local government is willing to give tax rebates and other incentives to any business that will open in the state, and there's no reall effort to target this public investment in order to create industrial clusters with suppliers and end users.

And I'll give my consent to any government that does not deny a man a living wage-Billy Bragg

by ManfromMiddletown (manfrommiddletown at lycos dot com) on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 02:43:38 PM EST
Thanks, nice piece of information.

What engaged my attention was the Rambiz , a Multipurpose sea-going Heavy Lift Vessel very well known here in Belgium for the sea-salvage work.(f.i. M/S Herald of Free Enterprise and The Tricolor).

So I clicked a bit around  and found that the owner of  the Rambiz, Scaldis Salvage and Marine Contractors N.V. (Belgium) have been proposed to the European Commission for acceptance as a Consortium Member with responsibility for offshore installation.

The consortium here is: DOWNVInD (Distant  Offshore Windfarms with No Visual Impact in Deepwater)(Who invent this names?).

Well, what I see is :

  • A tempory consortium is activated for a 5-year project.

  • The EU pays part of it, several universities are involved and also UK an Scottisch government-programs.

  • welcome to Beatrice Downvind

    The purpose of the Beatrice demonstrator project is to:

    • Better understand the environmental impact of deepwater wind farms
    • Prove the concept of a deepwater wind farm
    • Explore the cost-effectiveness of deepwater sites
    • Share knowledge and experience across Europe
    • Pioneer the development of deepwater wind farms
    • Improve and commercialise the technology

Euh, is this an exercise for both tecnological and financial institutions to organise large-scale off-shore power generation?

 

The struggle of man against tyranny is the struggle of memory against forgetting.(Kundera)

by Elco B (elcob at scarlet dot be) on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 03:03:50 PM EST
(Who invent this names?).

Someone from the Basil Fawltey school of comedy German.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Tue Jul 17th, 2007 at 11:47:57 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Just seeing the reality of construction is a very odd inspiration.

Thank you for this, press release or not.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Sun Jul 15th, 2007 at 03:04:33 PM EST
In Buffalo, they are going to get the go ahead for a big turbine farm on Lake Erie.

But off of Cape Cod (I just got back yesterday) the locals are entrenched and well organized to prevent the turbines from being positioned in Nantucket Sound.

by Upstate NY on Tue Jul 17th, 2007 at 01:12:04 PM EST
I found some more biggg clips (135mb) which my internal mail will probably not like for me to send out, but if there were interest...
by PeWi on Tue Jul 17th, 2007 at 01:43:22 PM EST


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