RWE Innogy participates in cost-cutting initiative for offshore wind farms
RWE Innogy is participating in the British 'Offshore Wind Accelerator' (OWA) initiative launched today by the British Carbon Trust. The Carbon Trust is an independent company founded by the British government in 2001 and aims to avoid CO2 emissions, conserve energy and develop ecologically desirable technology. To this end, Carbon Trust cooperates with companies and government agencies.
Under the Offshore Wind Accelerator initiative, Carbon Trust pools the competencies of five leading energy utilities to move research and development of offshore wind technology forward. Involved, apart from RWE Innogy, are Dong Energy (Denmark), Airtricity Developments (United Kingdom), Scottish Power Renewables (United Kingdom) and StatoilHydro (Norway). The companies share the aim of reducing the costs for offshore wind projects by an average of 10 % in the future. The initiative funded with some 30 million Pounds Sterling for the next five years is focused on improvements in plant engineering and enhanced performance of offshore wind farms.
Kevin McCullough, COO of RWE Innogy: 'This joint effort is important to master the enormous challenges of generating wind power offshore. Our initiative is designed to develop new ways of improving the performance and increasing the economic life of offshore wind farms.'
In a first step, RWE Innogy is therefore supporting the feasibility studies in the OWA context. These efforts are focused on the development of new and cost-effective deep-sea foundations and the preparation of studies on specific flow conditions and improving the energy yield within large offshore wind farms. Improved procurement and logistics of components essential to the economically efficient construction and operation of wind farms are another aim of the initiative. Research and development for an intelligent network system to minimise energy losses of electricity transmission within the wind farm and to the coast are also to be taken forward.
The second phase of the offshore wind initiative starting in 2010 will focus on the erection of large-scale demonstration plants.
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