WindEnergyUpdate speaks to Benjamin Sykes, senior technology acceleration manager for the Carbon Trust, about the Offshore Wind Accelerator, an ambitious initiative that aims to reduce the cost of offshore wind energy by 10 percent, and in doing so, enable the UK to generate 29GW of wind power by 2020. 

By Rikki Stancich in Paris 

In October 2008, the UK’s Carbon Trust launched an ambitious initiative, in collaboration with five major international energy companies, to find ways to drive down the cost of offshore wind by at least 10 percent, and deliver predictable performance, which in turn, will drive down investment costs. 

Over the next five years, the Carbon Trust’s Offshore Wind Accelerator (OWA) will plug up to £60million into a set of major research, development and demonstration activities designed to reduce the costs of offshore wind energy.  

While admitting that the objective – to bring online 29GW of offshore wind power – is extremely ambitious, Benjamin Sykes is optimistic that the 2020 goal is achievable. 

Last month, as part of the OWA, the Carbon Trust announced that it had short-listed 7 foundation designs, from a total of 104 entries. The designs that were short-listed have since received funding of up to £100,000 to assist the applicants in further understanding the technology, engineering, manufacturing (including scale of deployment) and supply chain operations. Next Spring, the winning designs will be taken into the Carbon Trust’s £50-£60 million demonstration programme , deploying fullscale prototypes in UK waters.   

WindEnergyUpdate talks to Benjamin Sykes to find out where the cost challenges lie; what criteria the winning foundation designs must meet; whether the UK supply chain can gear up to meet future anticipated demand; and what conditions need to be in place to support the rapid deployment of offshore wind power. 
 

WindEnergyUpdate: What are the key cost challenges that the OWA has identified so far? 

Benjamin Sykes: First of all, let me provide some background to the Offshore Wind Accelerator. The Carbon Trust, alongside a consortium of five companies, including Airtricity, Dong Energy, RWE Innogy, ScottishPower Renewables and Statoil – who together represent over half of the UK’s current offshore developments – came together to identify the key challenges to reducing costs associated with producing offshore wind energy, with a particular focus on the challenges of developing and operating the UK Round 3 zones. 

Working with our industry partners, we identified 73 technology areas that represent a cost challenge, which we distilled down to the four technical areas we’ve taken into the Accelerator. Ultimately, it not just the cost of capital that drives costs, it is also the efficiency of operations and maintenance. 

Those four key areas are foundations; wake effect modeling; electrical systems; and marine access systems. 

Wake effect modeling has proven particularly challenging. Effectively, the wind turbines positioned at the leading edge of the array get the ‘clean’ air, while the ones in proceeding rows have to deal with turbulence from those in front.  

It takes mathematically complex computational fluid dynamic modelling to understand the impact of the wake effect in terms of energy losses.

Differences in modeling yields can have huge impact the project financing – one investment bank recently estimated that the uncertainty around wake effect modeling could result in an uncertainty in project rate of return of up to 8 percent, which clearly creates significant challenges for project financing. 

We are also examining how electrical systems can operate more efficiently to prevent losses. Here we are focused on wind farms comprising 200+ turbines. 

We are looking at intra-array cabling and transmission to shore. Here we are focusing on driving down both capital costs and transmission losses. 

As wind farms move further offshore, the operations and maintenance challenge increases, in terms of getting people and equipment on and off turbines in high sea conditions.  

Generally-speaking an access boat is used for this purpose, but often, severe weather conditions prevent transfers taking place for extended periods of time. So, we are looking at access systems that tackle the problem of getting crew and equipment on and off the turbine in high sea states. 

Then of course, there are the foundations.

WindEnergyUpdate: The Carbon Trust has short-listed 7 designs for deepwater turbine foundations. What criteria are you looking for in the designs that will finally be selected? 

Benjamin Sykes: In terms of criteria, we are looking at designs that minimize costs throughout their lifecycle. This includes: the viability of the overall concept; structural durability; manufacturing cost; installation, including transport costs; the potential for volume production cost savings – whether the designs lend themselves to mass production; cost of operations and maintenance; and cost of decommissioning. 

The foundation designs selected cover a range of water depths from 30 to 60 metres, and use different materials, such as steel and concrete. Given that more than 50% of the area covered Round Three zone is in water depths of less than 44 metres, it is likely – at this stage - that the foundation designs suited to these depths will be fast-tracked. In other words, we’ll initially be looking at technology choices that favour the ‘less deep’ zones - which are still considerably deeper than anything deployed at the moment. 

Also, designs that favour onshore assembly will be strong candidates. Quayside assembly can reduce costs by as much as two thirds, compared to doing the same work offshore . They also reduce health and safety risks considerably and make the assembly and installation operation less weather-dependent.

WindEnergyUpdate: The Carbon Trust notes that capital costs have driven up the cost of offshore wind energy. Where exactly are the supply chain bottle-necks and are they likely to ease any time soon? 

Benjamin Sykes: It all comes down to the scale of demand that we are likely to see in the future. The supply chain bottlenecks which will emerge as the scale of offshore deployment accelerates are a combination of a shortage of offshore installation equipment, such as vessels and cranes, coupled with a finite number of individuals with expertise in this arena. 

I think that the announcement of the Crown Estate’s Round 3 awards will signal the start of a step change in the supply chain as developers look to secure the capabilities they will need to deliver their Round 3 commitments. 
 

In terms of materials, it all depends on the technology choices made by the manufacturers. For example, depending on the type of foundations chosen by developers, demand for suitable grades of steel may well cause a pinch-point in steel supply, with a potential for squeezing supply prices upwards.

WindEnergyUpdate: Will offshore wind project development breathe life into the UK’s manufacturing sector? Is there any evidence of a domestic supply chain developing? 

Benjamin Sykes: As we highlighted in our recent ‘Focus for Success’ report, the Carbon Trust’s view is that the UK needs to focus on certain technology families that enable the UK’s renewable and carbon reduction targets to be met, while at the same time, creating an economic stimulus for the UK. 

Although the Danish have a head start on us in terms of their supply chain for offshore wind, the UK supply chain has enormous potential and we estimate that it could create 70,000 jobs by 2020 and 225,000 by 2050. 

We certainly already have the skills required to exploit this supply chain opportunity as we have a strong heritage in engineering, manufacturing and offshore oil and gas experience.

WindEnergyUpdate: Is the 29GW target really achievable? What needs to happen to enable the UK to achieve this target, in terms of legislation, access to project financing, access to capital etc? 

Benjamin Sykes: Our number is not bottom-up; it’s what we need to achieve in order to meet our 2020 target. While it may look like an impossible mountain to climb, it is achievable with the right technology and a stable policy framework.  

The UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change has a good understanding of the offshore oil and gas industry, which shares synergies with offshore wind in terms of both technologies and the scale of the challenge, and they understand the need for stable policies to support this. 

I think the UK will be successful in stimulating the supply chain and developing the technology to deploy offshore wind energy projects faster and cheaper.  

When it comes to project financing, if we can remove the uncertainty relating to energy generation, the project financing costs should come down significantly. Technology de-risking is definitely the road to go down. We need to demonstrate that we have the right technology that drives down cost and delivers predictable performance. 

WindEnergyUpdate: From the designs that companies are producing under the auspices of the OWA, is it evident that we are on the right track to achieving the objective of cheaper, faster production of turbines? 

Benjamin Sykes: The foundation designs look extremely promising - they cover a good breadth of conditions and zones. 

The designs for the electrical systems also look very exciting – but I can’t share any of those with you just yet! 

In terms of the wake effect modeling, we are certainly on the road to cracking it.

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The Editor, Rikki Stancich: rstancich@gmail.com