Wind Energy Issues

This page contains links to the articles on issues related to wind energy deployment.

Wind Deployment Issues

Environmental Impacts

Wind Energy Costs

Wind Energy Analysis

Offshore Wind

  • Offshore wind impact probe proposed
  • Offshore wind needs to be transferred on shore using undersea cables that do not have a reliable history
  • Our EnergyPolicy (OEP) hosted a panel discussion on New York State’s emerging offshore wind market, and the policy and business challenges facing this evolving sector, in its Energy Leaders Luncheon Series December 2019 event in New York City.  During the question and answer period the following question was asked: Will wind turbines in New York be able to withstand a Category 5 storm?

    Clint Plummer, the head of market strategies and new projects for Ørsted, the world’s largest owner, developer, and operator of offshore wind, responded that “wind turbines are designed to withstand a Category 3 hurricane, and they have built into their permit applications an insurance fund that can pay for repairs in cases of catastrophic loss from a storm more severe”. He said “a Category 5 hurricane has a return period in excess of 100 years, while the design life of a wind farm is 30-35 years, so wind turbines are not designed to withstand a Category 5 storm because they are not expected to experience one”. “Anything less than that up to a certain speed is just a really good day for producing a lot of wind power,” he said

  • Offshore wind turbine spacing is becoming an issue that will add costs.  As turbines become bigger their wakes become bigger and that leads to a reduction of output at any existing turbine that is too close.  “An important new working paper from renewables consultants ArcVera is reporting that the wake effects behind the huge turbines that are now coming onstream are going to be much worse than previously thought.”