Offshore Wind Energy

Several people, especially in the US, are familiar with wind energy produced on land, but not many are aware of offshore wind farms. At least I wasn't aware of these until I read about one in Ontario that was closing down. This doesn't look very good so far, the very first time I hear about offshore wind is when one is closing down, must be a bad source of renewable energy, right?

Well, let's look at the economics of this Ontario case, because as we all know money is the driving force behind most government and corporate decisions.

	CAD cents/kWh
Wholesale nuclear (Bruce) [1]	6.3 c/kWh
Retail (tiered) [2-3]	6.4 / 7.4 c/kWh
Retail (time-of-use) [2-3]	5.1 / 8.1 / 9.9 c/kWh
Offshore wind [4]	19.9 c/kWh

[1] http://www.brucepower.com/pagecontentU12.aspx?navuid=5024&dtuid=2939

[2] http://www.oeb.gov.on.ca/OEB/Consumers/Electricity/Electricity+Prices

[3] http://www.ontario-hydro.com/index.php?page=current_rates

[4] http://fit.powerauthority.on.ca/Storage/102/11128_FIT_Price_Schedule_August_13_2010.pdf

As you can tell from this table, the cost of the offshore wind plants was extremely high compared to the other energy sources. This option of offshore wind energy didn't make economic sense for Ontario, although maybe they should have examined this before they invested so much money into it.

The main benefit of offshore wind farms is that winds that are present in the ocean tend to move at much higher speeds than on land. This higher rate of wind allows for much more electricity generation, although this is not without certain environmental externalities. [5] Offshore wind energy generation should be used only in areas where there is a constant wind force, because if there is no wind then there is no energy, and this creates a very inefficient power plant. Apparently, most of world's top 25 offshore wind farms are located mostly along the coasts of the United Kingdom and Denmark, or more specifically in the North Sea. This area of the world has wind constantly flowing through, thus these wind turbines are very efficient. [6]

Offshore wind energy appears as if it can harness a lot of electricity, but only if the price is right. It would be interesting to find out if there are currently any offshore wind farms in the US, and where would be the best place to put them.