Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by strainer 2392 days ago
Heh, well maybe - adopt an Elon Musk development strategy : "Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough." it more than works for his projects, but if you're competing for policy support and you happen to get your 20 year gusts this year it looks really bad, even if a low percentage of turbines actually caught them from a bad direction and happen to need new blades.

Also with offshore windfarms, the big extra expense is in installing the towers and cabling. They are getting significant subsidy to be built for 15 year power purchase contracts, but once those towers and cables are built the farm can remain very valuable at the end of the contract, if refurbishment is required it could be remarkably cheap especially with a fleet of specialized ships to it carry out, some of which are already at work putting them up.