Tuesday, March 17, 2015
China Powering Up First Offshore Wind Farm
China Offshore Wind Power Lets kick the turbines and, um, collect some wind power Sinovel
A 102-megawatt wind farm is slated to hit full power this month in the Yangtze River delta near Shanghai, Technology Review reports. And thats just the beginning, as Chinese officials opened bids on creating three or four more offshore wind power projects that could generate 1,000 megawatts total.
Energy experts predict that China will have invested $100 billion to install 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind power by 2020. Such projects would help supply energy to 40 percent of Chinas population that lives along the eastern seaboard.
The situation is not unlike that of the U.S. eastern seaboard, Technology Review notes. Eastern states hope to generate their own offshore wind power rather than rely upon a supergrid that can deliver wind power from the western states.
Chinas wind power boom also faces engineering challenges ahead. The new wind farms on the tidal flats require special engineering to deal with the muddy seafloors and shifting sandbars. Deep water projects may also face threats from typhoons.
Theres been other offshore action elsewhere in the world. Nine European nations vowed to create a supergrid for sharing offshore wind power at the Copenhagen climate summit in December 2009. And we have the goods on General Electrics next-gen wind turbine that may capture 25 percent more wind power than
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment