It’s been another busy day so far here at OFFSHORE 2011 in Amsterdam, and today the focus is on audience participation. First up were five of offshore wind energy’s leading manufacturers – Alstom, Nordex, Gamesa, Siemens and Vestas – in the battle of the big turbines.
Each manufacturer outlined the benefits of their future turbines, with the main differences lying in the generators (direct drive, hybird or gear) and in blade length. It was clear that the industry’s leading players are aiming high – at 7 MW machines with rotor diameters of up to 154 meters.
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CROSS POSTED FROM THE AWEA BLOG WWW.AWEA.ORG/BLOG
Day 1 at EWEA Offshore 2011: An industry approaching adulthood
Posted: 2011-11-29 Lauren Glickman, Social Media/Online Advocacy Mgr
Despite being over 3800 miles from home, the message I heard at this morning’s opening session of The EWEA Offshore conference sounded very familiar. The Conference kicked off this morning with over 7,500 key stakeholders descending upon Amsterdam to discuss the pressing issues facing the offshore wind industry in Europe. EWEA kicked things off by releasing their latest analysis of all existing offshore wind projects in 17 EU member states.
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A European offshore supergrid – with interconnections between European countries and to offshore wind farms in Europe’s seas – is the vision, but there are big and significant barriers to achieving that vision.
‘We don’t have an interconnected European network today, and we don’t have an offshore grid,’ Ana Aguado from Friends of the Super Grid said today at OFFSHORE 2011 in Amsterdam, outlining the problem in a nutshell. ‘There can be no transition [to a renewable electricity sector] without transmission,’ Eddie O’Connor from Mainstream renewable power said referring to the significant need for grid infrastructure.
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This time next week Amsterdam will be a hive of activity for anyone interested in the offshore wind energy sector. We spoke to Heiko Ross from Windreich to uncover what he thinks will be the hot topics at his session at EWEA’s OFFSHORE 2011 conference…
Why is offshore wind energy expensive compared to onshore wind energy?
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With less than two weeks to go until the European Wind Energy Association’s OFFSHORE 2011 conference and exhibition, we find out what Erwin Coolen from OutSmart will be discussing at the session on reducing the costs of offshore…
Why is offshore wind energy expensive compared to onshore wind energy?
We all are aware that at this moment the costs are higher compared to onshore wind. Next to that there are a lot of contingencies, risk markups and guarantee reservations due to the immaturity of offshore wind. Cost reduction will be a matter of a maturing market and healthy market competition.
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