GE to Manufacture Offshore Wind Turbines
GE, the US industrial group, is promoting and showing confidence in offshore wind technology by buying ScanWind, which makes direct-drive turbine components. This move will help in generating thousands of new jobs in the field of designing and manufacturing turbines. This move will affirm the confidence of investors in the fledgling offshore wind industry, which has been weighed down by concerns about costs and reliability. GE is moving ahead with establishing turbine manufacturing facilities to serve the European markets at first. They have to make up their mind about the size of the investment and location.
GE is already a force to reckon with in onshore wind power: it sells about fifty percent of the new turbines being installed in the US. GE’s global share amounts to about 20 per cent. GE was not an enthusiastic participant in the offshore business till now. They were running the show for a small demonstration facility in Ireland. Their executives were quite apprehensive about the economics of offshore generation. But we know that none of the business ideas are permanent and they get approved or disapproved according to the external environment of a country or world. When we live in a country which is densely populated with coastal reasons, we know that there is not enough space for on-shore wind projects. But we have to cater to the clean and green energy demands of a nation. So off-shore wind turbines are the one of the best answers for such countries. Off-shore wind speeds are generally higher and wind blows at a steadier pace. We can use larger turbines to harness more wind energy – larger turbines that can be easily transported via marine route. If offshore turbines are directly connected to the power grids then there is no need for overland high-voltage transmission lines in heavily populated areas. Therefore GE executives are taking advantage of the external challenges of the European continent to provide clean and green energy. The EU has a bigger target of deriving 20% of its overall energy from renewable resources by 2020 and this requires huge expansion of offshore wind production.
Vic Abate, GE’s vice-president for renewable energy, said: “The company now believed the subsidies in place for offshore wind, such as Britain’s Renewables Obligation, were robust enough to encourage large-scale investment. Offshore wind is more expensive, so without the subsidies and other supports the economics can’t stand up.” Now governments too are creating the right kind of environment to invest in off-shore wind technology. Industrial houses are quick to grab the incentives offered by the governments.
Of course the viability of offshore wind production hinges a lot upon reliability because the turbines will be maintainable only by boats, or may be ships.
GE is expected to invest hundreds of millions of dollars setting up the business, and at the same time hold out the prospect of thousands of jobs being created. These jobs will create both directly employment such as in designing and manufacturing operations, and indirectly in activities such as installation and support services.
GE is also teaming up with a company with offshore oil and gas expertise, so that they can gain an insight into the sitting structures in challenging marine environments.
Mr. Abate said GE is still in the process of exploring its new offshore wind facilities location. He stated it was likely to be where the company was offered the best partnerships by governments and local businesses.
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September 18th, 2009
We need not 20% but 100% of the power to be generated by wind power now! The poles are melting… we should not use off all the oil from the ground for that. either to power our cars, big oil should be the ones starting in this alternatives, they can indeed generate jobs and cash.
September 21st, 2009
If you’re going to have offshore wind, why not do it in tandem with wave power. Where there is wind, there is waves. GE should team up with Pelamis or some other wave generation technology companies. If you’re going to install transmission lines, get the most use you can for the installation cost. If you’re going to have to maintain with ships, again, get double duty. The best way to justify the cost is to share the cost across multiple generation technologies that can work in tandem to increase output.
September 23rd, 2009
The reality is, the wind doesn’t always blow, but our need for electricity is 24 X 7, 1440 hours a month day in day out. Right now I get 60% of my electricity from coal fired steam plants. If I could replace half of that coal fired steam with wind, what happens when the wind doesn’t blow? It takes days to get a steam plant up to generating capacity and they don’t have wind blowing, steam plant, off switches. If a steam plant has to run when the wind doesn’t blow to backup wind, where’s the green savings? There are none. Green energy is a good idea but not practical.
September 24th, 2009
DWB, Green energy not practical? That’s gotta be the most ridiculous statement I’ve ever seen on this site. Green energy isn’t just a good idea, but a necessary one.
Yes, green energy is capital intensive and the energy output vs the dollar input is much lower than fossil fuel plants. But fossil is not sustainable.
You’re right, the wind doesn’t always blow, the sun doesn’t always shine, the waves aren’t always big and the dams aren’t always full. But, you harvest what can be harvested. The goal is to cut down the portion of energy generated by coal. Through conservation and a build out of renewables across the spectrum we can eliminate a large chunk of coal fired power and use natural gas/bio-gas fueled power plants for the times when the renewables need supplementing.
You are almost sounding like the owner of a coal fired plant. Make no mistake, coal built this country, but then again, so did cotton and tobacco. Time to move onward and forward.
October 19th, 2009
Lets move ahead with clean coal technology in conjunction with green energy. Coal is abundant in this country, and reliable, and we have established coal fired power plants online. Furthermore, Coal can be converted to fuel. If we only took advantage of coal to liquid production to supply our military (airforce), which is the biggest consumer of petroleum; our dependence on foreign oil would be drastically reduced. Clean renuable energy is in our future, but lets utilize our countries abundant coal resource as we re-tool during the decades to come.
November 18th, 2009
If everybody are concerned on reducing emissions via alternative (wind) energy, at the same time should be concerned why alternative energy equipment and other economic components are so expensive and producers doesn’t want to reduce their profits in favour of cleaning the air. Avoided costs are not accounted in official accounting. There is no emissions taxes, no labels on products about how much emissions are generated while producing them (as incentive for ordinary customers not to buy emission-intensive products). There are a lot of inefficiencies in wind turbine supply chain. There is a huge inefficiency in absence of standardization of certain components of wind turbines. Could you imagine that each car manufacturer will design its car as to use only “exclusive” wheels? Nonsense, but in wind turbines they do this with blades, towers, pitch mechanisms, ets. Wind turbines are utility function first-of-all, therefore, instead of 100 models and sises we should have 20, but more reliable and cheap, thanks to massive production of standardized parts. Making a serial turbine should not ne an art.
Non-profit wind energy associations should have standardization and WT cost reduction as their key task.