Wind Power

Wind Power

For our sustainability project we have chosen to

study Vestas wind turbines and the option of an offshore wind farm. On these wind turbines each blade is 44m long! The

height of them is 70m tall.

Our Questions!

Research Question:• Is there a possibility of installing an

offshore wind turbine near Christchurch?

Sub-questions:• What is the cost of installing an

offshore wind farm?• How much energy do offshore wind

farms produce?• Who has the most efficient wind

turbines?• How long do wind turbines last?

Horns ReefWe got our idea for an offshore wind

farm after reading about horns reef of the coast of Denmark. It has 80 efficient wind turbines and each produces 160 MWh . They produce enough energy to power 150,000 houses. The offshore wind farms are becoming more popular because it is getting harder and harder to get resource consent and permits to place wind turbines on land. An offshore wind farm could easily power one third of Christchurch.

The Turbines

All turbines are designed to an international standard, so they

last on average 20years.  Turbines are like your Mum’s

car, if you drive it hard all the time and don't look after it sooner or later it will cost you

some money!

Since fossil fuels are going to run out in the near future. We have to come up with new ways to produce energy efficiently.

So far we have came up with solar power, hydro, wave/tidal, nuclear, geothermal and wind power. These are all pollution

free ways of generating energy. The ways wind energy benefits the earth

more than fossil fuels is the reduced CO2 emissions, an example of this is 39,000 Vestas turbines around the world save

the planet from 40 million tonnes of CO2 emissions compared to Oil a year. Plus 80% of their turbines are recyclable.

Reasons for wanting wind energy.

The possibilities of an offshore wind farm near Christchurch,

Is very unlikely because:• The bed is to deep, we have found

that to put wind turbine on the sea bed it has to be shallow (at most 10m)• The cost would be unbelievably expensive to first buy the turbines

and get the energy the turbines produce back to land, which means pipes and cables would have to be

installed.• It would take at least three years to

get up and running because you would have to get consent from the

government, E-can, etc.

We did consider putting the wind farm on a small island off the coast of the North

Island. We would make sure this island had no houses on

it, but most of the islands were native bush. Changing

this landscape would increase the cost but also

effect the wild life surrounding it.

Possibilities

If we were going to put an offshore wind farm near Christchurch it would have to be quite close to shore. As the sea bed deepens

more rapidly than other places in the world. With it being close to shore, you would be able to view them and there might be more

complaints in the way they look, and how it “pollutes” the

landscape, which really defeats the purpose of an offshore wind farm.

Problems

• http://www.physics.otago.ac.nz/eman/hew/ehome/energyuse.html• http://www.vestas.com/• http://www.vestas.com/en/about-vestas/principles/sustainability.aspx• http://www.google.com/squared/search?q=wind+turbines• http://www.vestas.com/en/modern-energy/understanding-modern-energy/clean.

aspx• http://www.vestas.com/en/modern-energy.aspx• http://www.vestas.com/en/wind-power-solutions/offshore.aspx• http://www.vestas.com/en/wind-power-solutions.aspx• http://www.vestas.com/en/modern-energy/understanding-modern-energy/questi

ons-and-answers-about-modern-energy.aspx• http://www.google.co.nz/search?

q=vestas+wind+turbines&hl=en&tbo=1&tbs=tl:1,tll:1970,tlh:1974&ei=SSwUS8aGEpHCsgOgmoXmAQ&sa=X&oi=timeline_histogram_main&ct=timeline-histogram&cd=1&ved=0CAkQyQEoAQ

• http://www.google.co.nz/search?hl=en&tbo=1&tbs=tl%3A1&q=offshore+wind+farms&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=o&oq=

• http://www.google.co.nz/search?q=wind%20turbines&hl=en&tbo=1&output=search&tbs=tl:1

• http://windenergy.org.nz/nz-wind-farms/nz-wind-farms

Websites

By Sam, Bella & Georgia!