Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 109, Issue 9, Pages 3247-3252Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1111769109
Keywords
probabilistic analysis; wind energy; phase-type distribution; tropical cyclone
Categories
Funding
- Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) STAR
- Doris Duke Charitable Foundation
- Richard King Mellon Foundation
- Heinz Endowments
- Department of Energy National Energy Technology Laboratory
- Electric Power Research Institute at Carnegie Mellon University
- Center for Climate and Energy
- National Science Foundation [SES-0949710]
- Carnegie Mellon University
- Direct For Social, Behav & Economic Scie
- Divn Of Social and Economic Sciences [949710] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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The U.S. Department of Energy has estimated that if the United States is to generate 20% of its electricity from wind, over 50 GW will be required from shallow offshore turbines. Hurricanes are a potential risk to these turbines. Turbine tower buckling has been observed in typhoons, but no offshore wind turbines have yet been built in the United States. We present a probabilistic model to estimate the number of turbines that would be destroyed by hurricanes in an offshore wind farm. We apply this model to estimate the risk to offshore wind farms in four representative locations in the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal waters of the United States. In the most vulnerable areas now being actively considered by developers, nearly half the turbines in a farm are likely to be destroyed in a 20-y period. Reasonable mitigation measures-increasing the design reference wind load, ensuring that the nacelle can be turned into rapidly changing winds, and building most wind plants in the areas with lower risk-can greatly enhance the probability that offshore wind can help to meet the United States' electricity needs.
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