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Engineers enlist weather model to optimize offshore wind plan
https://engineering.stanford.edu/news/engineers-enlist-climate-model-optimize-offshore-wind-plan[font face=Times,Times New Roman,Serif][font size=5]Engineers enlist weather model to optimize offshore wind plan[/font]
[font size=4]Using a sophisticated weather model, environmental engineers at Stanford have defined optimal placement of a grid of four wind farms off the U.S. East Coast. The model successfully balances production at times of peak demand and significantly reduces costly spikes and zero-power events.
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[font size=3]By Andrew Myers
Politics aside, most energy experts agree that cheap, clean, renewable wind energy holds great potential to help the world satisfy energy needs while reducing harmful greenhouse gases. Wind farms placed offshore could play a large role in meeting such challenges, and yet no offshore wind farms exist today in the United States.
In a study just published in Geophysical Research Letters, a team of engineers at Stanford has harnessed a sophisticated weather model to recommend optimal placement of four interconnected wind farms off the coast of the Eastern United States, a region that accounts for 34 percent of the nation’s electrical demand and 35 percent of carbon dioxide emissions.
“It is the first time anyone has used high-resolution meteorological data to plan the placement of offshore wind grid,” said senior author Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering. “And this sophistication has provided a deeper level of understanding to the grid plan.”[/font]
The team started with 12 randomly selected energetic locations (in magenta) between Long Island, New York and a shallows about a hundred miles to the east of Cape Cod, and narrowed their recommendation to four optimal locations, highlighted in red, with a total capacity of 2000 megawatts. Map: Mike Dvorak, Stanford School of Engineering
…[/font]
[font size=4]Using a sophisticated weather model, environmental engineers at Stanford have defined optimal placement of a grid of four wind farms off the U.S. East Coast. The model successfully balances production at times of peak demand and significantly reduces costly spikes and zero-power events.
[/font]
[font size=3]By Andrew Myers
Politics aside, most energy experts agree that cheap, clean, renewable wind energy holds great potential to help the world satisfy energy needs while reducing harmful greenhouse gases. Wind farms placed offshore could play a large role in meeting such challenges, and yet no offshore wind farms exist today in the United States.
In a study just published in Geophysical Research Letters, a team of engineers at Stanford has harnessed a sophisticated weather model to recommend optimal placement of four interconnected wind farms off the coast of the Eastern United States, a region that accounts for 34 percent of the nation’s electrical demand and 35 percent of carbon dioxide emissions.
“It is the first time anyone has used high-resolution meteorological data to plan the placement of offshore wind grid,” said senior author Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering. “And this sophistication has provided a deeper level of understanding to the grid plan.”[/font]
The team started with 12 randomly selected energetic locations (in magenta) between Long Island, New York and a shallows about a hundred miles to the east of Cape Cod, and narrowed their recommendation to four optimal locations, highlighted in red, with a total capacity of 2000 megawatts. Map: Mike Dvorak, Stanford School of Engineering
…[/font]
