One of the stories recently featured on one of my favorite sites, Reddit, was a link to some amazing pictures of offshore wind farms. Seeing these pictures of wind turbines really made clear to me the reality of offshore wind power, and the size and scope required to harness the power of wind over the ocean. Summarizing some points from the article:
average wind speeds are greater over the ocean than they are over land
the world’s largest offshore wind farm is Horn’s Reef project located 14 kilometers (or about 9 miles) off the coast of Denmark in the North Sea (which has some of the roughest water in the world)
waves at the Horn’s Reef project are 8-10 meters (about 25 – 30 feet)
the Danish Government has a plan to have wind turbines with a total capacity of 4000 MW in Danish waters by 2030
since 2002, the Horn’s Reef project has produced enough energy to run 150,000 Danish households For this post, pictures are worth more than 1,000 words, so do click over and see the pictures of offshore wind farms for yourself.
So what stocks are in play because of this?
I am holding on to my DESC.
We posted these pictures because we thought they were really cool and would help people visualize what offshore wind farming was all about.
While this post did not relate to specific investment opportunities, we think the following are good plays on wind: Vestas (http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=VWS.CO), Gamesa (http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=GAM.MC), and, on the utility side, FPL (http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=FPL) and Iberdrola (http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=IBE.MC).
There is a wind project going off the Washington coast in the US. I think the company, Hydrovolts, may be integrating private capital into the project soon. It seems like an extremely timely project which could generate enough energy to provide for all the daily energy needs of a major city like Seattle or San Francisco. The upcoming technology for alternative energy is really exciting. Thanks, Brian, for posting the pictures!