Wind power station enough to supply electricity to the whole world

A wind farm the size of India in the deep ocean of the North Atlantic could supply electricity to the entire world.

A wind farm the size of India could produce enough electricity for the entire world. Illustration: Wordpress.

Computer simulations show that wind turbines in the North Atlantic could produce at least four times more electricity per square meter than those on land. Two US researchers calculated that a giant wind farm covering three million square kilometers of ocean, an area the size of India, would generate an average of 18 terawatts of electricity per year. That’s about the same as the current estimated global electricity consumption.

In a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Drs Anna Possner and Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford University, California, USA, concluded that enough wind energy is available in the North Atlantic to power the entire world every year. They emphasized that wind speeds over the ocean are on average 70% higher than those over land.

But harnessing the power of offshore winds is more than just placing wind turbines in the direction of the strongest winds. When wind turbines are added to a wind farm, the combined drag from the rotating blades limits the amount of energy that can be converted into electricity from the moving air.

Because of this effect, power generation in large onshore wind farms could be limited to around 1.5 watts/m2. New simulations show that in the North Atlantic, the limit is significantly higher, allowing for production of more than 6 watts/m2.

The reason is that winds in the North Atlantic can tap into the huge energy reserves created by heat radiating into the atmosphere from the ocean surface. As a result, more energy is brought down from the upper atmosphere by the wind than is carried over land, helping to overcome the effects of turbine drag.

“We found that offshore wind farms can harness wind energy throughout the atmosphere while onshore wind farms are still limited by the wind resource close to the ground,” said Dr Possner.

Electricity production from the massive North Atlantic wind farm will be seasonal, with output dropping to a fifth of its annual average in the summer. Even so, the farm will still generate enough electricity to meet the needs of all countries in the European Union.

This type of farm would operate in harsh conditions with waves over three metres high and would need to be economically viable.

According to VNE