Wind turbines: the whole truth.
VIII1. Offshore windfarms.
The promoters of windenergy installations like to outline a future image of huge offshore windfarms. Without mentioning one single technical problem, they discuss gigantic offshore windfarms with installed power rates of 6,000 and even 8,000 MW. Applying the knowledge from the former chapters, it will be interesting to weigh up whether these plans would be truly feasible.
Let us therefore first have a look at the two far more modest offshore windfarms West of Egmon aan Zee and West of IJmuiden. The first has been operative for a year now. Its total installed power, with 36 Wind turbines of 3 MW, is 108 MW. The farm near IJmuiden will consist of 60 2 MW Wind turbines with a total installed power of 120 MW. The aggregate installed power will thus be 228 MW, and with an estimated production factor of 36 per cent the farms will produce an average 82 MW, which is 82/13,000= 0.0063 of 6.3 parts in 1,000 of our Dutch electricity consumption. 
Periodically, these 96 Wind turbines will have to be visited for maintenance or repair. Suppose that is no more often than three times a year. That means 288 trips will have to be made to these Wind turbines with their nacelles about 100 meters above sealevel, with special ships, helicopters and specialized technicians. That seems to be a very difficult and costly job.
As a result of the variations in wind force, in the most unfavourable circumstances the input fed into our connected grid may vary from 228 MW to 0 MW. This can probably still be compensated for by adjustment of our plants, but is certainly very challenging if these fluctuations occur fast.
When Prince Willem Alexander meant to officially inaugurate the farm at Egmon aan Zee, all wind mills stood pitifully still due to a three days calm. Hard luck.
But now a few considerations on those envisaged 6,000 and even 8,000 MW monster-windfarms. Let us just limit our scope to the 6,000 MW wind farm. If they consist of 3 MW Wind turbines, 2,000 of these will have to be placed on the North Sea, with very heavy foundations on the seabed. All the enclosures for the technical equipment must be completely sealed off against seawater and spray.
Part of a rotor of a 1.5 MW wind turbine.
With three maintenance and repair visits a year, 6,000 trips will have to be made just to the Wind turbines, not to mention the thousands of electric cables on the sea floor and the dozens of electrical switching stations on high platforms at sea. Enormous switching stations for medium voltage, and even bigger ones for 150 kV and 380 kV, enormous convertors for making DC from the 380 kV AC. high voltage. All these installations to be enclosed in enormous halls high above sealevel.
The aggregate power will vary from 6,000 MW to 0 MW when there is no wind. Given that all the Dutch plants together function with an average power of 13,000 MW, when the wind is very strong at sea half of our plants will have to be taken out of service. Let us make an estimation: all the plants near Amsterdam, Rotterdam, on the Maasvlakte and near Geertruidenberg will have to be interrupted. Then, suppose the storm weakens and it suddenly becomes calm. Then, all these huge plants will suddenly, according to their possibilities, have to become operative. Only a fool will believe this can be done. And: no inventer of such an absurd plan will be able to explain to you, technically, how the electricity produced by 2,000 Wind turbines is going to be collected, transported to shore and connected from there to our 380 kV high voltage grid.
It makes no sense to fill many pages by relating the hundreds of technical and electro-technical problems that would have to be solved if this most unrealistic idea were to be put into practice. So let us just put it this way: it is a ridiculous and unworkable Baron-von-Münchhausen-story. And the 8,000 MW wind farm is even more unfeasable.
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