Building a billion-dollar artificial island to... collect wind energy
Wind is changing the way people use renewable energy. Many countries around the world are finding more and more creative ways to develop wind power, including building artificial islands.
Building artificial islands to collect wind. (Photo: TenneT).
The farm is not built on water but on a shallow area of land in the North Sea called Dogger Bank. Located 125km off the coast of East Yorkshire, Dogger Bank is considered to be a place with abundant wind resources. According to initial surveys, the Dogger Bank project has great prospects as it is one of the first efficient offshore wind farms in the world. But what makes this project special and practical is the artificial island it is building in the North Sea.
The artificial island will serve as a hub for offshore wind farms and is larger than the world’s current largest wind farm in Gansu, China. TenneT plans for the Dogger Bank project to be able to collect up to 30GW of wind. Furthermore, TenneT representatives believe that by investing in this wind island, they will have the necessary incentives to continue to lower the price of wind power.
Mr. Rob van der Hage - Director of TenneT's offshore wind grid development program told the press:“It is imperative in an industry to stay on the path of reducing costs to make its products available to more users. A big challenge we face in the 2030-2035 period is that onshore wind collection is hindered by local opposition, and there are already many wind farms nearshore. Therefore, it is extremely reasonable and necessary to look for offshore wind energy sources.”
Dogger Bank is not the first to propose offshore wind farms. Denmark’s largest energy company has already proposed a similar plan for the UK, while Scotland recently opened the world’s first floating wind farm. But TenneT’s project is different in that it has a completely new plan for managing the wind energy generated by the farm.
Offshore wind turbines.
The wind farm on the central island will collect energy from the wind turbines via short cables. The wind-generated electricity will then be converted into direct current. This will avoid the loss of electricity on the long journey to the Netherlands and the UK – and possibly even Germany, Denmark, Belgium and Norway. The company will use alternating long-distance cables – allowing electricity to be sent to whichever country needs it at any given time. All this will ensure stable and affordable energy generation, and that no electricity is wasted.
Mr. Van der Hage added:“Is it difficult to do what we want? We see in the Netherlands, when we come across a body of water we immediately want to build islands on it or turn it into land. We have been doing that for centuries and it has become so familiar, so this issue is not the biggest challenge for our company.”
Tennet is not alone in this project. The burden of building an artificial island with hundreds of wind turbines will be shared by offshore wind farm developers such as Denmark's Øcrsted and Germany's Innogy. Tennet will contribute about $1.8 billion to build the island.
