The government is planning offshore wind farms to reduce the country's dependency on fossil fuels. Massimo Farrugia takes a look at this cutting edge technology and its feasibility.
Prevailing winds
They are imposing white fans held up by poles as high as Dingli cliffs. In Europe, they are mushrooming everywhere - mostly out at sea - to an extent that the continent's wind-powered electricity generating capacity has increased by over 150 per cent since 2000.
According to experts, wind farms, among other renewables, are key to resolving the energy crisis. Perhaps it was not by chance that Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi chose the close of the European Union-Latin America summit to announce that the government would set up offshore wind farms to reduce Malta's dependency on oil. Earlier, trade talks between the EU and Latin America - which interested Malta very little - were suddenly overshadowed by the struggle to control the world's resources, the globe's increasing energy demands and spiking oil prices.
Dr Gonzi told Maltese journalists that installing wind turbines would require a large capital expense and an international call for tenders will be issued soon.
But what would such a project entail? Where can an offshore wind farm be set up? Would it be feasible and, indeed, would a wind farm really reduce dependency on oil when our energy needs are growing? Could Malta ever stop burning oil?
Tonio Sant, an engineer and wind energy researcher at the University of Malta, thinks that Malta has a potential to use winds to produce electricity. He is cautiously optimistic.
"Given Malta's land scarcity, the logical conclusion would be to set up offshore wind farms. But it is not as straightforward as it might seem. Malta lacks shallow waters, and that is a major obstacle," Mr Sant said.
At Horns Rev - a massive wind farm off the Danish coast constructed in 2002 - the sea is only six to 15 metres deep, even though the area is 20 kilometres offshore.
The sea around Malta varies from 60 metres in certain places to up to 190 metres in others. Towards the southern part of the island, the sea is even deeper than the Sicily channel.
"Wind turbines must be firmly grounded into the seabed and though technically possible, installing a pole at a depth of more than 25 metres raises costs. Where there are deep waters, it is becoming more possible to support wind turbines on a floating platform like an oilrig. Besides being still in the offing, this technology will be more expensive since the platform still needs to be anchored firmly to the seabed, restricting fishing and navigation from most parts of the farm," Mr Sant said.
Money wise, setting up wind farms on land costs approximately €1,000 for every kilowatt hour (KWh) of energy produced. The cost of wind farms at sea, at a depth of less than 25 metres, goes up to €1,500 per KWh - 50 per cent more than on land. If a wind farm is set up where the sea is deeper than 25 metres, the cost goes up to €2,500 per KWh. That is two-and-a-half times more expensive than on land.
Using an ordinary navigation chart, Mr Sant identified a few shallow areas around the islands where the sea is less than 25 metres deep. The largest reef where it would be easy to set up a farm is Is-Sikka l-Bajda, located about two kilometres off Mellieha.
"With an area of around seven square kilometres, Is-Sikka l-Bajda can accommodate 18 turbines with an output of three megawatt hour (MWh) each. A total output of 54 MWh means that a farm there would produce 10 per cent of Malta's energy needs.
"In real terms, the wind farm would produce just 25 per cent of that output because of variations in wind speed and direction. Though there are prevailing winds from the north west (majjistral) and the north east (grigal) in Malta, they are not as strong as in the shallow North Sea where European countries are setting up wind farms, and that is less in our favour."
Wind turbine size and capacity have grown in the past 20 years making the technology much more feasible and cost effective. The largest turbines today have rotor blades with a diameter ranging from 100 to 120 metres, providing an output of three to five megawatt hour. Wind turbine poles today are 100 to 120 metres tall. In 1995, the largest wind turbine available had a rotor diameter of 50 metres with an output of 600 kilowatt hour, one eighth of the output of today's wind turbines.
"Wind farm technology is growing at 27 per cent each year, so I'm sure they will become more feasible and cheap in the future. Research has shown that a single large wind turbine is cheaper to build and set up than two small turbines which add up to the same capacity. Besides, it is aerodynamically more efficient than a small one and can pick up more wind at a higher altitude," Mr Sant explained. He believes that wind turbines also provide the island with value-added in terms of employment opportunities. However, he thinks that before taking the plunge at sea a few small wind turbines should be set up on land as there is a long way to go for us to learn how to plan, manage and maintain offshore wind farms.
Though massive, turbines can be removed leaving practically no impact on the environment where they were installed originally.
"Aerodynamic noise is also an issue when turbines are installed on land. But I think it is not really an issue when compared to noise pollution by cars and aircraft," Mr Sant said.
At sea, access to the turbines in rough weather becomes a real challenge, so engineers servicing them often have to be winched down from a helicopter.
'Spectacular projects are no solution'
With a huge capital investment in wind farms, Malta would still need to burn oil to produce electricity, however high the percentage of renewables we use to generate power. It is often argued that armed conflicts are motivated by an urge to control resources. On the economic side, the emergence of the Chinese and Indian economies has increased demand drastically. The bottom line is that the world's resources are being depleted very fast. Will alternative sources be enough to satisfy our growing energy needs? What will we do when the world's oil is gone?
"That's a rather apocalyptic question," says Edward Mallia, a professor at the University of Malta's Faculty of Science.
"Oil is not the only fossil fuel, even if it is the most versatile. Taking gas and coal, the first may well last as long as oil, though the idea of 'lasting' is perhaps not the best way to look at these things. The question of price may offer a better handle as this will drive us towards utilisation of less easily exploited deposits.
"For instance, in their insatiable demand for fuel to power their economic expansion, the Chinese have persuaded Canada to start mining the Athabasca Tar Sands in central Canada in order to extract oil from them. Energy required for extraction is around five per cent of recovered energy content. Compare that with Saudi oil, where the same fraction barely reaches 0.05 per cent. Coal, at present out of favour, should last another 500 years even with significantly increased rates of use; there are already well-known processes for getting liquid fuels out of coal," Prof. Mallia said.
However, he added, we still need to make a start on tackling basic issues.
"The basic issue is what you called 'our growing energy needs'. We need to get stuck into two campaigns very urgently: the first is to improve the efficiency of generation of electricity mainly by installing new generation equipment; the second is to run a campaign with teeth to improve efficiency at the user end. This second is likely to yield the quickest dividends, but it must be well-designed and must reach into every aspect of use of electricity. Witness for instance, the recent EU statistic of eight per cent of domestic electricity being consumed by devices left on standby. That highlights another of our national failings."
In the energy field, looking for single, spectacular solutions is a recipe for disaster, and in our situation particularly so, Prof. Mallia said.
"The one virtue here is a constant attention to detail, which discards no 'solution' unless it is proven not to work, and to seek an integrated approach."
In the 2006 budget there was a promise of incentives for adding roof insulation and also for installing small wind rotors.
However, in the Malta Resources Authority report sent to Brussels, it was stated that the Malta Environment and Planning Authority would not give planning permission for rotors on house roofs.
"That apart, Mepa has only recently decided to allow third storeys and penthouses. So, having spent some Lm3,000 to Lm4,000, say, on photo-voltaic panels and associated electronics, the householder across the street, who happens to be in the direction of south, puts up a third storey and a penthouse, so cutting me off from most of the winter sun!
"Another campaign," Prof. Mallia said, "must be directed to a decreased use of transport fuels, with all the hassle that that entails given the inextricable tangle between egos and private cars and driving styles.
"All the above is to make clear that our sudden rush to wind or sun energy not backed by a close look at conventional energy use is simply trying to replace conventional energy, which we are in fact wasting, by very expensive renewable energy. Clearly, a sensible process should go the other way round: first optimise your use of conventional energy, which would indeed lessen our dependence on fossil fuels, then go for renewables," Prof. Mallia said.
Despite the present drive to use renewable energy sources, are we (as human beings, and as Maltese) still in time to reduce our dependency on traditional sources or is it too little, too late?
Prof. Mallia said a paper published by the university's Institute of Energy Technology showed that if we were to develop fully our wind, solar and landfill gas potentials, we could probably displace 25 per cent of 2003 generation.
"If we added on our full solar water heating potential, that could get us up to 30 per cent of 2003 generation. Those figures show quite clearly that we really have no hope of substituting all of the energy we now get from oil with renewable sources."
The professor says there is also a question of time scales. "Even if Dr Gonzi issues a call for tenders (what for exactly?) in the next few weeks, it will be years before we see an operational wind farm, particularly as it seems that he picked on the most difficult offshore wind power technology, which is not yet on the market. Even so, I do not think we have yet reached the stage of 'too little too late'; but I do think that we are in danger of frittering away our limited resources in uncoordinated initiatives and inter-ministerial squabbling," Prof. Mallia said.
European wind energy
According to Eurostat, the EU's statistics arm, wind powered electricity generating capacity increased by over 150 per cent in the EU25 since 2000.
In 2004, the total electricity generation capacity in the EU was almost 704 gigawatts, six per cent more than in 2000. Yet, wind turbines are responsible for more than half of the new generating capacity arm, the other half being largely conventional thermal power stations.
According to the European Wind Energy Agency, there is enough wind to light up all of Europe. Yet, power stations running on fossil fuels are still dominant, accounting for 58 per cent of installed capacity. Nuclear power plants represented 19 per cent, hydroelectric power plants 18 per cent, and wind turbines just under five per cent.
Conventional thermal power stations account for the totality of electricity generation in Cyprus and Malta, the near totality in Estonia and had a share of over 90 per cent in the Netherlands and Poland. In Latvia and Austria the share of hydropower in total installed capacity was 71 per cent and 63 per cent respectively. Wind power was significant in Denmark (23 per cent of total generation capacity), Germany (13 per cent) and Spain (12 per cent).
The first large scale offshore wind farm was built by Denmark in 2002. Eighty turbines were installed, giving a total capacity of 160 megawatts, equivalent to two per cent of the country's demand.
The United Kingdom is planning 15 wind farms with a total capacity of 7,200 megawatts in three areas off the western and eastern coasts.
Germany is planning to have up to 25,000 megawatts of offshore wind farms by 2025 and 2030 to satisfy 15 per cent of the country's total demand. The Netherlands, Ireland, Sweden and Belgium are also planning offshore farms.