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Bigger is better: Plans unveiled for giant offshore wind turbines in the UK
photo by Dirk Ingo Franke (source: Wikimedia Commons)ns)
A massive 10-megawatt wind turbine is currently being built in Northumberland, UK for offshore wind power generation – believed by many to be the green future of British power.
The first example is a towering 574 ft (175 m) turbine of mammoth proportions named ‘Britannia’ whose three 500 ft (150 m) diameter 30-ton blades could power 10,000 homes.
The Clipper Windpower Marine, team who designed the turbine, clearly believes that bigger is better, and sees no practical size limits in building giant wind turbines. The Britannia alone could provide the same amount of power as two million barrels of oil – that’s more than a months worth of Deepwater Horizon spillage!
From an article in the Telegraph:
There might be a limit to the size that people want to put into the field; if a 20 megawatt turbine failed, that’s a big chunk of electricity to lose. But then, if a power station goes off-line you’ve lost 300 megawatts, so I don’t think that’s a limit either.
–Bill Grainger, Clipper Windpower Marine
So is big the new green? Perhaps in the case of large-scale wind power, it is. The planned location of the ‘cool’ Britannia is the northeast coast of England, set for sometime in the mystical Mayan year of 2012.
Coincidence?
by Graham Land
Additional resources:
BBC News: Giant wind turbines ‘the future of UK green energy’
Tags: big, Britannia, Clipper, giant, Green, marine, offshore, power, turbine, UK, wind, Windpower
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