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Will blockage and wake effects hinder the UK's offshore wind target?

Energy_no.1 2021. 1. 31. 18:39

 

 

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Wind farms produce less power than its expected so that people are concerned if it is a good idea to use the energy tranistion as its hope before. It is because of blockage and wake related to phenomena.

Blockage effect is the prospensity for wind to slow down as it approaches a wind turbine. It means that wind passing through an individual turbine does so at a slower speed which affects the amount of energy produced by that turbine. 

 

Meanwhile, wake refers to the wind slowing down after it has passed through a turbine, which has an effect on downwind turbines and can even affect multiple wind farms over longer distances. It means the whole industry will see higher wake effects from neighbouring wind farms. 

 

The magnitude is dependent on a few factors and so a direct impact on existing wind farms is hard to quantify. The impact of the blockage and wake effects on the wind farm's layout or location, and site-specific atmospheric conditions can all determine how much of an issue the effects can be.

 

 

 

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How do blockage and wake effects affect wind farms?

Blockage effects are more pronounced and far-reaching than had been assumed and contrary to assumptions, front-row turbines are also affected, productiong less energy than they would in isolation.

It is warned that these previously unaccounted for effects could represent an oeverestimation of up to 4% of mean annual energy yield. Therefore, it has impacts for how much money the wind farm's is going to be making in later years.

Wind farm energy productions contains significatnt overestimations bias concluded that better understanding of blockage and wake effects would likely lead to more efficient wind farm designs. These effects had been captured in more broadly defined deviation analytics so future projects will benefit from these phenomena with advances in modelling, software allowing for, ultimately, more efficient wind farms.

 

How will this affect the UK's new offshore wind target?

A further capacity has secured government support and will come online inside the next decade, however, an ambitious target meaning the next auction in late 20211 will only begin delievering capacity in 2026. Those awards whre the UK might find progress towards its target affected.

The scheme is a UK Government mechanism for supporting renewable and low-carbon electricity generation projects. This scheme exists to incentivise investment by protecting developers. The target gurantess calculated as the difference between the strike price and the reference price. 

If you're estimating that you're going to be producing less, then you're going to need to make more money for the electricity you do produce. When the next auctions come up, it's potentially a bit of upwards pressure on the strike prices and where these participants are bidding in with their projects.

 

Cost reductions protect against blockage and wake

Offshore wind projects could provide a bulwark against the adverse effects. These project is already cheap enough, so that it should mean the government still gets enough money to support them. Discounting 2020 for a pandemic affecting the industry, low average prices have essentially meant these contracts which are above cost the government very little in terms of subsidies.

 

Improving modelling and understanding

Revising down of its estimates more work has been done to better modle and understand these effects and how they have an impact on wind power production. 

The offshore wind industry has done a huge amount of analysis of blockage and wake effects, and that's led to developments in the layout of wind farms to minimise these effects and maximise production. 

Further innovation and the industry is already using larger, so that it will drive growth over the next ten years.

The industry's understanding of blockage and wake effects is only going to increase, is now highlighting a growing maturity in the industry. These sorts of calculations began to have a bigger impact on the overall business case.

Its comes down to refined calculations and being more accurate in the estimates for how much impact these are going to have so that projects don't get hit in future years as well. If you don't take this into account, it comes back to hitting you the time when you actually start tyring to get the power from these plants.

 

 

Vocabulary

blockage : n. something that stops something else passing through, or the act of stopping something passing through

revise : v. to look at or consider again an idea, piece of writing, etc. in order to correct or improve it.

embark : v. to go onto a ship or an aircraft

hinder : v. to limit the ability of someone to do something, or to limit the development of something

prompt : v. to make something happen, to assust or encourage to say something / adj. (of an action) done quickly and without delay, or (of a person) acting quickly or arriving at the arranged time / adv. at the time stated and no loater.

portray : v. to represent or describe someone or something in a painting, film, book, or other artistic work

propensity : n. the fact that someone is likely to behave in a particular way, especially a bad way / a tendency to behave in a particular way

magnitude : n. the large size or importance of something

assumption : n. something that you accept as true without question or proof

viabiltiy : n. ability to work as intendted or to succeed / the degree of chance that something will succeed

fluctuate : v. to change, especially continuously and between one level or thing and another / things are go up and down

discrepancy : n. a difference between two things that should be the same / an unexpected difference

deviation : n. the action of doing something that is different from the usual or common way of behaving

auction : n. public sale / v. to sell something in a public auction

onwards : adj. moving forward to a later time or a more distant place, further on in place or time

scheme : n. an organized plan for doing something, especially something dishonest or illegal that will bring a good result for you / an officially organized plan or system(mainly UK) / v. to make clever, secret plans that often deceive others

volatile : adj. likely to change suddenly and unexpectedly, especially by getting worse

strike price : n. the price fixed by the seller of a security after receiving bids in a tender offer, typically for a sale of bonds or a new stock market issue / the price at which a put or call option can be exercised

bulwark : (can be plural as bulwarks) n. a defensive wall / an extension of a ship's sides above the level of the deck

 

 

 

+ Expression in writing I haven't known before

Accounting for : similar meaning to explain

resistant to + n : opposed to it and wants to prevent it.

> Synonyms : opposed, hostile, dissident, unwilling more synonyms of resistant

Put simply,

 

 

*refer/Link : www.power-technology.com/features/will-blockage-and-wake-effects-hinder-the-uks-offshore-wind-tar get/

 

Will blockage and wake effects hinder the UK’s offshore wind target?

Investors and environmentalists were thrown in October 2019 when Orsted, the largest offshore wind farm developer, warned that its wind farms were producing less power than had been expected. The announcement led to a drop of over 7% in the company’s sha

www.power-technology.com

 

* The above is a summary for personal practice.

Thank you for corrections and advice, but please refrain from malicious comments.