UK Renewable Goals Move Closer with New Turbine Design

Apparently a new radical windmill design could hold the key to making offshore wind power more economical, thus helping the UK meet its ambitious renewable energy targets. This Aerogenerator turns conventional windmills on their side, with 110m tall V shaped blades that rotate on a vertical axis. By building all of the moving parts and machinery at the base on the windmill, rather than the top, its designers claim it will be easier to build and maintain.

Nova, or the Novel Offshore Vertical Axis Demonstrator, which came up with the idea, is one of the three projects being funded by the government-backed Energy Technologies Institute as part of a project to find ways to bring down the cost of offshore wind power. The UK has the biggest wind resource in all of Europe. Some even estimate that the UK’s total wind resource represents one third of the continent’s total.

Taking advantage of the country’s potential wind power is key in meeting the targets that have been set by the UK government. In January, the government announced a £75 billion program to build 25GW of offshore wind turbines. The nine sites in line for development are all further away from the coast and in deeper waters than any existing offshore project. Thus, they are much more challenging to build.

Grant Bourhill of the Energy Technologies Institute said that the current cost of electricity by offshore wind is somewhere between 12p to 15p per Kwh. That’s about double the cost of onshore wind and three times the cost of conventional generation. He went on to say that their job is to significantly reduce this cost. By 2020, they want it to be comparable to onshore generation. As they move to 2050, they want it to be comparable with conventional generation.