Patent Application
20120049622
The present invention generally relates to an offshore renewable power plant, and more particularly to an offshore compound renewable power plant, which comprises an ocean energy based power generation system and/or an on-sea production system.
Economic development, population growth, and progress of industry make an increasing rise of the worldwide consumption of electrical power. Fossil fuel is the major source of energy supply for the modem society.
However, fossil fuel is very limited resources of the earth. Further, combustion of fossil fuel generates server pollution of the atmosphere and also emits a large amount of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, which leads to a deteriorating effect of global warming. Thus, developing clean renewable energies as substitutes for fossil fuel is now a primary target of the energy strategies of modem countries.
The renewable energies include solar energy, wind power, geothermal energy, biomass energy hydropower, and ocean energy. Wind power is one of the fastest growing renewables. A wind power generator system comprises a windmill that receives and converts wind power into electrical power. The wind power generator systems are often installed at areas having strong winds or air streams to ensure the generation of sufficient electrical power. It is apparent that a wind power generator system having a great size and installed at a high altitude would receive stronger winds blowing in high sky and thus provide an increased amount of electrical power. Due to the adverse factors, including terrain, shelter, and other factors, found on the land, it is difficult to get a proper site for construction of wind power generation systems of large scales. On the other hand, the surface temperature of an ocean area is much more stable as compared to the land and the wind field of an ocean area is also more stable, both making ocean a better choice for development and construction of wind power generation. Offshore wind power plants are an alternative solution for development of wind power generation, which is now getting worldwide attention.
However, the existing technology of offshore power generation only works for generation of electrical power with winds. It is a pity that a large number of wind power generation systems are installed in an ocean area without further making use of the rich and diverse energy resources provided by the ocean. Thus, the present invention aims to provide a compound power plant that further advance the efficiency of offshore renewable energy based power generation.
The primary objective of the present invention is to provide an offshore compound renewable power plant, which sets up both wind power generation systems and ocean energy based power generation systems in an on-sea plant site to collectively supply an output of electrical power so as to fully use the natural resources available in the on-sea plant site for diverse utilization and to increase total amount of electrical power generated by the plant.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide an offshore compound renewable power plant, which sets up both wind power generation systems and marine production systems, so that the marine production systems can be operated by the electrical power supplied from the wind power generation systems for fully using the natural resources of the on-sea plant site and also for diverse utilization and that electrical power transmission system that feed electrical power from the wind power generation systems to the marine production systems can be simplified due to the neighboring arrangement of the marine production systems to the wind power generation systems.
A further objective of the present invention is to provide an offshore compound renewable power plant, which adopts vertical axis wind power generators to serve as the wind power generation systems so that multi-layered power generation facility can be realized with a stacked arrangement and thus the total amount of electrical generated by a single marine platform can be increased.
Yet a further objective of the present invention is to provide an offshore compound renewable power plant, which comprises wind power generation systems that are combined with solar energy operated electrical power supply devices for using the naturally available sun light to diversify the supply sources of electrical power and effectively increase the amount of electrical power generated thereby.
To achieve the above objectives, according to the present invention, an offshore compound renewable power plant is provided. The offshore compound renewable power plant is built in an on-sea plant site and comprises a plurality of marine platforms, a plurality of wind power generation systems, and at least one ocean energy based power generation system. The marine platforms are set up in the on-sea plant site in a spaced manner and each has a platform located above the sea surface. The wind power generation systems are respectively installed on the marine platforms for receiving winds to generate electrical power. The ocean energy based electrical power generation system is set up in an ocean area inside the on-sea plant site to acquire ocean energy for generation of electrical power. The wind power generation systems and the ocean energy based electrical power generation system collectively supply an output of electrical power together.
The ocean energy based electrical power generation system selectively comprises a wave power generation system, an ocean thermal energy power generation system, an ocean current power generation system, or a tidal power generation system.
In a preferred embodiment, the wind power generation system comprises a vertical axis wind power generator, and may further comprise a solar energy operated electrical power supply device mounted atop the vertical axis wind power generator.
In a preferred embodiment, the wind power generation system comprises a plurality of vertical axis wind power generators that is stacked in a vertical direction, and may further comprise a solar energy operated electrical power supply device mounted atop the vertical axis wind power generators.
In another aspect, the present invention provides an offshore compound renewable power plant, which is built in an on-sea plant site. The offshore compound renewable power plant comprises a plurality of marine platforms, a plurality of wind power generation systems, and at least one marine production system. The marine platforms are set up in the on-sea plant site in a spaced manner, and each has a platform located above sea surface. The wind power generation systems are respectively installed on the marine platforms for receiving winds to generate electrical power. The marine production system is set up in an ocean area inside the on-sea plant site to receive electrical power from the wind power generation systems for performing a desired operation.
The marine production system selectively comprises an electrolysis based hydrogen generation system, a seawater desalination system, or a biomass diesel generation system.
In a preferred embodiment, wind power generation system comprises a vertical axis wind power generator; and may further comprise a solar energy operated electrical power supply device mounted atop the vertical axis wind power generator.
In a preferred embodiment, the wind power generation system comprises a plurality of vertical axis wind power generators that is stacked in a vertical direction, and may further comprise a solar energy operated electrical power supply device mounted atop the vertical axis wind power generators.
The foregoing objectives and summary provide only a brief introduction to the present invention. To fully appreciate these and other objects of the present invention as well as the invention itself, all of which will become apparent to those skilled in the art, the following detailed description of the invention and the claims should be read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. Throughout the specification and drawings identical reference numerals refer to identical or similar parts.
Many other advantages and features of the present invention will become manifest to those versed in the art upon making reference to the detailed description and the accompanying sheets of drawings in which a preferred structural embodiment incorporating the principles of the present invention is shown by way of illustrative example.
The following descriptions are exemplary embodiments only, and are not intended to limit the scope, applicability or configuration of the invention in any way. Rather, the following description provides a convenient illustration for implementing exemplary embodiments of the invention. Various changes to the described embodiments may be made in the function and arrangement of the elements described without departing from the scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims.
The present invention provides an offshore compound renewable power plant, which is aimed at diverse use of a marine plant site in order to realize the maximum efficiency of development and exploitation of the plant site.
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The feature of the present invention is that the offshore compound renewable power plant 10 of the present invention further comprise an ocean energy based power generation system or a marine production system (not shown in the drawing) for the purpose of fully using the ocean resources to thereby realize diverse operation of the on-sea plant site 100. This will be further described.
Another feature of the present invention is that the wind power generation systems 13 comprise vertical axis wind power generators.
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A horizontal axis wind power generator must be set to align with the direction of air flows or winds. However, a vertical axis wind power generator does not need to consider the direction of winds. Further, the vertical axis wind power generator has a symmetric and stable structure, which allows for the construction of a multi-layered power generation arrangement.
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Besides the above discussed embodiments, other types of ocean energy based electrical power generation can be adopted, including ocean current power generation and tidal power generation. The ocean current power generation is carried out by using ocean currents to rotate a turbine, which in turn drives a dynamo to generate electrical power. The tidal power generation is carried out by using altitude difference between high and low tides to rotate a hydraulic turbine, which in turn drives a dynamo to generate electrical power. All these ocean energy based power generation systems require different geographic condition, so that the offshore compound renewable power plant of the present invention can be constructed as versatile ocean energy based power generation system, which is installed at a proper ocean area according to the requirements of power generation.
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It is noted that the offshore compound renewable power plant according to the present invention can be arranged to simultaneously include various marine production systems and ocean energy based power generation systems, which are set up in proper zones inside an on-sea plant site. The present invention aims to provide a versatile arrangement of offshore compound renewable power plant, of which all the constituent sub-systems are generally known so that further detail is not needed herein.
In summary, the offshore compound renewable power plant according to the present invention comprises both wind power generation systems installed on marine platforms in an on-sea plant site and ocean energy based power generation systems and/or marine production systems in the on-sea plant site in order to realize versatile operations of the on-sea plant site and thus advance the efficiency of development and exploitation of the on-sea plant site. Further, by adopting the vertical axis wind power generators as the wind power generation systems, a multi-layered arrangement of electrical power generation system can be realized for increasing the amount of electrical power generated.
It will be understood that each of the elements described above, or two or more together may also find a useful application in other types of methods differing from the type described above.
While certain novel features of this invention have been shown and described and are pointed out in the annexed claim, it is not intended to be limited to the details above, since it will be understood that various omissions, modifications, substitutions and changes in the forms and details of the device illustrated and in its operation can be made by those skilled in the art without departing in any way from the spirit of the present invention.
