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Final Paper
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Higher quality wind resources, less negative impact on aesthetics of the landscape and ease of transportation and installation are some of the advantages of offshore wind farms over wind farm projects on land. Furthermore, wind turbines are designed to take advantage of the steady wind speed prevalent over the ocean thus enabling higher utilization rate for offshore wind energy generation capacity. More than 66 percent of offshore wind in the United States (U.S.) is in high wind power density. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) estimates that the U.S. has 4,200 gigawatts of developable offshore wind potential. Despite these attributes, there are no offshore wind farms in the U.S. Offshore wind projects have grown steadily in Europe and Asia, with Europe accounting for 90 percent of the roughly 8.8 gigawatts (GW) global offshore wind turbine capacity. The challenges of offshore wind energy projects include, significantly high support structure cost, high Operating and Maintenance (O&M) costs, high electrical infrastructure costs, high turbine costs, stricter environmental standards, and less developed construction techniques. This paper describes the challenges associated with offshore wind energy projects and how to mitigate them. For instance, through technological advances, the high cost of foundation can be reduced. By employing efficient O&M strategy, associated costs can be reduced. By employing these and other methodologies future offshore wind energy projects can be commercially viable. The challenges for conducting research for the implementation of offshore wind farm in the U.S. has educational component. The product of this research work should have educational value for researchers and students of engineering education.
Author(s):
Samuel Babatunde
Civil and Coastal Engineering
University of Florida
United States
Fazil Najafi
Civil and Coastal Engineering
University of Florida
United States