Wind energy

Why do we use the sea and not the land to harvest wind energy?

There are many reasons why it’s more efficient to harvest wind from the sea and not from the land. Land belongs to people, windmills have an impact on the nature and it is difficult to find areas that are big enough to build wind parks on.

Off-shore wind parks are almost invisible, the area belongs to no one as the sea is still a common good. The wind at the sea is stronger than on land, that’s why the potential for harvesting energy is higher on the sea then on land.

Due to that reason an offshore wind park can create three times more energy than the same amount of windmills on land.

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Situation today

By having a look at the situation of wind parks in the north sea today a constant development can be seen. A lot of wind farms has been built and opened in the north sea during the last years. More are constantly being constructed. The already existing wind parks already provide energy for 9 million people.

As each country at the north sea is only responsible for its wind parks in the economic zone they all are in a different state of developing their off shore wind parks.

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Wind Parks in Denmark

Denmark has been the first country establishing off shore wind parks at the north sea. From the early 2000s on they have been building more and more windmills. Today Denmark is producing 43,3 % of its energy by harvesting wind. Denmark’s goal for 2030 is to produce 85% of the energy by using wind.

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Wind Parks in Germany

Germany takes 19% of it’s energy out of wind, which makes Germany to the third biggest wind energy producer in the world, while being the biggest in Europe. As a lot of Germanys energy is harvested from the north sea located in the north of the country it has become an issue to distribute the produced energy.

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Wind Parks in the Netherlands

The Netherlands are following the goal to use 14% of their energy from renewable sources by 2020. Key source to fulfil the EU goals is wind, as today 9% of the produced energy is coming from wind. As the Netherlands also produce a huge amount of their wind energy on shore only a part of that is from off shore wind parks.

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Wind Parks in Belgium

The situation of wind parks in Belgium today is similar to the situation in the Netherlands, with 8% of the energy coming from wind. Compared to the average of the EU countries which are covering 11,6% of their energy by using wind both countries are a bit below the EU average. Due to the high potential for wind energy at the Belgian and Dutch coast the amount of the wind energy being produced is expected to increase within the next years.

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Wind Parks in the UK

As being an Island the UK has a high potential for harvesting energy from the ocean. Today the UK is producing 18% of their energy from wind by having many off shore wind parks in the north sea, the Irish sea and the English channel. With further plans and current construction sites especially on the dogger bank, the amount of wind energy being used is going to increase even more.

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Wind Parks in Norway

Today Norway has no wind parks operating in their part of the north sea but there are huge areas of off shore wind parks that are developed. Norway will mainly construct floating wind parks due to the depths of the Norwegian sea waters

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Scenario for the future

In the near future the amount of wind parks will increase, as there are windmills constructed every day. The construction of the wind parks also is a positive effect on the economy. In total there is a possibility of 310 000 new jobs and a boost for the European ports. With more wind parks and more experience and research the cost of green energy will lower.

Danish research about the effects on the environment on the sea has found out that off shore wind parks even can be a benefit for the biodiversity of the seas as they create new artificial reefs. Another idea for the future is combining off shore wind  with aquacultures there might be less impact on the ecosystem as far away from the coast. Also far off shore there are less parasites then close to the coast which will produce healthier fish.

Today the north sea is the most excessive sea used in the world. It also is the leading sea in harvesting renewable energy.

As wind farms are a relatively new technology the effects on the environment are partly unknown and will be seen in the future.

During the last years there has been an increasing amount of voices saying, that wind farms can harm the population of birds that are passing through the north sea. Current studies in the Danish north sea show that birds are changing their routes to avoid passing through wind parks. As these problem is quite new their research about the effects of off shore wind parks on the environment is still going on.

As another solution wind parks might be stopped in case a group of passing birds will be detected nearby.

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Extreme scenario

Atelier 2050 from the Netherlands has released studies about how to reach the paris climate goals in 2050 by using the north sea. In their energetic odyssey they propose a extensive use of the use of wind within the north sea. According to their plans from today till 2050 15 new windmills have to be installed each day.

The amount of 15 windmills per day seems to be utopic from todays point of view but the atelier also considered that speed of development might be increased by more and new technologies. New methods to harvest wind (e.g. Kites) will allow to harvest energy from various levels of the atmosphere. Floating windfarms will allow to install wind parks even in deeper waters (see Norway)

By 2050 the windmills in the north sea will cover an area of 57000 sq km (10% of the area of the north sea).

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Cables

Connecting the different countries of the north sea. Transporting energy to the land. Main issue about how to distribute the energy that comes from off-shore. Especially Germany is trying to solve that problem, as the wind farms in the nord of the country should provide

Solution might be to share the windfarms and the produced energy to create a big network within the north sea. Regional cooperation

Extensive harvesting of energy in the north sea will bring the countries around it together

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Ocean Energy Power Stations

Wind is not the only force that can be harvested and used to produce energy. Harvesting energy from tides, waves, currents and even salinity is also possible today.

Salinity power stations are using the difference of the salinity gradient of two waters and create energy by the pressure created in between those two waters through the use of osmosis.

The forces of the sea are a constant and predictable energy source, the amount of energy stays almost the same for the whole year (which is different to sun and wind energy). The forces of the sea as tides or salinity are easy to calculate and predictable.

As well ocean energy power stations are harvesting energy directly from the sea which makes them different  to off shore wind parks. They are invisible over water and give less impact on sea space and on the coast.

Today ocean power stations are still rare and mainly used for research. There is a high potential for its use in the UK and Norway. Ocean energy could provide up to 20 % of the population of the UK with sustainable energy. The first country in the world that installed a Ocean Energy power station has been Norway.

In the next years there will be an increasing amount of ocean energy stations appearing at the coasts of the north sea, as well as combined solutions with off shore wind parks.

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