Chain of Offshore Wind Turbines Could Power Atlantic Seaboard
source: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/04/wind-power-chain/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium...
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A 1,550-mile-long network of offshore wind stations could provide power from Massachusetts to North Carolina with minimal threat of outages, according to a new study.
By connecting stations together, the system could eliminate the biggest downside of wind power: intermittency.
The concept is simple: If you spread out wind stations far enough, each one will experience a different weather pattern. So it’s very unlikely that a slackening of the wind would affect all stations at once. The result is steadier power.
“We’re designing transmission in a different way, according to meteorological principles,” said marine-policy expert Willett Kempton of the University of Delaware in Newark, co-author of the research, published April 5 in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences.
Kempton and a team of scientists analyzed five years of wind data from 11 meteorological stations — buoys and towers — off the Atlantic coast, from Florida to Maine. They found that combining power from all stations with a transmission cable could prevent massive power fluctuations.
By connecting stations together, the system could eliminate the biggest downside of wind power: intermittency.
The concept is simple: If you spread out wind stations far enough, each one will experience a different weather pattern. So it’s very unlikely that a slackening of the wind would affect all stations at once. The result is steadier power.
“We’re designing transmission in a different way, according to meteorological principles,” said marine-policy expert Willett Kempton of the University of Delaware in Newark, co-author of the research, published April 5 in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences.
Kempton and a team of scientists analyzed five years of wind data from 11 meteorological stations — buoys and towers — off the Atlantic coast, from Florida to Maine. They found that combining power from all stations with a transmission cable could prevent massive power fluctuations.
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