Current Offshore Wind Turbines
Scotland's first offshore wind turbine was placed near the Beatrice Oil Field, 15 miles off the east coast in the Moray Firth, North Sea, in August 2006. This was the world's largest wind turbine at the time, an REpower 5M, with a maximum output of 5MW. A second identical turbine joined it and the wind farm began supplying electricity in August 2007. As of February 2010, Beatrice Wind Farm is the deepest and northernmost offshore wind installation in the world.
This was the first time such large offshore wind turbines had been tested, and the first time any wind turbine generators have been assembled in such deep (44 metres) water. Such large wind turbine generators are ideally suited to the offshore environment due to high consistent wind speeds and minimal turbulence. According to historical measures of wind speeds at the Beatrice offshore location, it is expected that the turbines will run 96% of the time (8440 hours per year), and at 10 MW full power 38% of the time (3300 hours per year).
Read more about this topic: Wind Power In Scotland
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