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Communications in Information Science and Management Engineering

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Offshore Wind Power: Development and Evaluation


Dongxiao Niu#1, Hongyun Zhang#1, Fei Guo*2
#

School of Economics and Management, North China Electric Power University,


Beijing 102206, China
*
School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, North China Electric Power University,
Beijing 102206, China
1
ndx@ncepu.edu.cn; 1zhanghongyun@ncepu.edu.cn; 2guofei_olivia@ncepu.edu.cn

during 2011-2020, the capacity of annual newly built offshore


wind farms will rise from 1.5GW to 6.9GW smoothly[3],
illustrated in Figure 1.

Abstract The development of offshore wind in China is still at


an early stage. This paper researches the current situation and
trend of offshore wind industries in European countries and
China, from aspects of offshore wind farms as capacity, turbine,
location, foundation, and grid connection, and analyzes the
proper development direction of the industry in China. It is
acknowledged that a comprehensive assessment is essential for
establishing new offshore wind projects. Therefore, this paper
provides a preliminary overall evaluation index system, in order
to scientifically judge the feasibility of offshore wind projects.
Keywords Offshore Wind Farm; Development; Evaluation

I. INTRODUCTION
Wind power is a renewable and clean energy. Fully
developing wind power is the strategic need of unfolding lowcarbon energy and achieving energy saving and consumption
reduction. Currently, the major power load center of China
locates in the East-costal area. However, energy resources are
badly needed there. If the stable offshore wind resources in
east-coast is exploited, then the tension of power will be eased
greatly, besides, land resources can be saved and the waste of
power during long-distance transmission can be reduced.
Compared with wind resources on land, the exploitation of
offshore has certain obstacles mainly because of the high cost
of offshore wind farms, high risks and numerous technology
problems [1]. In the long run, it is an effective way of
developing offshore wind power to solve the grim energy
situation.

Fig. 1 Offshore wind energy annual and cumulative installations


2011-2020 (MW)
Source: Oceans of Opportunity, A report by the European Wind Energy
Association (EWEA), 2009

B. Offshore Wind Turbines


Wind turbines are core parts of offshore wind farms. In
recent years, the construction of offshore wind farms
accelerates the development of high-capacity wind turbines.
By the end of 2008, the single capacity of the worlds largest
running wind turbine had achieved 6MW, whose rotor
diameter achieved 127m. In 2010, 21 European turbine
manufacturers provided 29 kinds of offshore wind turbine
models, among which some of the manufacturers are
developing 8-10MW model turbines, and others are
developing 5MW offshore wind turbines. At present,
European offshore wind turbines are mainly Siemens
(2.3MW/3.6MW),
Vestas
(3MW),
WinWind(3MW),
GE(4MW), Multi-brid(5MW). High reliability, fine
maintainability and large capacity are the developing trend of
offshore wind turbines.

II. OFFSHORE WIND POWER IN EUROPE


Europe is the leader of exploiting offshore wind resources.
This chapter will give a brief research on European offshore
wind power in five aspects: installed capacity, wind turbines,
wind farm locations, substructures and interconnection of off
shore wind farms.
A. Installed Capacity
In terms of the number and capacity of installed turbines,
308 new offshore wind turbines were fully grid connected in
2010, totalling 883 MW a 51% increase based on the
previous year. Currently, 1,136 turbines installed and grid
connected, totalling 2,946 MW in 45 wind farms in nine
European countries, of which the average wind turbine size is
now 3.2 MW [2]. UK takes the leading position in developing
offshore wind power, whose total installed capacity is
1341MW, then Denmark (854MW), Holland (249MW),
Belgium (195MW), Sweden (164MW), Germany (92MW),
Ireland (25MW), Finland (26MW). So far, ten offshore wind
farms are still under construction, whose total installed
capacity is 3000MW. When finished, the whole European
offshore wind farms capacity will break through 6200MW.
According to European Wind Energy Association(EWEA),

C. Location of Offshore Wind Farms


As technology develops and experience is gained, the
offshore wind industry will move into deeper water and
further from the shore. Looking at the wind farms in Figure 2,
the wind industry will gradually move beyond the so-called
20:20 envelope (20m water depth, 20 km from shore).

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Fig. 2 Development of offshore wind farms in terms of water depth (m) and distance to shore (km)
Source: Oceans of Opportunity, A report by the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), 2009

be less and less, and floating which fits for deeper water will
be paid more attention.

D. Substructures
The substructure of offshore wind turbines usually means
underwater structure and foundation. Due to the complicated
situation of underwater, the construction of substructure has to
consider various influences such as geologic framework of the
seabed, distance to shore, degree of wind waves and ocean
current, which are the main aspects that the construction of
offshore differs from on-shores. The main substructures of
offshore wind turbines are gravity, pile, floating and other
new style structures [4]. Currently, the 45 European wind
farms mainly use monopile and gravity, then jacket, triple and
floating [5], shown in Figure 3.

E. Interconnection of Offshore Wind Power


The deployment of offshore wind energy requires a
dedicated offshore electricity system. Such a system will
provide grid access to the more remote offshore wind farms,
and additional interconnection capacity to improve the trading
of electricity between the differing national electricity markets.
The transnational offshore grid of the future will have many
functions, each benefitting Europe in different ways[3]: 1) the
geographically distributed output of the connected offshore
wind farms will be aggregated and therefore smoothed so as
to increase the predictability of the energy output and
diminish the need for additional balancing capacity; 2) wind
farm operators will be able to sell wind farm output to more
than one country; 3) it will minimize the strengthening of
onshore(mainland) interconnectors high-voltage networks,
which can be difficult due to land-use conflicts; 4) European
energy security will be improved, due to a more
interconnected European grid.
The main interconnection transmission technology of
offshore wind power is HVDC. Compared with traditional
widely used LCC-HVDC, today, the drivers for the offshore
grid take VSC-HVDC as the best option for the following
reasons[3]: 1) the technology is suitable for the long distances
involved (up to 600 km), with minimal losses; 2) the
compactness (half the size of LCC-HVDC) minimizes
environmental impact and construction costs, for example, of
the HVDC platforms; 3) the technology due to its active
controllability - is able to provide flexible and dynamic
voltage support to AC and therefore can be connected to both
strong and weak onshore grids. Moreover, it can be used to
provide black start, supporting the system recovery in case of
failure.

Fig. 3 Foundation type of integrated offshore wind farms (end of 2010)


Source: Operational offshore wind farms in Europe, end 2010, EWEA, 2011

Gravity is the simplest, of good performance of antistorm and wind waves, whose stability and reliability are the
best of these foundations. Nevertheless, it only limits to
shallow water and solid geology [6]. As the shallow waters
that are suitable for building wind farms get fewer, it is
essential for the wind energy market to develop farms in
deeper and further area of the ocean. Therefore, gravity will

III. THE DEVELOPMENT STATUS AND PLAN OF CHINAS


OFFSHORE WIND POWER

China has abundant offshore wind resources for


possessing large-scale development requirements. According

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should support offshore wind farm projects that within a


40km distance to shore and a water depth of 15m.

to Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences (CAMS),


China's offshore wind energy resources can be about 750GW,
and according to China Meteorological Administration
(CMA), the can-be-installed capacity of water depth that
between 5m and 25m and height above sea level 50m is about
200GW. The prospect of offshore wind power in China is
very impressive.

D. Substructures
The newly built offshore wind farms will use pile
foundation as the main substructure. In addition, monopile is
the most reasonable style according to the geological
conditions of east coast. However, it requires a higher
construction technology, which limits its application [10].
Currently, China is exploring a proper foundation type for its
coastal conditions. For example, Shanghai Donghai Bridge
offshore wind farm initiated the high pile of concrete slab
foundation. With technology imported and independent
innovation, the economical monopile is expected to be the
main foundation style of future offshore wind farms.

A. Installed capacity
As the first country possessing offshore wind farm,
besides European countries, China built the first offshore
wind farm in 2008, known as Shanghai Donghai Bridge
offshore wind farm. At present, the 34 wind turbines have
been installed and connected to the grid, totalling a capacity
of 102MW.
China plans to build several large wind power bases in
Nantong, Yancheng of Jiangsu Province, Shanghai, Lubei of
Shandong Province, and offshore wind power bases in Jiangsu
and Shandong coast. Until 2015, the total installed capacity of
offshore wind power will arrive 5GW, which will be 30GW in
2020[7], as shown in Table I.

E. Offshore Wind Power Connection


Wind connection to the grid has been the bottleneck that
impedes the development of wind power for a long time. The
reasons are numerous, but in the eyes of a whole set of wind
turbine, only that while the grid gets adapted to wind farms,
the wind turbines need to adapt to the requirements of the grid,
such as breaking trough low voltage. VSC-HVDC
technologies are paid great attention in China. Despite that its
technologies are immature and still at an early stage, VSCHVDC has a prosperous future.

TABLE I
CHINA OFFSHORE WIND DEVELOPMENT PLAN BEFORE 2020
Planed installationMW
Province(city)
Year 2015

Year 2020

Shanghai

700

1,550

Jiangsu

4,600

9,450

Zhejiang

1,500

3,700

Shandong

3,000

7,000

Fujian

300

1,100

Other

5,000

10,000

Total

15,100

32,800

CISME

Under the status of trial running of offshore wind farms,


the problem that wind power may have impact on the stability
of the grid hasnt occurred. Because these wind farms are
built near to the load center of east coastal cities, the power
can be consumed very fast. In addition, wind power takes up a
very small proportion in the whole power load, of which
interference in the grid can be neglected. However, with the
new wind farms increasing and the number of wind turbines
rising, the connection of wind power may bring in new
problem, which must be taken great care of.
F. Outlook of Offshore Wind Power in China
As a part of the new energy industry of National Strategy,
the policy and investment favor offshore wind power. On the
one hand, the competition on land is quite fierce, while the
offshore market is much larger. Besides, offshore wind power
is nearer to load centres, meaning a proper higher electric
price; on the other hand, China puts great emphasis on the
high-level development of offshore wind industries, requiring
developing large-scale wind turbines at first[11], which means
the leading enterprises such as Sinovel Wind and Goldwind
will share a larger cake of the offshore wind market.

Source: China Energy News, Page21, Sep 20th, 2010.

B. Offshore Wind Turbines


In the end of 2009, there were 6 manufacturers producing
above 2MW wind turbines in China, known as Sinovel Wind
(3MW), Goldwind(2.5MW), Shanghai Electric(2MW),
Xiangtan
Electric(2MW),
Beizhong(2MW),
and
Haizhuang2MW).
Compared with international advanced technologies, there
still exists a big gap in the designing and producing of largescale wind turbines. Mainly because of the low single turbine
capacity, key technologies depend on import and the quality
of components needs improving. The average power of a
single wind turbine hasnt reached 2MW, while European
level is 3.2MW. With the expanding scale of offshore wind
farms, each wind turbine manufacturer is getting involved in
the research on large-scale offshore wind turbines.

IV. AN OVERALL EVALUATION OF OFFSHORE WIND PROJECTS


Despite that China has the experience of building on-land
wind farms, offshore wind farms are quite different from
ordinary wind power projects. Before exploiting, technologies
of foundation design, construction, equipment and operation
are big challenges. If it fails to investigate the wind farm and
evaluate the feasibility before investing, then huge capital will
be wasted, leading to the waste of social resources. Besides,
the failure will limit the development of wind power industry.
Thus, it is necessary to evaluate offshore wind power projects.

C. Location of Offshore Wind Farms


According to the development level, the construction of
offshore wind farms mainly considers intertidal zone and
subtidal zone offshore wind farms [9]. It is less likely to
develop deep-sea wind farms. Infertidal mudflat wind power
is the characteristic in China, which can be classified into
three parts: supralittoral zone, intertidal zone and subtidal
zone [4]. Infertidal mudflat wind power has low-cost
advantage. Considering the current technologies, China

A. The Establishment of Index System


According to the basic principle of establishing the index
system of offshore wind farm and its feature, the basic content
of overall evaluation can be divided into seven parts [12]:

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(4) Financial evaluation, including: earning ability and


solvency.
(5) Environment evaluation, including: main material
source and the influence.
(6) Sustainable development evaluation [13], including:
social
development,
economical
development
and
environmental benefits.

basic condition, design plan, risk assessment, financial


evaluation, environment evaluation and sustainable
development evaluation. The following is the specific content
of the first-grade indexes of offshore wind projects.
(1) Basic condition evaluation, including: wind energy
atlas investigation, marine hydrology, geological engineering
and construction conditions.
(2) Design plan evaluation, including: project mission,
project scale, project plan and grid integration plans.
(3) Risk assessment, including: natural disaster,
technological risk, economical risk and policy risk.

B. Preliminary Overall Evaluation Index System


Based on the above studies and relevant researches, the
preliminary overall evaluation index system is established,
shown in Table II.

TABLE II
OVERALL EVALUATION INDEX SYSTEM OF OFFSHORE WIND PROJECTS
Objective

Theme

Sub-theme

Components
Average wind velocity

Wind resources

Average wind power density


Wind energy atlas
Effective wind speed per hour
Water depth

Basic condition

hydro meteorology

Distance to shore
Typhoon data
Landform and physiognomy

Geology

Geologic structure
Formation lithology
Hydrogeology
Project scale

Technology design
Design plan

Turbine type
Foundation type
Integration plan

Organization management

Construction management plan

design

Project management plan

Natural disaster

Natural disaster risks

Technical risks

Construction risks

Design risks
Overall evaluation

Operation risks

of offshore wind
projects

Risk assessment

Economical risks

on-grid price
on-grid electric quantity
Industry policy

Political risks

Price policy
On-grid policy
Payback period

Financial evaluation

Earning ability

Net profit margin


Solvency
Source of pollution

Environment
evaluation

Internal rate of return


Solvency
Main material source
Pollution and solution
Atmospheric environment

Environmental influence

Aquatic environment
Ecological environment

Social development
Sustainable
Development

Environmental benefits

evaluation
Economical development

Employment promotion
Technology development
Volume of energy saving
Volume of emission reduction
Economic growth
Industrial development

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Communications in Information Science and Management Engineering

V.

CONCLUSIONS

CISME
REFERENCES

As an important part of the economic stimulus package,


offshore wind power is developing rapidly in Europe.
Advanced offshore wind power technologies are controlled by
a few energy enterprises, such as Vestas, GE. The
development of offshore wind in China is still at an early
stage, so it is essential to learn the latest technology and idea
from European countries. Besides, China needs to strengthen
independent research, and to conquer the technical problems,
which will reduce the project cost. Only in that way can the
offshore wind power follow the path of sound development

[1]

This paper preliminarily designs an evaluation index


system of offshore wind projects, which is a complicated
system. The factors and their classification are quite critical.
The evaluation criteria need a large amount of historical data
to estimate, which needs to be completed in the following
studies.

[7]

[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]

[8]

[9]
[10]

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
[11]

The research is supported by National Natural Science


Foundation of China, program number: 71071052. The
program is lead by Professor Niu Dongxiao and the Institute
of Technology Economic Forecasting and Evaluation of North
China Electric Power University.

[12]

[13]

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(EWEA), 2009.
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