Offshore Wind Energy and the Romanian Energy Future

Department of Mechanical Engineering, "Dunarea de Jos" University of Galati, Domneasca Street, 47, Galati 800008, Romania

^* Corresponding author: florin.onea@ugal.ro

Abstract

The aim of the present work is to assess the electricity production coming from an offshore wind farm that may operate in the northern part of the Romanian coastal area. In the first part, a complete description of the Romanian energy sector is presented considering the t ime interval from January 2008 to December 2018. In general, the elect ricity sold is negat ive (exports exceed imports), with the ment ion that a significant cont ribution comes from hydroelect ric and coal generat ion. It is important to ment ion that , if one of these two sectors willno longer perform on full capacity, the elect ricity balance will be shifted to the elect ricity imports. As for the wind energy, the average values from the vicinity of Sulina site may vary between 5.6 m/s and 8 m/s depending on the season, these results being reported at a wind turbine level (80 m). By using an offshore win d farm which replicates the Greater Gabbard project (504 MW), England, was possible to est imate the annual energy product ion and to indicate the expected impact on the energy sector. For example, a single wind farm may cover 1.7% of the total production, which may be further associated with 9.6% from nuclear, 7.6% from hydroelect ric or 6.4% from coal, respectively.