400 Offshore Wind Turbines Survived Typhoon Danas In Taiwan

Taiwan and Japan collaborated on a strict new standard for offshore wind turbines in the Taiwan Strait back in 2017, and all that hard work is paying off. Typhoon Danas* barged through the region earlier this week, leaving all 400 wind turbines were untouched and ready for operation. The success story should provide offshore wind advocates in the US with a strong case, except…oh, well…

Standards Matter: Offshore Wind Turbines Live To Tell The Tale

Typhoon Danas hit parts of Taiwan with heavy rain and damaging wind speeds over the weekend. “The typhoon made landfall on the west coast late Sunday with maximum sustained winds of 144 kph (89 mph). It dumped more than 60 centimeters (24 inches) of rain in places, causing landslides and flooding,” ABC News reported. Hundreds were injured and damage to the nation’s onshore power grid was severe.

By the time Danas reached the Taiwan Strait it was still a dangerous and destructive storm. “Typhoon Danas has made landfall in Taiwan, weakening to a severe tropical storm as it continues its path towards China, according to the latest advisory from Thailand’s Meteorological Department,” The Nation Thailand reported on July 6.

The offshore wind turbines in Taiwan Strait ares strong enough to survive typhoons. High winds trigger automatic safety lockdowns, pinning the blades in place to prevent damage from rapid spinning. “The Ministry of Economic Affairs reported that offshore wind power facilities sustained no damage from the typhoon,” Taiwan News noted, adding that the turbines were beginning to ratchet back up as early as Sunday, achieving 2.29 million kilowatts by late Monday night, accounting for 9.2% of the nation’s electricity consumption.

Those 2017 safety requirements fall under the Class T standard. To qualify, offshore wind turbines need to survive a typhoon that hits the equivalent of 17 on the Beaufort scale. As described by the Taipei Times, that means sustaining an average speed of 57 meters per second (about 180 feet/s) for 10 minutes.

In contrast to the quick recovery of offshore wind power assets, the destruction on land in Taiwan was widespread and severe. Taiwan News reported that Danas toppled about 1,400 power poles along with several high-voltage transmission towers. Almost 200 switches and transformers were also damaged. In all, about 829,000 households lost power.

About That US Grid Reliability Study…

In one of those curious coincidences of timing, right around the same time that hundreds of offshore turbines were getting the job done in the Taiwan Strait, the US Department of Energy released a new, hair-on-fire report aimed at scaring everyone into supporting conventional power generation. Under the somewhat misleading title, “Evaluating the Reliability and Security of the United States Electric Grid,” the thinly disguised paean to fossil and nuclear energy was released on July 7. It painted a worst-case scenario in which blackouts across the US will increase 100 times by 2030 — less than five years from now — unless the nation quickly ramps up its fleet of coal, gas, oil, and nuclear power plants.

Apparently they forgot to account for those pesky supply chain bottlenecks. The backlog for new gas turbines, for example, is currently stretching up to five years, with some estimates coming in at up to seven years.

The timeline mismatch is even worse for conventional nuclear power plants, which can easily soak up decades to build. New SMR (Small Modular Reactor) technology provides a shortcut, but the US likely won’t see its first SMRs until the full blown grid crisis hits as predicted by the Energy Department.

“Two SMRs are set to begin operations in 2030 in Covert Township, on Lake Michigan about 36 miles north of the Indiana border,” reported Inside Climate News on March 27, while observing that the developer, Holtec International, is still waiting on approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Also, there goes that pesky supply chain again, and the related issue of cost. ICN reporter Carrie Klein noted that Holtec has already set up factory operations in Camden, New Jersey. “But to accomplish price reductions on a wider scale, the U.S. will need to build out supply chains that don’t yet exist,” Klein wrote.

It’s also worth taking a look back at an Obama-era demonstration project in conjunction under the wing of the SMR startup NuScale, to be located at Idaho National Laboratory. As of 2020 the project was still in motion with the support of the utility Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems, under its “Carbon Free Power” wing. However, in 2023 NuScale went belly up and the project was canceled.

This Is Not Your Father’s Department Of Energy

Now that a malevolently incompetent Commander-in-Chief is in charge of federal energy policy, it’s no surprise to see the Energy Department become a shill for outdated energy systems. To be fair, though, the new grid report does not include a page listing the Energy Department staff responsible for producing it. So, who is responsible? Here’s the link, drop a note in the comment thread if you can figure it out.

Meanwhile, clean energy advocates have called the report nothing more than an attempt to circumvent normal regulatory processes in order to keep aging coal, gas, and oil power plants in operation, while smoothing the way to building new ones. Unlike other federal reports of this type, there was no opportunity for public commentary, leaving other energy stakeholders no time to prepare a point by point response.

EarthJustice among those to issue a preliminary response. “Extending the lives of aging fossil fueled power plants usurps the judgment of state regulators, the utility, state Attorneys General, and numerous other parties who negotiate and approve the settlements to retire these plants,” the organization pointed out on July 7.

“DOE’s rushed one-size-fits-all approach — developed behind closed doors with no public input — is flawed and it could cost ratepayers an average of $2 billion or more every year without providing corresponding reliability benefits,” they added.

More Offshore Wind For The US, Eventually

The simple fact is that the US has all the energy it needs to meet the near-term rising demand for electricity. Copious wind and solar energy (especially solar energy) are already at hand along with energy storage. Emerging goethermal and marine energy technologies will add even more clean kilowatts over the long term.

Circling back to nation’s offshore wind resources in particular, the US offshore industry began life in the early 2000s with at three important advantages under its belt: long coastlines, huge energy-thirsty coastal populations, and extensive offshore experience borrowed from the domestic oil and gas industry. The missing link was the domestic supply chain, and that began forming in rapid order.

By last November, the wind industry organization Oceantic Network credited the US offshore wind industry with creating thousands of new jobs and raising a total of $40 billion in new investments, $24 billion of which consisted of “direct investments towards manufacturing, vessel-building and shipyard upgrades, port infrastructure, transmission planning, and workforce development across 39 red and blue states.”

Much of that activity is now on hold or lost forever. However, US presidents come and go, while the wind will continue to blow. Keep an eye out for signs of a revival after Election Day 2028, which is just around the corner.

*To our readers: From the news reports, Typhoon Danas was rated as a tropical storm by the time it reached the wind turbines in the Taiwan Strait. If you have any details to add, please share.

Photo (cropped): Four hundred offshore wind turbines survived to resume operations after Typhoon Danas swept through Taiwan on its way to China earlier this week (Taiwan National Meteorological Centre).