Middelgrunden. Photo by Tobias Natt, © 2005 University of Delaware.

Offshore Wind Power

The University of Delaware has created a working group on offshore wind power in the College of Marine Studies. We are now loosely organized around three Research Areas, each led by a faculty member. The group also includes an additional half dozen faculty with interest and relevant expertise (e.g. continental shelf geology, ocean engineering, economics, air-sea interaction, marine biology, etc), and a dozen graduate students working in related topics. This site, now under development, will describe our activities.

Research Area Leaders

Jeremy Firestone (Associate Professor of Marine Policy, Assistant Professor of Legal Studies) Research areas include: International, U.S. Ocean, and Environmental Law and Policy; Governance, Regulation and Intergovernmental Relations (including Offshore Wind Power; Indigenous Rights and Resource Management)

Richard W. Garvine (Professor of Physical Ocean Science & Engineering, Harrington Professor of Marine Studies) Research areas include: Physical oceanography of the coastal ocean and estuaries, Wind power resources in the coastal ocean.

Willett Kempton (Associate Professor of Marine Policy, Associate Professor of Urban Affairs and Public Policy) Research areas include: Offshore wind power: public reactions, policy framework, large scale implementation; electricity policy, electric vehicles for grid power storage.

Research Articles and Papers

Peer-reviewed Articles

Conference papers and reports

Firestone, J., S. Butterfield, L. Coakley, C. Jarvis, and J. Clarke, Offshore Wind Power On The Horizon: A New Energy Frontier For Oceans, People And Wildlife (draft) To Be Published By The Coastal Society, TCS 20 Proceedings and Final Program, Tampa Bay, Fl (May 2006).

Firestone, Kempton and Krueger, Delaware opinion survey. Our study of Delaware public opinion, released Jan 2007, is available as: Interim report, our one-page summary of the interim report, or the University press release. Based on a statisticallly robust sample of the state of Delawre, this interim report to our sponsor gives an overview of Delaware opinions on offshore wind. The report briefly compares the Delaware results with the authors' parallel study of opinion on Cape Cod.

Amardeep Dhanju and Jeremy Firestone, "A Framework for Regulation of Offshore Wind Power in Delaware State Waters," Final Report, January 2008. Report, University of Delaware College of Marine and Earth Studies.

Jeremy Firestone, Willett Kempton and Andrew Krueger, "Delaware Opinion on Offshore Wind Power," Final Report, January 2008. Report, University of Delaware College of Marine and Earth Studies.

Workshops

Public testimony

Willett Kempton, Jeremy Firestone, Richard Garvine, Comment submitted to Minerals Management Service (24 Feb 2006) Re: 30 CFR Part 285, RIN 1010-AD30, Alternate Energy-Related Uses on the Outer Continental Shelf. Responding to: Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR). Note: This is a good short summary of resource and U.S. policy issues regarding alternative energy on the OCS, with concentration on offshore wind.

Delaware Power RFP and Senate Hearings

To our knowledge, the 2006-2007 Delaware Request for Proposals (RFP) under House Bill 6 (143rd General Assembly) is the first time worldwide that offshore wind has competed in an all-source RFP against coal and natural gas. In the numerical scoring, price was the most heavily-weighted criterion, computed as net present cost over the life of the contract. In the bid evaluation, cost included projected costs for CO₂ emissions and expected fuel price increases over the contract life. The explicit weighting for environmental considerations and for climate change were small (8% and 4%). The bid price for offshore wind was about 10% less expensive than IGCC coal with sequestration, and about 5% less than IGCC without sequestration. Both projects were 600 MW, larger than any currently-built IGCC or wind project. Per PSC order of 22 May 2007, offshore wind won the bid for primary power and the wind bidder entered negotiations for a power purchase agreement. The PPA was finalized and submitted to the four agencies at a hearing on December 18, 2007. Below under the link to "Key final PSC documents on selection of power bid" link are the PSC documents regarding the bidding and the PSC, including the final staff recommendation to accept the PPA. However, the agencies declined to vote because one of the agencies, the Controller General, was instructed not to approve it yet. Since the controller General is a part of the Delaware General Assembly, at present (Feb 2008), the GA is debating and holding hearings on renewable energy for Delaware generally, and on the PPA specifically. These heardings do not have an official transcript and record for documentation, but we have been given access to videos of the hearings, so we are posting them here for the record, under "Delaware Senate Hearings."

Information for the public:
An offshore wind project for Delaware? Questions about the project being asked by the Delaware public, 14 March 2007.
The proposed contract: Summary of Bluewater Wind Power Purchase Agreement, Jeremy Firestone, Feb 2008.

Selected CMES Researcher Testimony on RFP and PPA: Point and Counterpoint on Bids, Firestone and Kempton, Mar 2007; Additional Point and Counterpoint, Firestone, 6 April 2007; Summary and review of Agency consultant’s "Interim Report on IRP in Relation to RFP", Kempton, 9 April 2007; Delaware Offshore Wind Power Resource and its Economic Potential, Amardeep Dhanju; Integrating Delaware’s Offshore Wind into the Regional Grid, Meredith Blaydes; Health impact of the proposed 600 MW wind project in Delaware, W. Kempton (CMES, UD) and J. Levy, Harvard School of Public Health; Testimony of Jeremy Firestone before Delaware House Energy and Natural Resources Committee March 12, 2008.

Key final PSC documents on selection of power bid: Interim Report on IRP in Relation to RFP, New Energy Opportunities et al (state consultant), April 4, 2007; Addendum to Interim Report, (state consultant), May 1, 2007; Final Staff recommendation, (PSC staff), May 2, 2007, and the final PSC Order 7199. For other Delaware Public Service Commission documents, including the three (redacted) bids, see Delmarva power RFP.

Winning bidder web site: Delaware project (includes streaming video).

Final PSC documents on Power Purchase Agreement (PPA): Assessment of Power Purchase Agreement between Delmarva Power And Bluewater Wind Delaware LLC, by Independent Consultant, December 13, 2007; PSC Staff Report On The Power Purchase Agreement Between Delmarva Power And Bluewater Wind, Delaware Public Service Commission Staff, 14 December 2007. Want to cut through the spin of the parties? Read the PPA yourself: December 2007 PPA.

Delaware Senate Hearings: Video of Delaware Senate Energy and Transit Hearings on Renewable Energy.

Graduate Seminar on Offshore Wind Power

We have developed and taught an interdisciplinary course on offshore wind power during spring of 2005. This course has now been approved for teaching on an ongoing basis, starting Fall 2006, as MAST628-010. The course, like our program of research and study, is highly interdisciplinary. Lecturers in 2005 included nine researchers and faculty, plus five professionals from the wind power industry. The 2005 version of the course is described in the syllabus below:

UD seminar making site visit, Spring 2005. Photo © 2005, University of Delaware (see below)

Offshore Wind Power: Science, engineering, and policy (MAST628-010): Course web site, course syllabus. Willett Kempton, Jeremy Firestone, Richard Garvine, Dana Veron, Instructors. First offered experimentally, Spring 2005, a permanant course listing as of Fall 2006.

Final student team papers from Spring 2005. Please note that these student papers are not peer reviewed and results should not be relied on without further review and verification. They are intended to indicate the activities and approach being taken by our students and the scope of our instructional program, not to be used for decisions. Nevertheless they are original, very substantial and have interesting preliminary findings. Both include resource assessments and other analyses, one for Florida offshore winds and ocean currents, and one Assessment of Delaware Offshore Wind Power.

What Motivates Our New Emphasis on Offshore Wind Power?

Many of us consider recent findings (since mid-2003) on the effects of CO₂ on the ocean to be very alarming. These recent analyses predict effects that, compared to most effects predicted prior to 2003, are qualitatively more disruptive to humanity and to whole ecosystems. See the UD CMES web site on CO₂ for brief summaries. The largest CO₂ source is electric generation and second is transportation. After systematically examining non-CO₂ electric resources available in the US North East, we find offshore wind is the largest cost-competitive electric source capable of large-scale implementation in the needed 40 - 60 year time frame (see article). Other measures should be also be pursued (e.g. conservation, electrificiation of the vehilce fleet, and solar), but without offshore wind we know of no way to accomplish the needed 60%+ cuts in greenhouse gases in our region. Other regions will vary.

Mapping the Offshore Wind Resource

Many areas of the world, including the US East Coast, now appear to have huge energy resources offshore, on their continential shelves. One can also appreciate the size of the global resource by comparing maps of global winds and continental shelves (first link below).

Global electric use, wind, and continental shelves.
Global winds, animation over 12 months, from NASA.
Monthly average wind; interactively zoom in on an ocean region, from Oregon State U.
US Mid-Atlantic; high-resolution image of the map used for the analysis in the 2007 Geophysical Research Letters article, in PDF (400k) or eps (6 meg).
(old) US East Coast wind and bathymetry (from Baley, does not analyze exclusions for conflicting use).

The Hardware

Vestas cutaway model.   Photo by Willett Kempton, © 2005 University of Delaware (see below)

General Electric 3.6sl. Capacity 3.6 MW, rotor diameter 111 m. Hub height 75 m (from Cape Wind design specs). Seven 3.6s units producing power offshore at Arklow Bank since June 2004. See product brochure for GE 3.6sl.

REpower 5M. Capacity 5 MW, rotor diameter 126 m, hub height 90-100 m. One unit producing electricity (on land, at Brunsbüttel in Schleswig-Holstein) since February 2005. See product brochure for REpower 5M (new, Dec 05). (For a much longer product brochure, profiling the 32 major subcontractors, click on older 5M brochure, but note that it is large (5.7MB) and requires Acrobat 6 to read.)

Despite the above criteria, we note that other machines from multiple manufacturers are already providing offshore power but at lower power per machine. Under-development offshore machines > 3MW, with partial specs but no installed units yet, include the 3.6MW Siemens (formerly Bonus) and the 4.5MW Vestas V120 (no power curve for either).

For resource estimates, water depth is also very important; this is really dependent on the tower design not the wind turbine and nacelle, although the turbine manufacturer would have to approve the tower. Monopile supports are usually rated to 20 m max water depth. The new Talisman jacket structure, to be installed at the Beatrice Demonstrator site off Scotland late 2006, will be in 40 - 45 m of water. This design is said to be viable down to about 90 m water depth.

Links

We do not try to cover all wind energy sites, just some of the major offshore sources with unique information. This means we give more links to Denmark and the UK, for example.

UD News story on Delaware offshore wind research and new seminar
Tracking of worldwide offshore wind sites, operating and planned
Risø Wind Energy Department
British Wind Energy Association
European Offshore Wind Conference & Exhibition, Berlin, December 2007
V2G: the answer to "But what do you do when the wind's not blowing?"

Reprint permission for any images marked "© University of Delaware" contact Tracey Bryant, tbryant@udel.edu or (302) 831-8185.