Wind terbines

[halcyon]

Next week we have due in Falmouth the first offshore wind terbine laying vessel.
It plants 10 terbines during a 14 day period, each one a 100 meter tower with a generator with 100 meter diameter blades. After a weeks shakedown it's heading for North Wales to install terbines, finishing at Rhyl.
I started thinking what do they look like, how far offshore, what effect are these terbines going to have on sailing wind around terbines, after all if Wales are getting them, Cornwall is bound to be next, and a Falmouth bay a good place.
Just have vision of yachts dodging blades, be worse then the Channel sep lanes.

Anyone in North Wales with details?

Brian

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[Twister_Ken]

Saab Terbo? nm

`

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[webcraft]

Re: Look out for terbulence nm

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[peterb]

Unless you've got a very big boat, you shouldn't be to worried about hitting the blades. At present the installers have agreed a minimum clearance of 20m between the bottom of the blades and MHWS.

More worrying is the suggestion that the wind farms should form exclusion zones. Some of them (particularly the ones near Kentish Knock in the Thames Estuary, and Scarweather Sands near Porthcawl) are being installed in water that is frequently used by cruising boats or fishing boats. One of the commonly used routes for big ships in the Thames Estuary used to be the North Edinburgh Channel, while small craft used Fisherman's Gat. About two years ago the Edinburgh Channel was closed, Fiherman's Gat was buoyed and became a Precautionary Area for big ships. Marker buoys were put down at each end of Foulger's Gat, the next channel east of Fisherman's Gat, so that it could be used by small craft. Now, however, the "London Array" wind turbine farm, with a planned output of 1000MW, is planned to start at Fisherman's Gat and to stretch NE for about 15 nm, completely covering Foulger's Gat and Knock Deep. Another array, the "Kentish Flats" crosses a commonly used route between the Medway and North Foreland.

Both the RYA and CA are worried, and are working hard to alleviate these problems and to prevent others arising in the future. I take it you are a member of one or the other?

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[qsiv]

Oh great - my rig is 27m, so I only need to worry a bit..

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[extravert]

I can't see that the blade-tip to MHWS clearance really matters. If you are close enough for there to be a risk of a blade hitting your mast, I would have thought that you are too close anyway.

<hr width=100% size=1>One day, I hope to own a real boat (and a reliable lifejacket).

 

[extravert]

Don\'t be perterbed...

You soon get used to them.

<hr width=100% size=1>One day, I hope to own a real boat (and a reliable lifejacket).

 

[halcyon]

I am or was a memebr of the RYA for 15 years, but they appear to have lost my membership in the system and are not very interested in fnding it.

Just hit me that this vessel can install 20 a month, the size of them, and they must have a effect on wind / wind shadow and navigation. How many are they installing, how close, how far offshore?

Brian

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[Gunfleet]

You'll be going so fast it'll never catch you

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[qsiv]

In one sense I'd agree - by the time youve given the pylon a decent clearance, you are well round the arc of the blade. IAE, I wouldnt want to be anywhere near the things - but they will take a lot of space.

A year or so back there was discussion about a Frency plan to plant a spinney of these things across the La Deroute (between the NE corner of Jersey and Carteret). I don't recall the idea being rapturously received, and ominously I havent read anything more about it - so they will probably start planting them soon.

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[halcyon]

The vessel is going to install to install the North Hoyle wind farm of North Wales.
Anyone in the area know details ?
She will spend 4 months there, which could be 80 terbines.


Brian

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[peterb]

North Hoyle is a very small site compared to the Thames Estuary ones. Its one of the Round One sites, and is about 1 1/2 miles diameter, about 4-5 miles off Pretatyn. There's a much bigger one in the pipeline for Round Two, about 10 miles by 6 miles, centered about 11 miles NW of Rhyll.

The area between N Wales and the Solway Firth is planned to have five of the smaller Round One farms, and three of the bigger Round Two farms. The Wash between the Humber and Cromer has two Round One and eight Round Two, and the Thames Estuary has two Round One and five Round Two. One of the Thames Estuary Round Two farms, the 'London Array', is planned to be the biggest wind-farm in the world. And you can forget the titchy turbines that you may have seen before, these are ginormous. We enquired about access for maintenance; no problem, each turbine has a helicopter platform on top.

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[Twister_Ken]

3 cheers

Good that we're getting serious about renewable energy at last.

Roll on those tidemills that were shown in a recent edition of CA News

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[halcyon]

Many thanks, it just does not feel right, don't know why, but have the feeling that we will pay.

Brian

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[Twister_Ken]

Wind Turbines

No, we've been paying for decades and will carry on paying, for our reliance on fossil fuels.

Think of the deaths in coal mines, of the guys on Piper Alpha, of the greenhouses gases, of the oil pollution, of uncountable deaths due to carcinogenic emissions. It's difficult to see how wind or wave or tidal power will create problems like those.

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[halcyon]

Re: Wind Turbines

But you can build that point about anything, how many have died to bring fish and chips to the table.
As this is a sailing forum it was ment as a sailing point, not a Green party one.
A type 2 farm of Falmouth would run from the Lizard to Dodman point, and about 8 mile out to sea, Effectifly wiping out sailing in Falmouth, but this is going to be relevant for any area that has them. Therefore anyone with a yacht that goes out to sea could or will be effected by them, and will have to pay for the ' green energy'. Which all the people I talk to that have worked in alternative energy say are one of the least efficent form, but have a very high visablity for politicians.
Is there any knowledge off there effectes on yachts, ie wind patterns, vertocies from blade tips, is there going to be exclusion zones.
From what Falmouth harbour master said the ship is due to finish of Rhyl, so they may have both wind farms for Summer, maybe we learn more then.

Brian

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[Twister_Ken]

NIMBY becomes NIMSL

Not In My Sea Lane

>Is there any knowledge off there effectes on yachts, ie wind patterns, vertocies from blade tips, is there going to be exclusion zones.<

If you want to take a sail-o-centric point of view, neither the Dutch nor the Danes who seem to have plenty of them, seem to suffer sailing-wise. There will still be an awful lot of sea, and not many wind turbines. The Cruising Association keeps a watching brief on this and has yet to cry foul. I suspect PeterB could give you more comprehensive chapter and verse on this than I can. BTW, I think most Solent yachtsmen would welcome a few on the Bramble Bank or Ryde Sands, as aids to navigation! And a few along Gurnard Ledge would save some keel refairing as well.

I don't believe you can ignore the wider benefits though. Yes, the economics of wind turbines are still to be proven in comparison with the mature technology that fossil fuel power stations represent but that is just a matter of scale. The more we build and the more we run, the better the efficiency will become and the smaller the fixed costs per unit will become.

As for fishing, we're already seeing the disbenefits of regarding fish as an infinte resource. But we are not seeing it as clearly as the fisherman that are consigning their industry to an historical footnote.

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[pugwash]

Wind energy is a vain green dream

The first phase of the government's renewable energy plan will produce by 2010 the equivalent of a windmill standing every 500metres between Land's End and John O'Groats, each one as big as a jumbo jet spinning on a pole. In reality, they will be clustered on some of our most spectacular headlands, moorlands, mountain ridges and estuaries. The pity of it is that iour wind energy policy is useless.

The wind is strong enough to operate turbines only one day in every three but the demand for power is constant so every windmill must be backed up by the equivalent capacity of conventional generator ready to kick in when the wind stops. For this reason, the 18,000 windmills built in Germany and almost as many in Denmark have not resulted in a single power station being shut down or replaced. The m,uch-lauded Danish wind business survives only because it can dump excess power, and buy when it's short, on countries like Sweden. The irony there is thatthe green Danes have to depend on nuclear Swedes.

Because conventional power stations have to be running on "spinning standby" and are therefore running inefficiently, like a car idling at traffic lights, they actually create more pollution.

Denmark has frozen its wind-power development which is now described as an incredibly expensive disaster. Germany is having second thoughts. We are following blithely down the same catastrophic road.

There are also all sorts of other complications that wind-power advocates do not address, such as the effect of spasmodic input ont he National Grid which will require enormously expensive adaptations not to mention miles of high-voltage pylons requiring planning permission, etc.

Yes, there is a place for wind power as a minor auxiliary to the main system but this country is making the enormous mistake of relying on it. I can produce hordes of reputable back-up sources for all this - notably all the country's major engineering institutions which describe wind-power as a national resource to be unworkable and nonsensical.

We should think again.

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[qsiv]

Re: NIMBY becomes NIMSL

<<BTW, I think most Solent yachtsmen would welcome a few on the Bramble Bank >>

Not speaking personally, here, are we?

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[Twister_Ken]

Re: NIMBY becomes NIMSL

Ah, I know where it is now.

Even so, a girt big pylon with a tide gauge on it would be nice!

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