World's first floating wind farm emerges off coast of Scotland

BBC - Roger Harrabin

The world's first full-scale floating wind farm has started to take shape off the north-east coast of Scotland.

The revolutionary technology will allow wind power to be harvested in waters too deep for the current conventional bottom-standing turbines used.
The Peterhead wind farm, known as Hywind, is a trial which will bring power to 20,000 homes.
Manufacturer Statoil says output from the turbines is expected to equal or surpass generation from current ones.
It hopes to cash in on a boom in the technology, especially in Japan and the West coast of the US, where waters are deep.
"This is a tech development project to ensure it's working in open sea conditions. It's a game-changer for floating wind power and we are sure it will help bring costs down," said Leif Delp, project director for Hywind.

The huge turbines are currently being moved into place.

So far, one giant turbine has already been moved into place, while four more wait in readiness in a Norwegian fjord.
By the end of the month they'll all have been towed to 15 miles off Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, where they'll float upright like giant fishing floats.
While the turbines are currently very expensive to make, Statoil believes that in the future it will be able to dramatically reduce costs in the same way that manufacturers already have for conventional offshore turbines.
"I think eventually we will see floating wind farms compete without subsidy - but to do that we need to get building at scale," said Mr Delp.

---

How big? The jaw-dropping dimensions of the technology used

The turbines can operate in water up to a kilometre deep.

• The tower, including the blades, stretches to 175 metres, dwarfing Big Ben
• Each tower weighs 11,500 tonnes
• The box behind the blades - the nacelle - could hold two double-decker buses
• Each blade is 75 metres - almost the wing span of an Airbus
• The turbines can operate in water up to a kilometre deep
• The blades on the towers have been a particular focus for innovation.
• Statoil says the blades harness breakthrough software - which holds the tower upright by twisting the blades to dampen motions from wind, waves and currents.

---

The operation to begin shifting the first of the 11,500 tonne giants happened dramatically in the half-light of a Norwegian summer night.
Crews secured thick cables to tug boats and used remote-controlled submarines to check for obstacles.
Finally the giant was on the move, floating on a sealed vase-like tube 78 metres deep, its bottom filled with iron ore to weight the base and keep it upright in the water.

Price drop
The price of energy from bottom-standing offshore wind farms has plummeted 32% since 2012 - far faster that anyone predicted.
The price is now four years ahead of the government's expected target, and another big price drop is expected, taking offshore wind to a much lower price than new nuclear power.
The Hywind project is being run in collaboration with the Abu Dhabi firm Masdar. The £190m cost was subsidised by bill-payers under the UK government's Renewable Obligation Certificates.
The bird charity RSPB Scotland opposed the project - not because it dislikes the technology but because it believes too many offshore turbines in the area have already been approved.

Thick mooring lines will tether the towers to the sea base.

It fears thousands of sea birds may be killed by the offshore wind farms, although it admits that estimates are hugely uncertain because it is impossible to count bird corpses at sea.
The RSPB's Aidan Smith told BBC News: "Generally we are very enthusiastic about floating wind technology because it allows turbines to be placed far offshore - away from seabird nesting sites, and it helps us tackle climate change.
"We oppose the Hywind project because it adds to a situation we already believe is a problem."
Floating turbines may create a new frontier for energy - but scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warn far more investment in additional new technologies is urgently needed for governments to keep promises on reducing emissions.

Links

• Scottish Power lands US wind farm deal
• Where our clean energy will come from
• Six charts that show global warming in action
• Solar farm on Sunshine Coast ready to be connected to grid
• Australia's $10 billion wind and solar boom: But then what?

Solar’s Trillion-Dollar Market: Driven By EVs, Microgrids And Cost Parity For Storage

RenewEconomy - Giles Parkinson

Demand for solar is expected to surge over coming years, but its growth rate could effectively double if there is rapid uptake of electric vehicles, and as more companies turn to the technology to save energy costs, and more countries reach solar and storage "parity" with grid prices.
A new report from leading solar analyst Vishal Shah, at Deutsche Bank, says demand for solar is already expected to increase by 10 per cent a year out to 2022, to around 140GW.
But the impact of EVs, solar micro-grids, corporate power purchase agreements and storage parity could see this growth rate more than double, pushing annual demand for new solar power to 250GW by 2022.
Shah says solar is the logical replacement for "liquid fuel generation" – primarily dirty and expensive diesel – which currently accounts for around 405GW of capacity around the world. Given an average capacity factor of 25 per cent, that suggests an addressable market of 1,600GW for the solar industry.
Shah puts the cost of diesel power at around US40c/kWk, around four times the cost of a comparable solar solution. He factors in annual growth demand of 20GW for this market, but concedes that could be conservative.
Corporate demand is about 1GW to 3GW today, but Shah suggests this could grow to 5-10GW a day over the next five to 10 years as companies increase their focus on alternatives to expensive grid power.
He suggests that if self-generation reaches 10 per cent for the global industrial and commercial sectors, and solar accounts for half of the incremental demand, then that could create 350GW incremental demand for solar.
But it is electric vehicles that could provide the biggest step change in forecasts. The widespread adoption of EVs is likely to lift global peak demand by around 2-3.5 per cent, and Deutsche expects at least half of that incremental peak power capacity will be met by solar.
Underpinning the overall growth, however, is the continued fall in the cost of both solar modules and battery storage. Deutsche says solar module prices have declined from 75c/W to 35c/W over the past three years and are set to decline by a further 20 per cent over the next five years.
Improvement in installation and balance of systems costs should drive down solar system costs by another 20 per cent, and Deutsche sees total utility-scale system costs reaching 70c/W by 2022 timeframe.
"At these price points, solar would be cheaper than coal in more markets globally representing 5,000GW of available market potential, in our view.
"Both utility-scale and distributed solar has the potential to represent over 50 per cent of new global capacity additions over the next five years, representing $1 trillion of cumulative investment opportunity."
The countries driving this will not be the traditional markets of Japan, US, China and India, but "rest of the world demand" where solar capacity is currently just 2 per cent of the market, but which could rise five-fold over the next five years.
"We believe over 50 countries are already at grid parity if we compare the cost of solar electricity to prevailing grid prices," the analysts say. And as the graph above shows, some countries such as Australia are already at grid parity for both solar and storage, and the numbers will increase out to 2022 and beyond.
It cites Vietnam, a rapidly growing economy with manufacturing growing at 6 per cent a year, but where industrial customers face peak rates from its new grid of US18c/kWh, as a case where many are considering solar as an alternative because it costs half as much now, and will likely fall to just US6c/kWh by 2022.
Deutsche says that having installed 38GW of power generation in the last 15 years – around 40 per cent of it hydro – and achieving a 98 per cent electrification rate, almost entirely through public funding, it is still facing significant energy security and environmental and health concerns.
 Solar – which has barely registered to date – is expected to be a major source of power generation growth in the country through 2030, with 12GW of expected to be installed by 2030. "This could turn out to be conservative, in our view, given our cost and LCOE forecasts."
Solar is also becoming the preferred source of energy for net energy importing countries like Jordan, Morocco and Pakistan, especially with solar LCOE below current market prices for oil and LNG and at par with natural gas generation. The record low bids for solar in Dubai and mega projects are changing the perception of the technology.

Links

• Notion-building pollies declare open season for energy theories
• North Queensland to be Australia's first major exporter of solar power
• South Miami just made a huge rooftop solar decision
• Australia's Greatcell signs MOU with JinkoSolar for perovskite cells
• Hazelwood gone today – Liddell gone tomorrow. Are we ready?
• China connects 13.5GW of solar PV – in a single month
• EnergyAustralia signs PPA for 150MW Neoen solar farm in NSW
• SolarReserve Receives Environmental approval for 390 megawatt solar thermal facility with storage in Chile
• Google creates "Dandelion" to promote geothermal energy
• Rooftop solar shock for consumers, installers as rebate price falls by one-third

The World’s Most-Populated City, Shanghai, Just Had Its Hottest Day In Recorded History

Washington Post - Jason Samenow

Children cool off from hot weather in a fountain in Shanghai on Friday. (Aly Song/Reuters)

On Friday, the 24-million-plus inhabitants of Shanghai witnessed the temperature skyrocket to 105.6 degrees (40.9 Celsius), its hottest day ever recorded.
The Chinese city, which has more people than any in the world, has tracked temperatures since 1872.
Friday’s temperature extreme fits into a recent pattern of increasing hot weather.
“Shanghai is getting hotter — the previous record of 40.8 [Celsius] was set only in 2013, and eight of the 12 highest temperatures reached over the past century were recorded in the last five years, according to the city weather bureau,” the AFP reported.
The excessive heat spurred an increase in hospital visits because of heat-related illness, and the city was under a “red alert” — its first this year, and the 13th since China launched a heat alert system a decade ago.
“China has a three-tier early warning system for high temperatures: a yellow warning is issued when high temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius are predicted for three consecutive days, orange indicates a predicted high temperature of 37 degrees Celsius in the next 24 hours, and a red alert is issued when the temperature is forecast to reach 40 degrees Celsius within 24 hours,” explained Xinhua.net, the Chinese news agency.
Much of eastern China was under the influence of a large ridge of high pressure — or heat dome. This heat dome may hold in place for the next week, meaning many more days of scorching temperatures.

GFS model shows heat dome positioned over China. (WeatherBell.com)

This record high temperature in Shanghai is one of several all-time heat records set this summer around the Northern Hemisphere:

• Last week, Spain posted its highest temperature ever recorded when Córdoba airport (in southern Spain) hit 116.4 degrees (46.9 Celsius).
• In late June, Ahvaz, Iran soared to 128.7 degrees Fahrenheit (53.7 Celsius) — that country’s all-time hottest temperature.
• In late May, the western Pakistani town of Turbat hit 128.3 degrees (53.5 Celsius), tying the all-time highest temperature in that country and the world record temperature for May, according to Weather Underground meteorologist Jeff Masters.

While these temperatures extremes have occurred, the Earth’s average temperature so far in 2017 ranks second highest in records dating back to 1880.

Links

• The first half of 2017 was the planet’s second-warmest on record
• Spain Breaks All-Time Highest Temperature Record
• Iranian city soars to record 129 degrees: Near hottest on Earth in modern measurements
• Historic Heat Wave Sweeps Asia, the Middle East and Europe