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Offshore wind, wave and tidal can meet Europe’s electricity demand
Nov 17, 2010 - renewableenergyfocus.com
Today offshore wind turbines with a total capacity of around 2.8 GW, are feeding
energy into the European grids. Most of the wind farms are installed less than
20 km from the coast and in relatively shallow water depths up to 20 m.
However, the next generation of offshore wind farms will be developed at distances
around 40 km from the coast and in 40 m depths. These numbers are likely to
increase further in the coming years.
Moving offshore presents benefits
Moving further offshore presents some interesting opportunities for innovations
and synergies with other marine renewable resources such as wave and tidal
energy. New types of foundations have to be developed and tested, including
floating structures such as the Hywind project.
Furthermore, combinations of wind, wave, tidal and aquatic biomass are now
on the research agenda’s of the larger developers and utilities in Europe.
Involving the wider marine renewables community
A common approach for the exploitation of wind, wave and other marine energy
resources has the potential to accelerate the offshore market development
and to reduce the overall cost for the energetic exploitation of the oceans
and seas.
The EU-ORECCA project (Off-shore Renewable Energy Conversion platforms – Coordination
Action) aims to overcome knowledge fragmentation existing in Europe on offshore
wind and marine renewable sources.
The ORECCA network is currently at the head quarters of Siemens to work on
a common roadmap which will be used by the EU for future funding programmes
and policies to facilitate the required innovations and R&D for the sector.
The workshop is organised by Siemens and Ecofys.
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