heal.abstract |
In recent year
s, renewable
energy sources
have evolved rapidly, as green energy is
important not
only for the citizens of developed countries but also for the
governments worldwide.
The most
significant
among
renewable
energy sources
is wind energy, thus always new wind energy park
projects have been developed
worldwide
and investors try to find the best spots for the farms with
the most
propitious
conditions. I
n this effort has offshore wind energy an important part.
This thesis
tries to evaluate an investment of an offshore wind farm in Greek waters.
First
, a site is being chosen in the first chapter
with its rated power and the number of wind turbines.
This pa
rt is very important because all meteorological and geotechnical data, which are essential for
the later analysis, are extracted.
Selection
of a favorable site
is
very critical for the economical viability
of the project.
Moreover,
the first chapter
invest
igate
s
the ecological
, marine etc. conditions, that the
wind park must satisfy.
Subsequently, the design requirements for offshore wind turbines are
evaluated
and the steel structure
of the tower
is checked
,
given the data that
are
extracted from
chapter 1
. All calculations are carried out with different softwares, each one of those with
its
own
function in the analysis.
The wind turbines’ resistance is checked against
random wind and wave
loads. After the steel structures’ evaluation comes the mission of m
anagement, transport
ation
and
installation of the wind turbines, the content of which has a significant meaning for a civil engineer. In
this section, the procedure of building an offshore wind farm is described, which begins with the
transport of the part
s to the port and follows
with
the installation
o
n site.
In
the final chapter
,
an
energy analysis is
carried out
and the
expected
energy production, given the annual wind data and
the power curve of the selected wind turbine model, is calculated. An estimation of the capital costs
and the costs of operation and maintenance is
performed
, which is based in other installed wind
parks,
thus the economic viability is evaluated. Furthermore, it
is
examined
whether
a selection of
another wind turbine model with
higher
o
r lower
power capacity would be more profitable |
en |