Blowin in the Wind
Offshore wind farms are old hat in Europe, where they’ve been building them for at least the last 20 years. But the U.S. has nary a one. What gives?
By Jack O’Connell
They are a technological marvel, the world’s biggest rotating machines, much bigger than their land-based cousins. Towering hundreds of feet above the water, the blades alone are longer than the distance from home plate to second base. The monopile foundations, encased in concrete on the ocean’s floor, are sixteen feet in diameter. The entire structure – tower, turbine, nacelle, blades – weighs hundreds, even thousands of tons. The blades turn slowly, collecting wind like sails, transferring it to the nacelle at the top of the tower where a gearbox and generator are located. The generator converts the energy to electricity and transfers it to a cable running the length of the tower down to the seabed and under the seabed via submarine cable to an offshore transformer platform, whence it travels by submarine cable to shore where the cable connects to the existing electrical grid at a substation and becomes part of the nation’s (Denmark, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands) energy supply.
They’re located far offshore, barely visible, if at all. No noise issues. No “shadow of the turbine” issues. Clean, and the wind is free. But the wind doesn’t always blow. Nor can the energy generated be stored for future use – the technology isn’t there yet. It’s a transient commodity. It has to be used as it’s produced, which may or may not coincide with periods of peak energy demand. There are other issues. It’s expensive, at least five times as costly as fossil fuels. The wind is free, but that’s about all. It has to be subsidized. It requires government support, not to mention popular support, where the zeal of environmentalists and clean energy advocates often runs headlong into the “not in my backyard” mentality.
The Big Picture
Why is offshore wind so appealing? Two reasons: The wind blows harder and more steadily offshore than it does on land, and most people live along the coasts, particularly in northern Europe, the U.S. and China. So you have the happy coincidence of quasi-reliable power and population density. What’s in it for the global maritime industry? Opportunity. According to Dr. Hermann Klein of ship classification society Germanischer Lloyd, the potential “windfall” (sorry, couldn’t resist that one) for the maritime industry from offshore wind farms is huge. In Europe alone he estimates future demand at 20 Wind Turbine Installation Ships (WTIS) and 200-300 additional support vessels by 2020. Why? Because the EU has set a goal of generating 20 percent of its energy from wind by that date. Of course, most of this will come from shore-based farms, but a growing percentage is coming from offshore wind. The EU wants 40 percent of its wind power from offshore. Nine countries already have offshore wind parks, according to the European Wind Energy Association, with total installed capacity of roughly 3,000 MWs. Another 10 parks are under construction, which will add another 3,000 MWs. About 800 new turbines will be erected annually for the next five years.
Among the most recent is Belwind Phase 1 off the coast of Belgium. It consists of 55 turbines, each generating 3.5 MWs of power. The contractor was Van Oord, the Rotterdam-based dredging and marine construction company. It was built on time and on budget and will provide 175,000 homes with clean energy. It’s located about 30 miles offshore in the North Sea, the farthest operating wind farm in the world to date.
Globally, the market could reach $60 billion and more over the next five years with annual outlays estimated at $20 billion per year by 2015, according to Germanische Lloyd’s Klein. The U.K., Germany and China are the three biggest markets, which together are expected to account for more than 75 percent of the total spend. Right now, Denmark gets 19 percent of its power from wind (onshore and offshore), more than any other country. Portugal gets 12.5 percent, Spain 10.3 percent, and Ireland 8.1 percent. The U.S. lags in 18th place with just over one percent, all of it land-based.
But the U.S. has ambitious goals too. The Department of Energy and the Obama Administration have set a goal of 20 percent wind power – about 300 GWs – by 2030. Eighty percent of that will be onshore, but the other 20 percent will be offshore. Ten GWs of offshore wind are expected by 2020, according to Brian Fariello and Henning von Wedel of Finnish power company Wärtsilä, a leading supplier of propulsion systems and vessel designs for offshore wind farms. They point out that Google is investing $5 billion in the visionary Atlantic Wind Connection, a 6 GW transmission backbone that would run the length of the U.S. East Coast and provide “plug and play” connectivity for offshore wind farms as they are constructed. That’s a huge incentive for would-be developers to get on board. After all, if Google is doing it, it has to be right, right?
If the U.S. becomes a player, there would be additional demand for WTISs and support vessels perhaps equal to that of Europe. It could revitalize the U.S. shipbuilding industry overnight.
Building the Fleet
Almost as interesting as the farms themselves are the vessels needed to build them. They come in two varieties: the aforementioned WTISs, used for installation, and the smaller offshore support vessels (OSV) needed both for installation and ongoing maintenance. Damen Shipyards’ Mijndert Wiesenekker, Sales Manager for Europe, sees “an enormous interest in these vessels,” adding that “this could be a large market for us.” Currently, Damen relies mainly on its Multi-Cat and Shoal Buster models to service and support the construction of new farms, although it does have contracts for four new and purpose-built Fast Crew Supplier 2610 catamarans for wind farms. The first of these catamarans for crew transportation will be delivered in June. Wiesenekker points out that the next generation of wind farms will be 100 miles offshore rather than the usual 10-25 miles that is standard today and will require bigger accommodation vessels that stay within the wind farm and faster crew transports. Damen has made the strategic decision to eschew for the moment the larger and more specialized (and expensive) WTISs in favor of the smaller and more versatile OSV-type designs that are its bread and butter.
Netherlands-based Offshore Ship Designers is a leader in the construction of wind farm support vessels. It recently signed a contract with offshore operator Neptune Marine Service for an anchor-handling tug similar to two others it is building for Singapore-based Pacific Offshore Engineering and Trading Pte. The key to both designs is that, although the vessels will have the capabilities of much larger tugs and OSVs, their smaller size reduces both capital outlay and ongoing operational costs. “Size certainly matters,” notes OSD Managing Director Michiel Wijsmuller, “especially when it is related to costs. What wind farm operators need is compact but versatile vessels, and the offshore sector needs vessels that are less expensive to operate but equally capable. The answer in both cases is to find a way to squeeze more out of a smaller platform, and that is what these two new designs do.” The Neptune tug is designed for anchor handling, ocean towage and wind farm construction support duties. It can accommodate 22 people and should enter service late next year.
But the really interesting stuff is with the big ships – the installation vessels, the WTISs. These are basically jackups, like jackup rigs, and borrow heavily from the technology of offshore drilling, with wide decks capable of holding lots of equipment. The first such vessel, MPI Resolution, was built in 2003 for MPI Offshore, a subsidiary of the Dutch-based Vroon Group. Vroon is a diversified shipowning group with a large North Sea fleet and perhaps the region’s biggest fleet of specialized wind farm support vessels. Its smaller ships all carry monikers like MPI Don Quixote, MPI Sancho Panza, MPI Rosinante, MPI Dulcinea, and other characters from Cervantes’ classic novel. It’s wonderfully witty and adds a touch of class to the whole operation. The larger ships, the WTISs, are more grandly named, and thus MPI Resolution became the first vessel of its kind. It was followed in March of this year by the MPI Adventure, the first of two Cosco Qidong newbuilds, with the second, MPI Discovery, to come later this year.
The MPI Adventure will be engaged in the installation of foundation components for the London Array Offshore Wind Farm in the U.K. and can operate in water depths up to 40 meters. The London Array is an offshore wind farm under construction in the outer Thames Estuary. Phase 1, with 175 turbines and a combined capacity of 630 MWs, is planned to deliver power to the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. With an eventual total of 1,000-MW capacity, the London Array is expected to become the world's largest offshore wind farm.
The U.K. will, in fact, soon become the world’s largest producer of offshore wind, with Germany a close second. With its North Sea oil reserves rapidly dwindling, the U.K. in particular is anxious to find available – and preferably clean – substitutes. More importantly, according to Wärtsilä’s von Wedel, is the fact that “The U.K. and Germany provide the most attractive financial conditions for the big players to start into the renewable world.” And Wärtsilä, though no newcomer, is one of those big players. Last year, together with Hamburg-based IMS, an offshore engineering firm, it contracted with RWE Innogy for the construction of two jackup crane vessels at Daewoo Shipbuilding for delivery later this year. They will be employed by RWE Innogy, the renewable energy arm of German utility RWE, for turbine foundation and installation work at its offshore wind farms North Sea East, Innogy North Sea 1, and Gwynt y Môr. Then early this year Wärtsilä announced it was developing a High Performance Turbine Installation Vessel (HPTIV) in partnership with Norwegian-based Aker Solutions, a leader in the offshore drilling market. The environmentally sound vessel will utilize Wärtsilä dual-fuel engines, capable of running on LNG, the cleanest fuel available. It can thus operate in IMO-designated Emission Control Areas, of which there are many in the North Sea. It will also recycle energy from its main engines to supply hot water and air conditioning. The HPTIV can operate in water depths up to 50 meters and carry three foundations or five complete turbine assemblies of the 5 MW class on its expansive deck.
Brave New World
It’s a brave new world, all right, and it’s fast becoming reality. Each new technological advance in turbine construction and vessel design lowers the cost and makes the need for expensive subsidies less urgent. The big question is the U.S. and when it will get on board. The furthest along project is Cape Wind off the coast of Massachusetts in Nantucket Sound, with a planned capacity of nearly 500 MWs. Yet it continues to encounter stiff resistance from “not in my backyard” opponents. Farther down the coast, Delaware’s largest utility, Delmarva Power, has contracted with NRG Bluewater Wind, a leader in U.S. offshore wind development, to purchase power from a proposed 450 MW farm off the Delaware coast near Dewey Beach. The Delmarva project is scheduled to receive the first commercial wind lease under the government’s new “Smart from the Start” Atlantic Offshore Wind program, a simplified permitting and development process designed to encourage innovators like Bluewater Wind. And New Jersey recently passed the Offshore Wind Economic Development Act, providing energy certificates, tax credits and financial incentives for offshore wind power.
One U.S.-based company that’s ready and willing to provide the necessary infrastructure if and when the time comes is Signal International. With five yards strategically located along the Gulf Coast and long experience in the offshore rig and vessel markets, Signal has the knowhow to build everything from the tower substations to the vessels themselves. “We’ve watched the European yards do this and learned from them,” observed Signal’s Vice President of Strategic Planning, Carl Wegener. “We have the people, the technology and the facilities to get the job done. What’s lacking is the political will to proceed.”
So there’s lots of activity, lots of motion, plenty of expertise, but not much in the way of results as far as the U.S. is concerned. To quote an oft-used, and perhaps overused, but nonetheless entirely appropriate line: “If not now, when? If not us, who?” – MarEx
Jack O’Connell is Senior Editor of The Maritime Executive.