Optimum routing of a sailing wind farm (original) (raw)
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Journal of Physics: Conference Series
Offshore wind energy technology has developed rapidly over the last decade. It is expected to significantly contribute to the further increase of renewable energy in the global energy production in the future. However, even with floating wind turbines, only a fraction of the global offshore wind energy potential can be harvested because grid-connection, moorings, installation and maintenance costs increase tremendously as the distance to shore and the water depth increase. Thus, new technologies enabling harvesting the far offshore wind energy resource are required. To tackle this challenge, mobile energy ship concepts have been proposed. In those concepts, electricity is produced by a water turbine attached underneath the hull of a ship propelled by the wind using sails. It includes an on-board energy storage system since energy ships are not grid-connected. Thus, the ships route schedules could be dynamically optimized taking into account weather forecast in order to maximize their capacity factors (CF). The aim of this study is to investigate how high the capacity factors of energy ships could be when using weather-routing and compare them to that of stationary wind turbines that would be deployed in the same areas. To that end, a modified version of the weather-routing software QtVlm was used. Velocity and power production polar plots of an energy ship that was designed at LHEEA were used as input to QtVlm. Results show that capacity factors over 80% can be achieved with energy ships and stationary offshore wind turbines deployed in the North Atlantic Ocean.
Capacity factor of wind turbines
Energy, 1997
Offshore wind energy technology has developed rapidly over the last decade. It is expected to significantly contribute to the further increase of renewable energy in the global energy production in the future. However, even with floating wind turbines, only a fraction of the global offshore wind energy potential can be harvested because grid-connection, moorings, installation and maintenance costs increase tremendously as the distance to shore and the water depth increase. Thus, new technologies enabling harvesting the far offshore wind energy resource are required. To tackle this challenge, mobile energy ship concepts have been proposed. In those concepts, electricity is produced by a water turbine attached underneath the hull of a ship propelled by the wind using sails. It includes an on-board energy storage system since energy ships are not grid-connected. Thus, the ships route schedules could be dynamically optimized taking into account weather forecast in order to maximize their capacity factors (CF). The aim of this study is to investigate how high the capacity factors of energy ships could be when using weather-routing and compare them to that of stationary wind turbines that would be deployed in the same areas. To that end, a modified version of the weather-routing software QtVlm was used. Velocity and power production polar plots of an energy ship that was designed at LHEEA were used as input to QtVlm. Results show that capacity factors over 80% can be achieved with energy ships and stationary offshore wind turbines deployed in the North Atlantic Ocean.
Feasibility analysis for floating offshore wind energy
The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment
Purpose The assessment of the economic feasibility of floating offshore wind farms (FOWFs) plays an important role in the future possible spreading of this challenging technology in the wind power industry. The use of specific economic analyses is fundamental to point out the potential of FOWFs and to sustain their technical value. Within this topic, the implementation of the FOWF life cycle cost model and producibility analysis in a geographic information system is developed, with the aim of carrying out a feasibility analysis at the territorial scale, for different types of floater. Moreover, a simplified model for a quick life cycle cost assessment is proposed and calibrated. Methods The available cost model is first validated comparing the costs of FOWFs based on different floaters (Semi-Submersible Platform—SSP, Spar Buoy—SB and Tension Leg Platform—TLP) with corresponding results available in the literature. Then, it is implemented in QGIS to be used for territorial-scale anal...
EAI Endorsed Transactions on Energy Web, 2018
The article considers a wind power installation, which significantly differs from the other existing wind power installations in that it has rocking an automatically controlled sail of a toroidal shape and a manipulator converter of the wind kinetic energy to the mechanical energy of forward motion. Having analyzed aerodynamic variables, timing chart, and having built a simplified dynamic model, the authors determined geometric, kinematic and dynamic properties, which are necessary for the future design engineering, automatic control and research of the wind power installation. The study gives a description of the acting laboratory-scale model of the sail wind power installation and performance test results.
Probabilistic Assessment of Floating Wind Turbine Access by Catamaran Vessel
Energy Procedia, 2016
In this work, it is evaluated the accessibility of a floating platform, by means of a catamaran vessel equipped with a fender. The two bodies are modelled as a constrained multi-body system in the frequency domain. Transfer functions are calculated for the motions and forces of the system. Access is possible when no slip conditions occur at the fender, and when the relative rotations between the two bodies are within certain tolerance limits. Four response variables are defined to impose such conditions. In a short-term sea state the extreme maximum crest height of these variables is computed, assuming that response crest heights follow a Rayleigh distribution. Each of the extreme values is compared to a specific threshold, to determine whether access is possible or not. Accessibility is calculated for a sample platform located off the coast of Scotland using hindcast data for the period 1980-2013. Average accessibility resulted to be 23.7%. A strong seasonality is ascertained, together with a large variation of accessibility, due to the variability of wave climate.
Multi-Objective Weather Routing of Sailboats Considering Wave Resistance
Polish Maritime Research, 2018
The article presents a method to determine the route of a sailing vessel with the aid of deterministic algorithms. The method assumes that the area in which the route is to be determined is limited and the basic input data comprise the wind vector and the speed characteristic of the vessel. Compared to previous works of the authors, the present article additionally takes into account the effect of sea waves with the resultant resistance increase on the vessel speed. This approach brings the proposed model closer to real behaviour of a sailing vessel. The result returned by the method is the sailing route, optimised based on the multi-criteria objective function. Along with the time criterion, this function also takes into account comfort of voyage and the number of performed turns. The developed method has been implemented as simulation application SaillingAssistance and experimentally verified.
Potential for floating offshore wind energy in Japanese waters
2002
The prospects for large scale commercialisation of sea-bedmounted offshore windfarms are currently excellent, with the existing small-scale prototype windfarms currently being joined by the first large-scale parks in the shallow seas off the Danish, German, Swedish, Dutch, Belgian, British and Irish coasts. However other countries, including Japan, have much more limited regions of the shallow waters suitable for such developments and hence other concepts will also need to be utilised if offshore wind energy is also to become a major source of energy there.
OFFSHORE FLOATING WIND TURBINES AND A CONCEPTUAL DESIGN
2st International EUROSA Conference, 2024
Most of the major cities in the world are coastal cities. This is a natural outcome of the needs of human civilization. Some of the mentioned needs are transporting goods (shipping in literal means) and resources such as fish. On the other hand, wind and solar energy systems are usually built on arid land, away from settlements. Since there is an inverse relation between the size of a settlement and the aridness of a field, renewable energy systems, particularly wind and solar, are far from major settlements and industrial facilities. This creates and increases transfer/transmit and storage duties. Accordingly, additional costs arise. The additional costs and hardship undermine the transition to a carbon dioxide neutral circular sustainable life. Another thing about the location of renewables on land is that transmitting generated energy may not be possible at all. Consequently, offshore renewable energy systems are being studied and also applied. In the present work, we review the concurrent literature about offshore floating wind turbines, present an idea on them, and lay out basic equations for evaluating the idea based on economics and physics.
ANALYSIS AND FORECASTING OF WINDS AND WAVES FOR A FLOATING TYPE WIND TURBINE
Coastal Engineering Proceedings, 2014
The floating type wind turbine demonstration project has been promoted in Japan. In 2012, a 1:2 scale model was installed off Kabashima Island in Nagasaki Prefecture. And a year later, a full scale model was installed. For the design of the wind turbine's floating body, winds, waves and other parameters were analyzed. For the construction and daily management, a prediction system was developed and the predictions and observations of winds and waves were compared and the agreement between them was good.