Guest post by Steven Goddard
The Telegraph has an article today about the latest addition to the UK wind energy grid, described as “Europe’s largest onshore wind farm at Whitelee.” The article says :
When the final array is connected to the grid later this week, there will be 140 turbines generating 322 megawatts of electricity. This is enough to power 180,000 homes.
Assuming the turbines are actually moving. The problem is that on the coldest days in winter, the air is still and the turbines don’t generate much (if any) electricity. Consider the week of February 4-10, 2009 in Glasgow.
The average temperature was -2C (29F) during the week, and there was almost no wind on most of those days. No wind means no electricity. On the coldest days, there is no wind – so wind power fails just when you need it the most. On the morning of February 4, the temperature was -7C (19F) and the wind speed was zero.
In order to keep society from lapsing into the dark ages, there has to be enough conventional (coal, natural gas, hydroelectric and nuclear) capacity to provide 100% of the power requirements on any given day. Thus it becomes apparent that Britain’s push for “renewable” energy is leading the UK towards major problems in the future.
The belief that conventional capacity can be fully replaced by wind or solar is simply mistaken and based on a flawed thought process. People want to believe in renewable energy, and that desire blocks them from thinking clearly. The people of Glasgow were fortunate in February that there was still still enough conventional capacity available to keep their lights on. As the UK’s plans to “convert” to “renewable energy” proceed, this will no longer be the case.
Wind and solar can reduce the average load over a year, but they can not reduce the base or peak requirements for conventional electricity.
In the future, weather forecasts may have to include a segment like “No electricity from Wednesday through Friday. Some electricity possible over the weekend.”
BTW – You can purchase those nice fluorescent green jackets at the Claymore Filling Station in Ballachulish for about £12. I’ve got one just like it in the closet.
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rafa (07:35:10) :
That’s a really interesting graphic. For idiots like me though, and I know you said it was self explanatory, but could you please translate “ciclo combinado, Resto reg. esp. and intercambios int” into English.
I know, we British are useless at language, and you now have more proof, but it would be much appreciated.
Gracias
oops,
In my above post I calculated .03% as my estimate of what wind power contributes to the total in California. It is actually .38%. If anybody actually has the numbers in kilowatt hours it would be interesting to compare to my estimates.
May I throw something else into the mix? The Earth is a great big hot ball with a thin crust on it. In theory there’s enough energy below your feet to power our needs till long after the Sun goes out, and since it’s below everyone’s feet, doesn’t come with any geopolitical problems attached, like oil. Of course the technical problems of trying to extract geothermal energy are at present immense, but I feel confident they could be overcome one day (but perhaps not soon). In the meantime fossil fuels can keep us going for quite a while without, I’m sure, overheating the planet. The biggest danger we will face is the competition for dwindling oil and gas reserves.
richcar (08:35:53) :
I do not recognize any of the data you presented. The published data from California Energy Commission (CEC) is quite different.
see http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/electricity/total_system_power.html
Also, from CEC, the total installed MW for wind, through 2008, was 2353 MW. California’s wind power plants operated at average capacity factor of 36.9 percent of nameplate capacity in 2006, and around 28 percent in 2008.
As I wrote in an earlier comment, wind in California provides around 2 percent of total power sold (for 2008, it was 2.5 percent). Not the 0.03 percent you quoted.
The problem with wind is that it has to be backed up 1:1 by conventional power generation such as gas fired, coal, oil or nuclear.
It means have to have 200% capacity to ensure 100% supply.
Does that make economic sense?
It’s pure economic lunacy.
It depends. Say wind costs zero and you have to pay for coal/nat. gas. You come out ahead if wind displaces fuel use even if you have to keep a minimum burn on a coal plant to keep it ready.
Now of course considering wind costs 2X to 3X coal. It gets nuts. If wind costs less than a gas peaker AND if a peaker can be dispatched in short order it might make some sense since gas is high cost.
Wind makes the most sense when located near a hydro plant because hydro can be dispatched instantly.
The Israelis are thinking along these lines in something called the Ezekiel Project.
http://www.ezekielproject.org/
The problem is not battery efficiency. It is high battery efficiency with long life at low costs.
We do have batteries with efficiencies greater than 90%.
Let me note that wind speed graphs do not do the situation justice. What we need is wind power graphs. Which would be wind speed cubed.
As someone who can see Whitelee wind-farm every day on my way to work and remembers the cold period in early February I’m dreading the stability of our grid when the North Sea natural gas shuts down and we have to rely on good old electricity for space heating in the winter.
As an engineer who tries to keep up-to-date I’m constantly amazed that some people think that large scale storage of electrical power is even close to fruition, so when I read the comments here I just had to have a look at the modern flywheel storage that
“powerful flywheel systems storing
vast amounts of electricity during off peak times “
exist and are readily available so here goes on my take on what is on offer and how it could help us when the Whitelee wind-farm gets its downtimes (several times a year no doubt)
The 4th Generation storage system stores 25kWh at a maximum rate of 100kW so for us shivering Scots who need to store enough power for a 300 MW wind-farm (lets round it down a bit since I’m sure it will never manage to deliver its rated capacity) for 7 days that would be
7x24x300 = 50.4GWh of storage
So we’ll need roughly 2 million of these wonderful flywheels i.e 5 for every one of those 180,000 houses at what cost !!!!
I could only find one reference to cost which was $1M per MW, so assuming that is based on storage rate, it gives a price of $100k per 100kW (25kWh) unit.
So that gives each householder a bill for $500k; or a cool $200 billion in total hmmm we could get a shiny new nuclear power stations for the whole of the UK for that !!!!!.
Sorry but in what universe is this feasible for a modern urban electrical supply system.
2.5 m/s = 6 mph
16 m/s = 36 mph
20 m/s = 45 mph
Now let us look at output.
If you consider 2.5 m/s minimum output then at 16 m/s max output is 262X minimum. At 20 m/s the min/max ratio is 512.
Or consider a wind blowing at 90% of maximum turbine rating. Output is 73% of maximum. At 80% output is 51% max. At 70% it is 35%. At 60% it is 22%. At 50% it is 12.5%. At 40% you are down to 6.4%. At 30% you are down to 2.3%. At 20% you are at less that 1%.
Economically it is probably useless (other than to impress the rubes) to design wind turbines that can handle min/max ratios more than 5 or 6 to 1.
I remember reading a comment once (a long time ago) about AC in cars. Someone snarkily mentioned that Europeans do not have AC in their cars and that we were wimps. The reply was simple: nobody in Europe has to drive across Kansas in July (forget about any of the desert southwest, deep south, or eastern coast locales).
Mark
JohnnyB,
I wonder many virgins one might get for blowing up a nuke in a large western city? Or even better, creating an EMP blast which wipes out the infrastructure of Europe or the US?
You might want to think your position about nuclear weapons in the Middle East through a bit more carefully.
Mark T,
It has been 1,025 days since London made it to 30C.
“If anybody actually has the numbers in kilowatt hours it would be interesting to compare to my estimates.”
As far as I know, no state or utility publicly releases actual wind generation numbers. They disseminate “capacity” numbers only. If you see an actual generation figure for a state, please let me know about it. I have been looking for such data for years.
Roger,
Thanks for the data. The capacity factor of 28% represents what the wind farm actually generates but not what is actually taken. This is refered to as capacity value. This is because many times the power is stranded and not able to be used. What happen to the capacity factor from 2006 to 2008? Do you know what the capacity value was?
Hmmm…one would think that the lack of any snow-drifts would have given away the “dead wind” area.
Methinks the folks who decided to place the wind generators here would have at least checked to see if there was any wind in the first place.
All the ‘green’ energy producers in the UK claim subsidies based on what they have output based on a metering system. Renewables Obligation Certificates (ROCs) are registerd on a month by month record but with a publishing delay for the figures.
Last time I looked at the numbers it was quite evident that even the offshore locations had very low claims (and therefore output) for two or three months each year. February is never going to be a good month,
We have recently been looking for new kitchen applicances. Most cookers – certainly ovens – are now electric. Finding a choice for gas is almost impossible. So when the windmills are in the forefront of generation we will starve as well as freeze. The only plus is that it will be cold enough that the failure of out freezers will not result in spoiled food. Just inedible, uncookable frozen food that will have to last for a while because the re-supply system will not be operational.
I will likely not be around to see uch of that. My kids will. Their kids will hate the mistakes made by the current generation – just like the green zealots claim but for completely the opposite reasons.
Unless of course the rest of the world has not followed along in which case they may wish to avail themselves of the parts of the land surface that we currently inhabit, seeing it as too useful a place to live to be left in a third world state.
Fusion and flywheels … together!
The ALCATOR-C MOD fusion reactor at MIT, right next to the
Charles River in Cambridge in the US, has a flywheel to power
the “magnetic pinch bottle” or tokamak. You can go and take
a tour there, as I did.
The flywheel is powered by a 1000 hp DC motor for a whole
24 hours to spin up so the surface speed is just subsonic. Then
they need a magnetic field, and it slows down in 3 seconds.
The flywheel has a very high energy density when it is spun up.
Note the power to run the experiment comes from the Boston
Edison plant across the river.
crosspatch (14:30:50) :
“As far as I know, no state or utility publicly releases actual wind generation numbers. They disseminate “capacity” numbers only. If you see an actual generation figure for a state, please let me know about it. I have been looking for such data for years.”
See my response at 10:12:23, or click below for California published values. There is also a spreadsheet for several years of actual generation for wind and all other generation sources.
http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/electricity/total_system_power.html
Another source that shows capacity and kwh generated, by state in the U.S., is here:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/state_profiles/r_profiles_sum.html
click on any state on the map for details for 2006.
Um – JohnnyB, the only reason that nuclear weapons work as a deterrent is that up until now the only nuclear armed powers have too much to lose to actually want to use them.
Giving nukes to people who have NOTHING to lose (or who perceive themselves that way) is a guarantee of seeing a nuclear confrontation.
Sorry, but you’re backward on this concept. I agree with Steve Goddard: think more about your position on this.
oops,
In my above post I calculated .03% as my estimate of what wind power contributes to the total in California. It is actually .38%. If anybody actually has the numbers in kilowatt hours it would be interesting to compare to my estimates.
One thing you have to remember, is that you can’t go by just generating capacity INSIDE California. California is the largest electricity “importer” in the U.S. So, it’s probably worse than it looks.
paulID:
“the key here is those things don’t generate much juice unless the wind gets between 6 and 10 mph your nit picking doesn’t change the fact that at those wind speeds nothing happens. 2.5 is as good as zero when it comes to power generation.”
I’m sure you’re right. So why did the author say “the wind speed was zero”, which was false, when he could have said “the wind speed was too low to generate useful power”? He’s entitled to his own opinion; he’s not entitled to his own facts.
Code, you and Steve might be right, but my view of world history must differ from yours. Seems to me, that when more than 1 nation has the bomb using it would be suicidal even for great nuclear powers like the USA. If it is proliferation that you are worried about, then fuel pellets could be made out of thorium and assembled into fuel rods in the developed nations and given for free or sold at a deep discount to the developing world.
Electricity and industry are obviously important, but they are not as important as water. Russia has developed a nuclear barge to be operated by the Russian Navy which could be moved anywhere in the world, supply power, heat and fresh water anywhere with ocean access. This is impossible to impliment on a large scale with any other energy technology. Here also you could utilize economies of scale by building the nuclear barges in a central location greatly reducing their expense and financing cost because they would not have to go through the added delys of siting expense while paying interest on money spent waiting. When the fuel is used up the old barge could be changed out for a fresh one, then dragged back to port where its fuel could be recycled. Nuclear waste and breeder plutonium would never get into the hands of the savages, while the savages would still be able to enjoy the benefits of water, heat and power. Barges would be an ideal solution for California, as they would be floating off the coast and unaffected by Earthquakes, while being able to also make fresh water for an ever thristy State.
Like Barges, for those of us living inland, gas turbine rectors could be made small and safe enough to be transported by train and truck in a centralized location using mass production and economies of scale with existing technology. These reactors could be burried beneath cities reducing the need for transmission lines while providing cogeneration capiblities. Using the same principles which power propane refrigerators, perhaps waste heat could even be used to pump cool water to homes during hot weather reducing the demands on their central air conditioner system.
The technology that already exists for nuclear power is already enough to satisfy the needs of the world, while reducing expense and hardship to the people currently living. Fears of proliferation are somewhat irrational because because it would be suicidal to use nuclear weapons offensively for any nation, and might even be a continuing force towards peace as they were during the cold war. It seems to me that we have an infinite supply of energy at our finger tips which we could use as power to create a better life for everyone human on the planet or we could use it destroy every human on th planet. We should not allow irrational fears and politics to prevent us from being a creative force for good towards all nations, and by focusing on mutual benefit, respect and friendship these goals can be realized without having force ourselves or our idealogy on others who do not share our views.
Maybe I am just dreaming, or maybe someday government will start looking towards more obvious solutions…Nah, I’m just dreaming.
RW,
Sorry, I should have said that wind power will solve all of the UK and world’s problems.
Glad that you understood all of the important information contained in the article.
Very cold weather in New Zealand…
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/2425741/Wintry-weather-hits
From the article…
“Snow was forecast to lower to the top of the Rimutaka hill road this afternoon.”
That is early, not even winter yet. The Rimutaka hill road peaks at 550m, it’s a nasty bit of the highway and is regularly closed to heavy rain, high wind and snow.
An episode on the wind power generation from Japan.
In 2004 a city applied for a fund of $150 million to the Ministry of Environment to install 23 wind turbines at a total of 19 primary/secondary schools, in the framework their “environmental education” of pupils/students. The Ministry gave an OK, and the city asked an engineering professor of a university.
The professor then made a design which he called the “Hybrid Wings”, and the windmills were installed at a total cost of $300 million (half from the Ministry funding).
However, in the fall of 2005 after several months of test operation, it was found that, for almost all the Hybrid Wings, the electricity generated by the wind turbine was less than that consumed by the control panel attached to the machine.
Knowing this the Ministry ordered the city the turnback of the $150 million, and the city obeyed the order. But (and naturally) the city got furirous to the Hybrid Wings professor, and filed a lawsuit against the university authority, and naturally won in September 2008.
Lesson: the machine design and siting are two of the major bottlenecks in installing windmills.