The power that come from sea Offshore wind power plants

Ethan Hunter, REAC Deputy Chairman of Steering Committee

Power = ½ C p A V^3

C: Constant Coefficient of Performance

p: Density of Air

A: Swept Area of Turbine Blades

V: Velocity of Wind

Feasibility process and risk analyses

Nowadays we can easily observe the increasing technological innovation of wind power plants, the rising of Off-Shore wind power plant’s capacities and generated power compared to last 5-7 years. If we want to consider the power formula stated above, we can state that a little change of wind speed can cause extreme increase in the generated power. At the same conditions the wind power plant which is operating at 15mph can generate 2 times more power according to plant that is operating at 12mph wind speed.

That is the best reason of selecting the locations for installing the Off-Shore wind power plants. ‘’ The huge reflection of a small increase of wind speed to power generation…”

With the fact that ¾ of the earth is covered by seas and the speed and the power of the wind over the seas is more than the wind over the land, the off-shore locations are appropriate for installing the wind power plants. But!:

The cost of installing the power plants to off-shore locations and also the cost of operating is much higher than land power plants. The average cost of land installing is about 2.400$/KW while, the cost of off-shore power plant installing can reach 4.600$/KW. The smallest mistake in design of off-shore field and making its feasibility can cause  unaffordable situations for investor in the installing and operating stages.

The necessity of educated and qualified staff

The rigid weather conditions, regulations caused by installing over the sea and the maintenance conditions stated in sea requires a more qualified staff compared to staff who work for land power plants. Also the staff for off-shore should feel themselves more ready in physical and psychological means.

The education for staff who will work over an installed floating platform, operating at 100m altitude, being exposed to the shaking and loading of crashed waves because of strong weather conditions  under huge blades, also the place that keep medium and high voltage, the hydraulic and mechanical systems that located in ‘’ Limited Space’’, is so important for their lives and the safety of the system which costs millions of dollars.

We as REAC (Renewable Energy Academy) started the studies for the education of staff in parallel to the projects for off-shore power plants which are started for becoming common. Especially through the experience about ‘’Off-Shore’’ of our partners in Europe, we made all next 2019 year’s projects and operation plans for creating the 100%  domestic staff power for off-shore power plants, which is thought nowadays, in order to train them in international and European standards.

Regarding that our country is surrounded by seas on three sides, evaluating the power ‘’from the sea’’, adding the new energy resources to other resources and thinking Turkey as ‘’Colossal Energy Generator’’ for middle and long period is not so imaginary for us.