Offshore Wind Energy will be the topic of the next IEEE Richmond Section meeting on Thursday, 7 September 2006 at the Hilton Garden Inn Innsbrook. Social, Dinner & Speaker: 5:30PM. RSVP by Noon, Friday, 1 September 2006
Wind Energy:
Opportunities and Challenges for Off-shore Applications
Professor Saifur Rahman
Advanced Research Institute
Virginia Tech
With the worldwide generation of electricity from wind power reaching almost 60,000 megawatts at the end of 2005, this has become a significant source of electricity worldwide. In fact wind turbine generators accounted for 2% of the worldwide capacity for electricity generation at the end of 2005. As the land-based sites for wind energy projects are facing organized opposition in some parts of the world, the interest in off-shore wind energy exploration is growing. While it is more expensive to install wind turbine generators and their associated infrastructure in the water than in land, the available wind regime is usually better, and cost of "land" is cheaper.
This presentation examines the opportunities and challenges provided by large-scale offshore wind energy power plants. It provides a detailed history of the growth of wind energy throughout the world during the last 15 years, and traces the cost, size and country-specific penetration issues of wind energy. In that regard the presentation looks at the situation in Germany, United States, Denmark, India and Spain – the five top performing wind energy markets in the world. The market penetration and energy cost issues as well as environmental concerns from wind energy technologies are explored.
