World's largest offshore windfarm starts generating

[plfrench]

Hope things are settling down and no more turbine blade failures have occurred as I suspect we might have burnt our last ever coal for electricity generation on 29th May. The stockpiles are just scrapings at Ratcliffe and it's been a fair few days since burning any now. Quite an achievement if true, from being our dominant source of electricity generation 10 years ago to zero today - really should be praised as progress we should be proud of.

[DonkeyApple]

plfrench said:

Hope things are settling down and no more turbine blade failures have occurred as I suspect we might have burnt our last ever coal for electricity generation on 29th May. The stockpiles are just scrapings at Ratcliffe and it's been a fair few days since burning any now. Quite an achievement if true, from being our dominant source of electricity generation 10 years ago to zero today - really should be praised as progress we should be proud of.

I don't think it was 'the' dominant source for a long time prior to that but it was certainly one of them and contributed hugely to the carbon emissions.

But it shows just how repeatedly lick the U.K. has been since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in terms of finding the next major power source before the current one runs out or is phased out.

Being able to slash coal use down to near enough zero inside of a decade has only been possible due to firstly the discovery of offshore nat gas and then having near perfect geology and geography for one of the cheapest and easiest renewables.

It's an enormous competitive advantage for the UK to be on target to deliver energy to industry and households that is free of carbon taxes helping them to be more price efficient than our economic competitors. Some of whom are facing a truly disastrous level of costs to even get close.

Has there been any further progress re the concept of the North Sea grid to create a more efficient energy trading network?

[plfrench]

DonkeyApple said:

plfrench said:

Hope things are settling down and no more turbine blade failures have occurred as I suspect we might have burnt our last ever coal for electricity generation on 29th May. The stockpiles are just scrapings at Ratcliffe and it's been a fair few days since burning any now. Quite an achievement if true, from being our dominant source of electricity generation 10 years ago to zero today - really should be praised as progress we should be proud of.

I don't think it was 'the' dominant source for a long time prior to that but it was certainly one of them and contributed hugely to the carbon emissions.

But it shows just how repeatedly lick the U.K. has been since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in terms of finding the next major power source before the current one runs out or is phased out.

Being able to slash coal use down to near enough zero inside of a decade has only been possible due to firstly the discovery of offshore nat gas and then having near perfect geology and geography for one of the cheapest and easiest renewables.

It's an enormous competitive advantage for the UK to be on target to deliver energy to industry and households that is free of carbon taxes helping them to be more price efficient than our economic competitors. Some of whom are facing a truly disastrous level of costs to even get close.

Has there been any further progress re the concept of the North Sea grid to create a more efficient energy trading network?

Yes, perhaps poor choice of the word dominant, but certainly the largest source in 2014 according to I am Kate (with the red line being coal):

[Mikehig]

DonkeyApple said:

plfrench said:

Hope things are settling down and no more turbine blade failures have occurred as I suspect we might have burnt our last ever coal for electricity generation on 29th May. The stockpiles are just scrapings at Ratcliffe and it's been a fair few days since burning any now. Quite an achievement if true, from being our dominant source of electricity generation 10 years ago to zero today - really should be praised as progress we should be proud of.

I don't think it was 'the' dominant source for a long time prior to that but it was certainly one of them and contributed hugely to the carbon emissions.

But it shows just how repeatedly lick the U.K. has been since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in terms of finding the next major power source before the current one runs out or is phased out.

Being able to slash coal use down to near enough zero inside of a decade has only been possible due to firstly the discovery of offshore nat gas and then having near perfect geology and geography for one of the cheapest and easiest renewables.

It's an enormous competitive advantage for the UK to be on target to deliver energy to industry and households that is free of carbon taxes helping them to be more price efficient than our economic competitors. Some of whom are facing a truly disastrous level of costs to even get close.

Has there been any further progress re the concept of the North Sea grid to create a more efficient energy trading network?

"free of carbon taxes"?
Directly, yes. Indirectly, maybe not.
Aiui the market price is usually set by gas which includes carbon taxation (£30/MWh, iirc). So that carbon tax drives up the price of power from all sources.
Happy to be corrected as I may not have the full picture.

[plfrench]

How are things progressing PushedDover? I saw there was another blade failure reported on the Doggerbank website.

How many are 'plugged in' and generating now? Only a matter of weeks till coal generation is confined to the history books for the UK.

[Mikehig]

plfrench said:

How are things progressing PushedDover? I saw there was another blade failure reported on the Doggerbank website.

How many are 'plugged in' and generating now? Only a matter of weeks till coal generation is confined to the history books for the UK.

There was a blade failure recently on a US windfarm off Nantucket. It was a GE turbine: is that the same as Dogger Bank?

[Hill92]

Mikehig said:

plfrench said:

How are things progressing PushedDover? I saw there was another blade failure reported on the Doggerbank website.

How many are 'plugged in' and generating now? Only a matter of weeks till coal generation is confined to the history books for the UK.

There was a blade failure recently on a US windfarm off Nantucket. It was a GE turbine: is that the same as Dogger Bank?

Yes, Dogger Bank A/B and Vineyard Wind both use GE Haliade-X 13 MW Wind Turbine Generators. The first Doggerbank blade failure was attributed to installation error while Vineyard Wind's was a manufacturing error.

Progress seems slow at Doggerbank. The latest weekly notice of operations for DBA lists 21/95 WTG installed to date plus a further 6 have Towers & Nacelles. This compares to 12 WTGs installed to date 3 months ago. DBB is still installing monopiles and transition pieces with no WTGs installations started yet.

https://doggerbank.com/mariners-fisheries/

In comparison, Moray West has installed 27 Siemens SG 14-222 DD 14.7 MW WTGs in the same period.

https://www.moraywest.com/current-works/offshore-w...

[PushedDover]

As above

Poor on DB. Sofia windfarm is in the middle and a year later start , but I reckon will be built first.


GE will be bumping to max LDs for what it’s worth I suspect and then?
I think the pending issue is the lease on the Able Seaton site will elapse half way through the build, the ships on charter will also be booked for elsewhere….

[PushedDover]

https://www.offshorewind.biz/2024/08/23/bad-streak...

Seems to be an installation / commissioned incident - perhaps from installation damage versus wear and tear

https://www.offshorewind.biz/2024/08/23/bad-streak...

[tamore]

looks like dogger bank wan't the low hanging fruit it was supposed to be. or is there a whiff on incompetence?

[PushedDover]

The Doggerbank is also the location of the above mentioned RWE Sofia Project, nestled amongst the midst of Doggerbank A, B and C (Equinor / SSE / Vagronn) and with a proven with respect to model and company) the Siemens Gamesa 14MW turbine.

Let’s just see how that installation and commissioning goes.

Without a doubt - the worlds biggest windfarm of Doggerbank is a farce due to GE.

[plfrench]

Are things off course enough to justify postponing the closure of Ratcliffe coal station next month, or is it just a case of having slightly less spare contingency?

How many months behind programme plan is DBA now?

[borcy]

PushedDover said:

The Doggerbank is also the location of the above mentioned RWE Sofia Project, nestled amongst the midst of Doggerbank A, B and C (Equinor / SSE / Vagronn) and with a proven with respect to model and company) the Siemens Gamesa 14MW turbine.

Let’s just see how that installation and commissioning goes.

Without a doubt - the worlds biggest windfarm of Doggerbank is a farce due to GE.

What is it that's causing them such difficulties ? Haven't they been building wind turbines for a while?

[Hill92]

plfrench said:

Are things off course enough to justify postponing the closure of Ratcliffe coal station next month, or is it just a case of having slightly less spare contingency?

How many months behind programme plan is DBA now?

Nope. National Grid ESO's early view of Winter 2024/2025 forecasts a higher derated margin (5.6 GW / 9.4%) than last winter (4.4 GW / 7.4%) and the winter before that (3.7GW / 6.3%). They're not factoring in Dogger Bank or any of the other wind farms under construction.

https://www.nationalgrideso.com/research-and-publi...

[PushedDover]

borcy said:

What is it that's causing them such difficulties ? Haven't they been building wind turbines for a while?

GE ?
Yes onshore stuff to varied success. Gearbox drive stuff.

They bought the Alstom Offshore wind business, and a move to direct drive type turbines moons ago and with that the 6MW Alstom platform ( see the clusterfk of Merkur where these have been operating for a few years) and pushed the envelope and max capacity at the ti
E for the industry leap frogging the two incumbent suppliers of MHIV (now Vestas) and Siemens Gamesa which had circa 10MW offerings with a game changer 13MW.

This scale naturally appealed at the time. But with great change, and enormous scale of growth in technology from blades of circa 10M 74m long to 13MW 114m long comes it seems difficulties in various ways

Add on top that GE had no real experience or teams to build the worlds largest windfarm.


What could possibly go wrong…….

[borcy]

Thanks

[PushedDover]

Tapped that out on my phone. Apollo on any errors

[plfrench]

Hill92 said:

Nope. National Grid ESO's early view of Winter 2024/2025 forecasts a higher derated margin (5.6 GW / 9.4%) than last winter (4.4 GW / 7.4%) and the winter before that (3.7GW / 6.3%). They're not factoring in Dogger Bank or any of the other wind farms under construction.

https://www.nationalgrideso.com/research-and-publi...

Thanks - makes sense not to rely on projects in build

[PushedDover]

PushedDover said:

https://www.offshorewind.biz/2024/08/23/bad-streak...

Seems to be an installation / commissioned incident - perhaps from installation damage versus wear and tear

https://www.offshorewind.biz/2024/08/23/bad-streak...

Not ‘installation’ but ‘commissioning’ and I would add or suggest slack process or human error .

Turbine in wrong mode, and damaged by the wind / weather.

https://www.offshorewind.biz/2024/09/02/blade-fail...

[plfrench]

PushedDover said:

Not ‘installation’ but ‘commissioning’ and I would add or suggest slack process or human error .

Turbine in wrong mode, and damaged by the wind / weather.

https://www.offshorewind.biz/2024/09/02/blade-fail...

That’s not good… I’d have expected this sort of critical operational status / mode would be flagged on a dashboard warning of being left in an inappropriate mode.