This thesis is focused on offshore wind energy and aims to show the importance
of using renewable energy sources for the production of ‘clean’ energy.
Onshore wind energy is in common use nowadays for the production of electricity
but there are a number of drawbacks when using wind turbines on land. First of all the
wind potential is not as high as the potential at sea conditions and is opposed by humans
mainly due to the visual intrusion of a wind turbine and the noise of the rotating blades.
For the above reasons, wind turbines have started to be deployed offshore. The
impacts that they have on the local environment are minimal, nobody can complain about
the noise created or for the visual impact of a wind turbine located in deep sea water, and
wind turbines can provide us with huge amounts of electricity because there are no
obstacles to change the air flow path and wind velocity.
The scope of this project is to design a 495 MW deep water offshore wind park in
order to take advantage of the current offshore technology used for clean electricity
generation. A complete study concerning the location of installation of the offshore wind
park, the wind potential of the proposed site, possible environmental impacts and an
economical analysis of the components used for the operation of the offshore wind park,
such as wind turbines, deep water foundation, maintenance and many more, are able to
provide us with information about the future use of such technologies worldwide.
In our case, the study of the 495 MW wind park located in the Aegean Sea deep water
showed us that deep water technology is still immature when compared with onshore
wind technology. Although the wind potential is much greater offshore, thus producing
more power than onshore wind turbines, the cost of larger wind turbines together with the
foundations used for deep water wind parks is very high. It is imperative to use large size
wind turbines in order to counterbalance the high initial capital investment.