Offshore wind and energy hubs

Denmark Greenlights North Sea Energy Island Hub
Denmark is planning to build an artificial island in the North Sea, to be used as an energy hub.

On this blog I’ve written about wind power numerous times, but not much over the last four years. During those last four years lots of interesting trends have continued with both individual wind turbines and windfarms getting bigger. Costs have continued to fall, and are predicted to continue to fall, especially as new materials are coming into use. More and more countries are developing offshore wind power. The usefulness of wind power is also increasing as wind to hydrogen technology and batteries are deployed and as more interconnector cables are laid between countries.

Way back in the 1980’s when I first started getting interested in renewable energy there was an assumption that not more than about 8 or 9% of the grid capacity could be made up from wind power: more would destabilize the grid. Like many such assumptions it was in the interests of the existing coal, gas, oil and nuclear industries that such things were believed. It is true that the wind is famously fickle, but relatively minor adaptations to the grid have allowed countries like Denmark to produce a lot of their electricity from the wind. At times of low demand and strong winds, back in 2015 they managed to get 140% of their demand from wind, and that has continued to climb so now it is several hundred percent, and this will keep growing. Surplus wind generated electricity will increasingly be sold to neighbouring countries, or stored in batteries, hydrogen or many other ways.

The news this week shows just how offshore wind power is ramping up. Denmark is proposing building an artificial island in the North Sea, 80kms off the Jutland coast, to act as hub for up to 10GW of offshore wind farms. Cables will connect to Germany, Belgium, and probably other countries, and also back to the Danish mainland. Over in the Baltic the Danes are planning to use the island of Bornholm in a similar way as a wind power hub, in this case linked to Germany, Poland and Sweden. Meanwhile South Korea has just announced a $43 billion investment in 8.2 GW offshore wind projects. USA is also now just beginning to get serious about large scale offshore wind.

In 2010 I wrote a blog about the increasing scale of wind power, both of individual turbines and of wind farms. At that time the largest wind turbine was 7MW. Now the largest wind turbine in production is the Haliade X at 14 MW, and Siemens Gamesa are planning something similar. These are double the size of the biggest ones from a decade ago.

In Sweden they are starting to build wind turbine towers made from cross laminated wood. These look like they will be lighter, cheaper, and stronger and also entail less carbon emissions than steel. They may also be the basis for taller towers. Wind turbines blades may also get lighter, stronger and cheaper by being made out of new composite materials, such as those being pioneered by Scottish start-up ACT blade.

Individual turbines, and offshore wind farms, will get very much bigger over the next decade. Solar power, hydrogen production and several other clean technologies are also ramping up quickly. This ramping up of cleantech is one crucial part of what we need to do in response to the climate and ecological emergency. There is of course so much more that we need to do.  

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