Offshore wind farm electrical design: a review

Abstract

Wind energy will be indispensable as Europe advances towards a low carbon energy future. Offshore locations in the North and Baltic seas are expected to host large arrays of wind farms that plan to export formidable amounts of electricity to the continent. The design of such plants is an intricate task where the electrical layout plays a crucial role. This complexity calls for the use of advanced optimization tools to support investment and operation decisions. This paper reviews the main approaches already developed in the literature and discusses their implications. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Ecosystem Services in the Baltic Sea

“…Here especially space for various anthropogenic activities on and in the Baltic Sea has become more important over the last years. For example, the Baltic Sea is becoming increasingly interesting for offshore wind power (Lumbreras and Ramos 2013), which may support other ecosystem services such as providing habitats for fish and mussels (Andersson and Öhman 2010). Notably, competition for marine space in parts of the Baltic (Janßen et al 2013) is one of the drivers for the implementation of Marine Spatial Planning.…”

“…In the ecosystem services framework, Kulmala et al (2012) have studied the economic value of provisioning and recreational services of Baltic salmon, and Kosenius & Ollikainen (2012) the benefits from habitats and species, recreation, and food and raw materials. The importance of cultural ecosystem services, mainly recreation, has been studied by Ahtiainen et al (2013) and Lewis et al (2013). Some of these studies have been conducted in all Baltic Sea coastal countries (Ahtiainen et al 2013(Ahtiainen et al , 2014, providing comparable information for the whole region.…”

“…The number of offshore windmills is increasing (Lumbreras and Ramos 2013). This may have environmental effects where wind parks are constructed including reef effects (Andersson and Öhman 2010), sound effects (Andersson et al 2007(Andersson et al , 2012 and impacts from magnetic fields (Öhman et al 2007).…”

“…These cost estimates can help decide the level of preparedness for future oil spills, assess the effects from oil spills on fishing and tourism industries and also to the general public In the Baltic Sea. Lewis et al (2013) studied the monetary value of cultural ecosystem services related to Baltic Sea food webs. With a choice experiment conducted in Poland in 2012, they elicited willingness to pay for four ecological features: algal bloom intensity and timing, local species visibility, regional species population and local fisheries catch consistency and profitability.…”

“…The findings increase the information on the value of cultural ecosystem services provided by the Baltic Sea in Poland. According to Lewis et al (2013), a similar case study was also conducted in Finland, but the results have not been published yet. Depellegrin & Blažauskas (2013) used existing studies and value estimates to assess the losses from oil spills in the Lithuanian coast.…”