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Researchers Use Weather Model to Recommend East Coast Offshore WindFarms Apr 25, 2012 Most energy experts agree that cheap, clean, renewable wind energyholds great potential to help the world satisfy energy needs whilereducing harmful greenhouse gases. But how can fluctuating windpower be made more consistent to match our power needs? Many people think this will require huge batteries to level outwind power fluctuations, but that would be expensive. A new studysuggests that the answer may lie in weather diversity. In a study recently published in Geophysical Research Letters , a team of researchers from the University of Delaware andStanford University harnessed a sophisticated weather model torecommend optimal placement of four interconnected wind farms offthe coast of the eastern United States, a region that accounts for34 percent of the nation s electrical demand and 35 percent of itscarbon dioxide emissions. Traditionally, wind developers have just placed wind farms wherethe wind is strongest, said co-author Willett Kempton, anoffshore wind researcher and professor in UD s College of Earth,Ocean, and Environment. This new study shows if we start from amore sophisticated meteorological model, we can build a set ofconnected wind farms for which the combined power is more level anduniform. In the example grid layout, the total maximum capacity was 2,000megawatts (MW), roughly equivalent to the capacity ofone-and-a-half conventional coal-fired power plants. Each wind farmwould be 500 MW, consisting of 100 turbines rated at 5 MW for eachturbine. An offshore grid as an extension of the onshore grid in thisregion will improve reliability, while reducing congestion andenergy price differences between areas, said Mike Dvorak, thelead author of the study and a recent doctoral graduate in civiland environmental engineering at Stanford, now teaching at theUniversity of California Berkeley. An optimal set of connected wind farms was located in the watersfrom Long Island, N.Y., to Georges Bank, a shallows about 100 milesto the east of Cape Cod. The nearshore locations take advantage ofconsistent sea breezes that occur naturally due to the dailydifference in temperature between land and sea. The offshore farmsexperience stronger, though less regular, frontal storm activity.Preference was given to locations where the wind is stronger duringtimes of greater electrical need. Wind farms on land, for instance, tend to see daily peak output atnight, when energy demand is lower. Power managers often think ofthis inland meteorology as a characteristic of all wind power, butit is not true of offshore wind power. By combining coastal andfurther offshore locations, an even better pattern was achieved,much different from land-based wind in this region. The study also chose to interconnect the offshore farms. In Europe,today s offshore wind farms are connected individually to theonshore grids. In the United States, the Google-backed AtlanticWind Connection is a commercial effort already planning toconnect offshore wind farms together. A prior study led by Kempton showed that this type of offshoretransmission over long distances can have a leveling effect. Thenew study shows, for the first time, that even short distances ofoffshore transmission can optimize wind output by carefullyselecting wind farm locations. The wind resource along the East Coast of the United States isphenomenal, said co-author and UD faculty member Cristina Archer. Average wind power generation at some of these locations can betwice as high as that at a wind farm over land. Also, by doing this smart interconnection, we were able to reduce variability byalmost 40 percent. Among its findings, the new model recommended a farm in NantucketSound, precisely where the Cape Wind farm has been proposed.Opponents say the tall turbines of the Cape Wind site woulddiminish Nantucket s considerable visual appeal. But no one haslooked at the meteorological advantages of that site in comparisonto other wind sites. In the new study, a wind farm in the area of Cape Wind is connectedwith two sites on Georges Bank, far from view in an area betterknown for its once prodigious quantities of cod. The fourth site isoff central Long Island. This paper should be seen as a tool for energy planners to betterinform their renewable energy decisions across a densely populatedarea, said Mark Jacobson, co-author and Stanford professor. Itis an opportunity to collaborate on a shared system that reducescosts while benefitting a large and important center of electricaldemand in the U.S. I am an expert from householdwaterpurifiers.com, while we provides the quality product, such as China Commercial Water Purifier , China Home Water Purifiers And Filters, Whole House Water Purifier,and more.
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