Posted on 09/14/2014 2:44:47 PM PDT by dennisw
Germanys flagship Bard 1 offshore wind farm has been described as a faulty total system as technical problems continue to plague the project, casting major doubts on the feasibility of large scale offshore projects.
The wind farm was officially turned on in August last year but was shut down again almost immediately due to technical difficulties that have still not been resolved and now lawyers are getting involved.
The wind farm comprises 80 5MW turbines situated 100 km off the north German coastline. The difficulty facing engineers is how to get the electricity generated back to shore. So far, every attempt to turn on the turbines has resulted in overloaded and gently smouldering offshore converter stations.
Built at a cost of hundreds of millions and costing between 1 and 2 million a day to service, the project is estimated to have cost 340 million in lost power generation over the last year alone. And if the problems with the technology are deemed not to be the fault of the operator, German taxpayers will be on the hook for the running and repair costs, thanks to the German Energy Act 2012.
Understandably, the projects investors are becoming increasingly nervous, which is why lawyers are now scrambling to pin the blame elsewhere. According to the German magazine Speigel everything has turned to the question of who is responsible for the fiasco and the costs.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
At least when wind farms are offshore, copper thieves can’t pillage them without a boat.
No wind?
That far is likely due to huge fishing industry. Would be a lot of productive fishing grounds taken out of production. Think all the underwater cables running along the seabed. Snagged nets and major lawsuits or else just close the whole area to commercial fiahing and suffer the rage of the German public plus the huge hit to the German balance of trade.
major problems with sea water corrosion and nightmare servicing 400 ft towers and complicated equipment way out there (in a wind)
dumbest idea them windmills!!!
Try Mark Duchamps article on the Scottish Eagle. I saw it on a Canadian website. I hope it’s ok with FR to refer to different websites as reference.
Gee, even a caveman could have figured that out!
And our very own Independent-Communist Senator Angus King wants to bring this wonderful development to the coastal waters of Maine...the "Saudi Arabia of Wind".
Of course, he wouldn't directly profit from all those taxpayer dollars now....Would he?
Serves Germany right. Didn’t they close down some nuke plants because they were scared a tsunami would take them out like at Fukashima?
but but but..
Hih? There is hardly any coast, %-wise anyway.
After the tsunami destroyed the Fukushima plants, Germany moved quickly to shut eight nuclear power plants, and made plans do away completely with their nuclear capability. Despite the best safety record of any industry in the country, and the critical role nuclear plays in fueling German industry, Germanys past experience with large tsunamis was just too horrific to ignore. And Germanys strong economy and commitment to protect the environment were small prices to pay for Chancellor Merkel to shore up her weak coalition with the Free Democrats. Maybe she can ask Greece for help later. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/08/31/germany-insane-or-just-plain-stupid/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhXMycNAGpQ here is the video with sound
Where's that from?
just thought it fir the thread
That's right.
Al Bore said we only had 5 years to prevent armageddon.
That was over fifteen years ago, as I recall...
We are all already dead.
I totally disagree.
It's not a power transmission problem.
It's a SYNCHRONIZATION PROBLEM coupled with very high voltages and current.
Synchronization between which components? Generator frequency/phase and landline freq/phase? Between/among multiple generators?
On the assumption that the generators are producing multi-phase AC at a frequency determined by the wind (and at, as you say, very high volts and amps), getting the power transferred should be a difficult but already solved problem -- don't windfarm generators do that all the time?
What are the Germans doing that's so different? Or did they just screw up implementing a known solution?
Many years ago (c. 1980) I designed multi-phase inverters at the 400HP level and we had ways of synchronizing with the existing AC line to pump power to and from the mains. This German issue is 30+ years later. WTF did they do wrong?
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