|
March 10, 2008
BLUE
H USA PRESS RELEASE
Blue H USA
submits Deepwater Wind Energy Nomination For Lease
Blue H USA LLC has submitted a Nomination For Lease with the US Minerals
Management Service to install what it anticipates to be the first
floating deepwater wind energy unit in the United States. The
Nomination For Lease is the initial phase of a 420 MW commercial wind energy
project located 23 miles from Martha’s Vineyard and 45 miles from New
Bedford in a water depth of 51 meters (167 ft).
Blue H USA’s proposed venture will exclusively involve US facilities in the
full cycle of construction, commissioning, and decommissioning of an actual
wind energy unit and is the product of a 10 year development by Blue H
Technologies BV. As mandated by the US Minerals Management Service, the
demonstration phase of this project will be non-operational.
In December of 2007, Blue H Technologies BV launched the first ever large
scale prototype Submerged Deepwater Platform (SDP) off the
coast in Southern Italy. This event marked a world premiere
in the offshore wind energy sector.
The offshore wind energy market is projected to represent 50% of the
installed capacity of the total wind energy market by 2030. As a matter of
fact, offshore wind farms benefit from stronger and less turbulent winds and
can avoid logistic constraints due to problems of transportation of the
turbines and their blades, as well as address to a large degree the concerns
of visual impact of onshore wind farms.
However, with the commercially available technology today, which requires
wind turbine foundations to be installed into the seabed on mono-piles or
jackets or tripods, the costs of installation grows dramatically as the
depth of water increases, limiting potential offshore sites to areas less
than 50 meters in depth, something which restricts greatly the potential
available areas to construct wind farms.
In contrast Blue H has
developed a new solution by adapting the concept of submerged
tension-legged platforms developed by the oil industry for some of its
offshore rigs, and designed a platform large and stable enough to support a
tower and a wind turbine.
As explained by Martin Jakubowski, the inventor of SDP technology and author
of other Blue H patent applications, this innovative technology:
-
reduces significantly the overall weight of the
structure, a huge element in cost component of offshore wind units (as
an example, REpower’s 5 MW units weigh approximately 2,100 tons each;
Blue H expects its future deep sea wind energy units, at comparable
installed capacity, to weigh less than 800 tons (1,500 tons - including
the steel in the counterweight);
-
can be assembled onshore and then towed out far
offshore, at distances of 10 nautical miles or more and positioned in
deep waters (50 meters or more in depth); Blue H does not use the heavy
equipment needed to build structures into the sea bed: such heavy
equipment is both expensive and in short supply – particularly crane
ships and jack-up barges.
-
allows a localization far enough from the coast to
benefit from stronger and more regular winds (thus reducing the cost per
kWh), to overcome frequent environmentalist objections to on-shore farms
and to address a fundamental problem of the wind energy industry today,
that of being able to deploy larger and larger turbines (also reducing
the cost per kWh); it can also often be placed in locations near heavy
demand centers.
-
Is more environmentally friendly because easier to
dismantle with no leftover.
For all these reasons, Blue H provides a cost effective solution for the
installation of offshore wind energy converters in deep waters. “Blue H
intends to demonstrate that deepwater offshore wind farms can be built
economically and certainly at a cost which is extremely competitive to the
shallow water wind farms of today” said Neal Bastick, CEO of Blue H.
Blue H Skysaver Srl is now constructing Blue H’s first commercial unit for
an offshore wind farm off the coast of Puglia in Southern Italy. In January
2007 Blue H Skysaver obtained the final authorizations to install its large
scale prototype in the water and has now has applied for the required
authorizations to build a 90MW Wind Energy Park in the same area, 20
kilometers from the coast in waters 100 – 120 meters in depth. The project
has a strong support of the Regional Government of Puglia and the local
population.
|
Press Releases
October 05,
2009 - Blue H USA announces it application to the US Army Corps of
Engineers for a deepwater offshore wind platform
July 07,
2009 - Blue H selected for private placement by Succès
Europe
February
27, 2009 - Blue H's Project GEOMA selected by Italian Government
January 14,
2009 - Project Deepwater Turbine
January 13, 2009
- Energy Technologies Institute Unveils First Projects to benefit from
£1.1 Billion Initiative
October 23,
2008 - Consortium Northwester Applied for Offshore Wind Concession
October 15,
2008 - Blue H France SAS Created
July 3, 2008 -
Blue H USA Massachusetts Congressional Delegation Letter of Support
March 10, 2008
3, 2008 - Blue H USA Submits Nomination For Lease
December 6,
2007 - Blue H Launches World's First Floating Wind Turbine
December 6,
2007 - Technical Note
|