Improved Technologies for the use of Renewable Energies
For onshore use the size and also the output power of wind power units is constantly increasing. Meanwhile ENERCON Ltd. delivers a 6 MW system with a rotor diameter of 126 m and a hub height of 135 m. (figure on the left side). Main reason for this more and more increasing height of the wind power units is to come in to regions with higher and more constant wind speed. That was also the main driving factor to built wind farms off shore.
Unfortunately a lot of technical problems have to be solved to realize such off-shore wind installation. The foundation of the shaft on the sea ground is quite challenging. Also all the switchgear installations have to be brought on platforms into a very aggressive salt-fog environment. Furthermore these platforms have to be interconnected with the onshore power grid by HVDC cables, which will need a lot of challenging technology also on the offshore platforms.