Wind Power
For our sustainability project we have chosen to
study Vestas wind turbines and the option of an offshore wind farm. On these wind turbines each blade is 44m long! The
height of them is 70m tall.
Our Questions!
Research Question:• Is there a possibility of installing an
offshore wind turbine near Christchurch?
Sub-questions:• What is the cost of installing an
offshore wind farm?• How much energy do offshore wind
farms produce?• Who has the most efficient wind
turbines?• How long do wind turbines last?
Horns ReefWe got our idea for an offshore wind
farm after reading about horns reef of the coast of Denmark. It has 80 efficient wind turbines and each produces 160 MWh . They produce enough energy to power 150,000 houses. The offshore wind farms are becoming more popular because it is getting harder and harder to get resource consent and permits to place wind turbines on land. An offshore wind farm could easily power one third of Christchurch.
The Turbines
All turbines are designed to an international standard, so they
last on average 20years. Turbines are like your Mum’s
car, if you drive it hard all the time and don't look after it sooner or later it will cost you
some money!
Since fossil fuels are going to run out in the near future. We have to come up with new ways to produce energy efficiently.
So far we have came up with solar power, hydro, wave/tidal, nuclear, geothermal and wind power. These are all pollution
free ways of generating energy. The ways wind energy benefits the earth
more than fossil fuels is the reduced CO2 emissions, an example of this is 39,000 Vestas turbines around the world save
the planet from 40 million tonnes of CO2 emissions compared to Oil a year. Plus 80% of their turbines are recyclable.
Reasons for wanting wind energy.
The possibilities of an offshore wind farm near Christchurch,
Is very unlikely because:• The bed is to deep, we have found
that to put wind turbine on the sea bed it has to be shallow (at most 10m)• The cost would be unbelievably expensive to first buy the turbines
and get the energy the turbines produce back to land, which means pipes and cables would have to be
installed.• It would take at least three years to
get up and running because you would have to get consent from the
government, E-can, etc.
We did consider putting the wind farm on a small island off the coast of the North
Island. We would make sure this island had no houses on
it, but most of the islands were native bush. Changing
this landscape would increase the cost but also
effect the wild life surrounding it.
Possibilities
If we were going to put an offshore wind farm near Christchurch it would have to be quite close to shore. As the sea bed deepens
more rapidly than other places in the world. With it being close to shore, you would be able to view them and there might be more
complaints in the way they look, and how it “pollutes” the
landscape, which really defeats the purpose of an offshore wind farm.
Problems
• http://www.physics.otago.ac.nz/eman/hew/ehome/energyuse.html• http://www.vestas.com/• http://www.vestas.com/en/about-vestas/principles/sustainability.aspx• http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=wind+turbines• http://www.vestas.com/en/modern-energy/understanding-modern-energy/clean.
aspx• http://www.vestas.com/en/modern-energy.aspx• http://www.vestas.com/en/wind-power-solutions/offshore.aspx• http://www.vestas.com/en/wind-power-solutions.aspx• http://www.vestas.com/en/modern-energy/understanding-modern-energy/questi
ons-and-answers-about-modern-energy.aspx• http://www.google.co.nz/search?
q=vestas+wind+turbines&hl=en&tbo=1&tbs=tl:1,tll:1970,tlh:1974&ei=SSwUS8aGEpHCsgOgmoXmAQ&sa=X&oi=timeline_histogram_main&ct=timeline-histogram&cd=1&ved=0CAkQyQEoAQ
• http://www.google.co.nz/search?hl=en&tbo=1&tbs=tl%3A1&q=offshore+wind+farms&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=o&oq=
• http://www.google.co.nz/search?q=wind%20turbines&hl=en&tbo=1&output=search&tbs=tl:1
• http://windenergy.org.nz/nz-wind-farms/nz-wind-farms
Websites