There is considerable opportunity for generating wind power in the open ocean, particularly the North Atlantic, according to new research from Carnegie’s Anna Possner and Ken Caldeira. Their work is published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
There is considerable opportunity for generating wind power in the open ocean, particularly the North Atlantic, according to new research from Carnegie’s Anna Possner and Ken Caldeira. Their work is published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Because wind speeds are higher on average over ocean than over land, wind turbines in the open ocean could in theory intercept more than five times as much energy as wind turbines over land. This presents an enticing opportunity for generating renewable energy through wind turbines. But it was unknown whether the faster ocean winds could actually be converted to increased amounts of electricity.
“Are the winds so fast just because there is nothing out there to slow them down? Will sticking giant wind farms out there just slow down the winds so much that it is no better than over land?” Caldeira asked.
Most of the energy captured by large wind farms originates higher up in the atmosphere and is transported down to the surface where the turbines may extract this energy. Other studies have estimated that there is a maximum rate of electricity generation for land-based wind farms, and have concluded that this maximum rate of energy extraction is limited by the rate at which energy is moved down from faster, higher up winds.
Read more at Carnegie Institution for Science
Image: Floating Offshore Wind Turbine. Credit: Untrakdrover via Wikimedia Commons
