Selected Sites For Evaluation
1st Scenario:
Kentish Flats
Kentish Flats is an offshore wind farm that is located on a large, flat and shallow plateau in the North Sea, off the coast of Kent, England. The wind farm is operated by Vattenfall, a Swedish energy company. The wind farm has 45 wind turbines with a total capacity of 139.5 MW, enough to power about 140,000 homes. The wind farm was built in two phases: the first phase was completed in 2005 and consisted of 30 Vestas V90-3MW turbines, each with a height of 115 meters and a rotor diameter of 90 meters. The second phase was completed in 2015 and added 15 Vestas V112-3.3MW turbines, each with a height of 119 meters and a rotor diameter of 112 meters. The wind farm covers an area of 10 km² and is arranged in a regular grid of five rows in an east-west orientation. The distance from the nearest turbine to the shore is about 8.9 km. Here are site description below:
Layout Wind Farm
Sits Description
Parameters | Value |
|---|---|
Site Capacity size (MW) | 90 |
Distance from Port (km) | 8.9 |
Capacity Factor | 28.2 |
Rotor Diameter (m) | 90 |
Turbine Rows | 10 |
Turbine Colums | 3 |
Turbine | 30 |
System Design Parameters
The system requirements for the Kentish Flat are as above; the capacity of key components such as electrolysers, desalinators, and hydrogen production units has been calculated as per the site parameters that were fed in (*please note that for our case study we have considered only the first phase of the Kenish Flat, which was commissioned in 2005). Being the smallest site, the capacities achieved for each parameter are small. These parameters take into consideration the failure rates and the distance the O&M vehicles have to traverse. The parameters and value are showing in Table below.
Parameters | Value |
|---|---|
Electrolyser Capacity (kW) | 50 |
RO Unit capacity (m3/d) | 20 |
H2 produced annually (kg) | 3,650 |
2nd Scenario:
Thanet
Thanet Offshore Wind Farm is a large-scale renewable energy project located in the North Sea, about 11 km off the coast of Kent, England. It was commissioned in 2010 and has a nameplate capacity of 300 MW, enough to power about 240,000 homes. It was the world's largest offshore wind farm at the time of its completion.
The wind farm covers an area of 35 km² and consists of 100 Vestas V90 wind turbines, each with a rated capacity of 3 MW. The turbines are installed on monopile foundations at water depths of 14-23 m. The rotor diameter of each turbine is 90 m,14-23 m water depths and the hub height are 70 m. The distance between the turbines is 500 m along rows and 800 m between rows.
The wind farm is connected to the grid by two submarine power cables that run from an offshore substation within the wind farm to an onshore substation in Richborough, Kent. The offshore substation steps up the voltage from 33 kV to 132 kV for transmission. The wind farm has an average annual output of about 820 GWh and a capacity factor of about 31%.
Layout Wind Farm
Sits Description
Parameters | Value |
|---|---|
Site Capacity Size (MW) | 300 |
Distance from Port (km) | 12 |
Capacity Factor | 31.3 |
Rotor Diameter (m) | 90 |
Turbine Rows | 10 |
Turbine Colums | 10 |
Turbine | 100 |
System Design Parameters
Thannet has been chosen as a mid-size capacity site. Here, the electrolyser capacity gets doubled, and a proportional increase is observed in the hydrogen production. The size capacity has been determined by the number of wind turbines available for production along with the design parameters of the turbines, such as rotor diameter, capacity factor, etc. This is the approach taken for all the sites. The production volume also takes into consideration the cut-in speed and the number of days the wind speed is above the cut-in speed. Understanding the wind patterns becomes critical as the size of the farm increases. Wind speed intermittency handling has been observed as a major hurdle to the large-scale adoption of such technologies. The parameters and value are in Table below.
Parameters | Value |
|---|---|
Electrolyser Capacity (kW) | 100 |
RO Unit Capacity (m3/d) | 30 |
H2 produced annually (kg) | 12,775 |
3rd Scenario:
HornSea 2
Hornsea 2 is the world's largest offshore wind farm, located in the North Sea, about 89 km off the coast of Yorkshire, England. It has a total capacity of 1.3 gigawatts (GW), which can power more than 1.4 million UK homes with clean and renewable electricity.
The wind farm consists of 165 turbines, each standing about 200 meters tall from the sea level to the top of the blades. The turbines are of the Siemens Gamesa 8 MW model, with a rotor diameter of 167 meters and a swept area of 21,900 square meters. The turbines are connected by an array of cables that transmit the electricity to an offshore substation platform. From there, the electricity is sent to shore via high-voltage direct current (HVDC) export cables.
Hornsea 2 is part of a larger developmen by Orsted, a Danish energy company that is a global leader in offshore wind. Hornsea 2 entered full operation on August 31, 2022, surpassing its neighbour Hornsea 1 as the world's biggest offshore wind farm. Orsted is also developing Hornsea 3 and Hornsea 4, which will be even bigger and further offshore. These projects are expected to contribute significantly to the UK's net zero targets and reduce its dependence on fossil fuels.
Layout Wind Farm
Sits Description
Parameters | Value |
|---|---|
Site Capacity size (MW) | 1,300 |
Distance from Port (km) | 89 |
Capacity Factor | 46.4 |
Rotor Diameter (m) | 167 |
Turbine Rows | 11 |
Turbine Colums | 15 |
Turbine | 165 |
System Design Parameters
Hornsea 2 is one of the largest offshore energy production sites in the UK. We had chosen this site to verify that our tool shows results that are similar to the values we retrieved from the site details. Being the largest site will result in a significant increase in the capacities of each unit. The volume of hydrogen, as mentioned before, will be the highest for this site owing to the large distance that has to be traversed from the port and the potentially large number of failures that can occur. The hydrogen production volume takes into consideration the wind intermittency of the site; thus, the volume of hydrogen that can be produced from the site is significantly close to the exact production capacities. For the size of hydrogen production, it is critical to design an appropriate storage capacity. Hydrogen storage is critical for all three sites. Taking into consideration the size of the hydrogen produced and the risk associated with hydrogen storage, it is important to rationalise potential demand and store the required volume of hydrogen. The storage volume should ideally be the hydrogen that is required to cover the intermittency period of energy production. The parameters and value are presented in Table below.
Parameters | Value |
|---|---|
Electrolyser Capacity (kW) | 1,000 |
RO Unit Capacity (m3/d) | 40 |
H2 produced annually (kg) | 109,500 |