Offshore wind is getting ready to grow a set of real balls

[kristopher]

Wind power — even without the wind
Innovative storage system could enable offshore wind farms to deliver power whenever it’s needed.
David L. Chandler, MIT News Office

April 25, 2013

Offshore wind could provide abundant electricity — but as with solar energy, this power supply can be intermittent and unpredictable. But a new approach from researchers at MIT could mitigate that problem, allowing the electricity generated by floating wind farms to be stored and then used, on demand, whenever it’s needed.

The key to this concept is the placement of huge concrete spheres on the seafloor under the wind turbines. These structures, weighing thousands of tons apiece, could serve both as anchors to moor the floating turbines and as a means of storing the energy they produce.

Whenever the wind turbines produce more power than is needed, that power would be diverted to drive a pump attached to the underwater structure, pumping seawater from a 30-meter-diameter hollow sphere. (For comparison, the tank’s diameter is about that of MIT’s Great Dome, or of the dome atop the U.S. Capitol.) Later, when power is needed, water would be allowed to flow back into the sphere through a turbine attached to a generator, and the resulting electricity sent back to shore.

One such 25-meter sphere in 400-meter-deep water could store up to 6 megawatt-hours of power, the MIT researchers have calculated; that means that 1,000 such spheres could supply as much power as a nuclear plant for several hours — enough to make them a reliable source of power. The 1,000 wind turbines that the spheres could anchor could, on average, replace a conventional on-shore coal or nuclear plant. What’s more, unlike nuclear or coal-fired plants, which take hours to ramp up, this energy source could be made available within minutes, and then taken offline just as quickly.

The system would be...

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/wind-power-even-without-the-wind-0425.html

[jollyreaper2112]

1. Now now

I think you mean wind power is developing primary sexual attributes.

:p

[FogerRox]

2. I focus on off the shelf tech

1000 turbines, like GE's 4mw offshore model could produce how much?

And the day we're installing turbines in 1200 ft of water is damn long way off.

Pumped hydro and HVDC are off the shelf, they can happen now. KnR for interesting stuff.

[riqster]

3. Nice to see somebody is thinking long-term.

KnR