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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I suspect California is cooking the books on wind generation. I think it would make an interesting topic of discussion.
http://windpowertalk.blogspot.com/search?q=California
Oops! Errata to tokyoboy (19:18:15)
I mistook the Yen to Dollar conversion. Each cost should be divided by 100: $150 million should read $1.5 million, etc. Qtuite sorry for this……..
it appears that California pays wind producers for what they do not take and reports it as produced power. Therefore the capacity valur equals the capacity factor. It’s a miracle. I pity the rate payers.
Windmills are symbolic of the insanity of our times. especially the windmills that are just sitting there, broken and looking plain ugly. I don’t think that we could build windmills fast enough to even keep pace with the added demand from our growing population, let alone replace any of our other technologies. If we’re really serious about cutting CO2 (the absolute last priority to me, if at all,) cutting our dependance on foreign oil and producing ample electricity for our growing population, existing nuclear fission technology is the best answer. BTW, one example. San Onofre just one power station supplies electricity to three million people every day, rain, wind, snow or shine. No massaging data, no esoteric accounting. The equivalent of 25,000,000 barrels of oil a year.
It’s a real testimony to the power of Hollywood how they made an irrational fear of nuclear power the conventional wisdom of our day. JohnnyB makes a lot of sense!
PhilK “That will put more electricians to work since there will be no other work in North America.”
And this is bad how? Go where the jobs are.
There are solutions to there being no wind. You can use solar the rest of the time. You can use batteries. You can change to more efficient housing and appliances, and entertainment. And you can still use backups like coal when everything else fails. A society is not made weaker by having environmentally friendly power generation as the primary source.
Johnnyb (09:18:35) :
Steven Goddard,
Yes, I do like the idea of North Korea, Iran and Venezuela having nuclear bombs. I believe the nuclear bombs hve been the greatest peace device the world has ever known, and that they make the consequences of war so horrible that once everyone has them the world will finally know peace.
BTW: You know what we make in Amarillo, right? PANTEX ring a bell?
The assumption of rational actors in “North Korea, Iran and Venezuela” is a false assumption.
I would give a better than even money bet that the day that Iran demonstrates a nuclear weapon capacity will be the day (or week) that either Iran or Israel cease to exist.
I’m not saying anymore on this issue – it’s very OT.
Roger Sowell (15:29:45) :
Thanks for that. Looks like California is claiming generation at 25% of capacity which seems a little high but I suppose is possible considering some of the locations. But for it to run at 25% capacity, one would need to generate at least 50% of capcity for 50% of the time (or 100% of capacity 25% of the time, not bloody likely). That means that on my trips through Altamont, I should have a 50-50 chance of seeing that field operating at 50% capacity and the times I have been through there I have seem many more still mills than rotating ones. I should have nearly a 100% chance of seeing the field producing SOMETHING even if it is only generating at 10%.
This picture is how it looks most of the time I go through there. or even like this.
I believe wind has an important niche role. Mainly in providing power to remote locations (like the North pole) where there is no grid and you can’t get enough solar. I sincerely do not believe it is a viable economical option to supply power on a large scale. large scale installations eat huge amounts of acreage and are costly to maintain. Watt for watt they are more expensive than a coal plant per kwh generated. I don’t believe in having something just for the sake of having it or just because I *like* it or just because I “believe in” it.
So tell me again, how many windmills would it take to power one single Nucor steel mill with an electric arc blast furnace? And would it be reliable enough for those employees to be able to depend on it for work every day?
Wind is fine for peak load mitigation IF the wind happens to be blowing but it is not a reliable system for satisfying base load. Also, if the wind blows when demand is low you don’t “save” any power. You just end up dumping more nuclear heat to the cooling tower. California’s generation would likely be mostly between September to April because that is when the wind blows. California’s peak electricity demand is the summer when temperatures are hottest. We are pumping more water for irrigation and using more climate control. That is when we have our power shortages. That is also when the wind isn’t blowing.
Large scale wind production is likely to produce the most energy right when we don’t need it. It has a 50% probability of providing power when little in the way of fossil generation is on line anyway (at night in the cooler months of the year) because nuclear and hydro generation provides a larger portion of the power at night. It is unpredictable, it is unreliable, it is expensive, and it eats real estate. But it is the pet project of many.
I say go for it, spend as much of YOUR money as you like on it. Just don’t spend any of mine, please. Believe me, if it was all that efficient and cost effective, every business this side of the Pecos would have windmills on their property generating power. But they don’t … and it isn’t because they hate windmills.
Dear David, no problem, the different labes translated into english
Intecambios: Exchange (positive or negative, if the network has a surplus the excess is sold to Portugal for instance, or if there’s no enough power it is bought to France)
Hidraulica: Hydraulic (dams)
Eolic : wind
Ciclo combinado: natural gas
Reg. spec: Special regime (solar, biomass, etc)
Bottom left there’s a calendar to search what happened on a particular day
REE is the spanish company “transporting” electricity, does not generate energy, only manages the network on a exclusive basis
hope this helps, I’m glad to help.
best
JohnnyB, in your original post you discuss nuclear bombs, in the most recent you are talking about nuclear power that is not easy to weaponize. A big difference, and sorry it’s OT but you kinda whacked me with that ‘arming the enemy’ bit.
Disclosure here: I work in a nuclear facility. I’ve had this particular job for 6 months now, and I miss the travel of my old job. However, I’ve learned a lot about people using nuclear technology. Most of our nuclear workers are empirical… they learned just enough about nuclear theory to get their certification, however their day-to-day job is simple and requires no special knowledge. I will say this is the absolute most safety conscious shop I’ve ever seen, though, and NOBODY jokes around with the sources.
From my experience in third world countries, there are very few people who actually understand enough of the importance of safety to safely operate anything more complicated than a turn-key self contained reactor. I have very low confidence that there is any safety in supplying nuclear technology to essentially backward countries, however if mandatory training in a first-world facility is included it might be okay. I’m not saying everyone in a third-world country is stupid, just that they don’t have the basic background or knowledge-base that we do.
But weapons… not a chance. For the most part, these third-world dictator types would use any bigger hammer they could get their hands on, the moment they could. Consequences, or apparent consequences, seem rather distant to someone whose entire worldview is different from ours. This is the key that many people I know just don’t comprehend: guys like Kim Jong or Saddam do NOT consider consequences, they do NOT believe that the US or any other nation will actually go after them, and believe that if their cause is righteous they will be overlooked. Israel has nuclear weapons and is very responsible. They are a last resort. For all we know they may even be a ruse. But I can’t say that some of Israel’s enemies would delay “testing” or even having an “accident” if it damaged or destroyed Israel.
If it’s too far OT, then do what you must, but with this thread dying down I’m hoping I can get some understanding of JohnnyB’s statements, because quite frankly that attitude scares the living daylights out of me.
@CodeTech I think additional support for your view can be found looking at Don Beck’s Spiral Dynamics, a model of developmental/emerging human values and worldview in individuals and cultures across the globe. It was thanks to that and models like it that I stopped being a “greenie” believing that everyone wanted egalitarian “peace” if only we could just all sit down and “understand” each other. There is also a lot of relevance to the green movement in general.
Codetech,
I would be happy to further discuss this issue with you, but I feel that everything that I would have to say would be so far outside the realm of what is appropriate on WUWT, I will not even attempt to post it here.
With your professional background, I am very interested in your opinions on this subject. Please email me: hahajohnnyb (at) gmail.com so we can continue this conversation.
Just finished watching the BBC International here in Munich. The announcer asked the builder of this wind turbines and was a little shocked with the answer – more of a double-take. The reply from the CEO of the company was that in one year’s time the turbines would operate at a maximum of 35 percent efficiency. (That was an answer I was very shocked by) I guess however when you figure in days not in service (maintenance/conditions on ideal to turn the blades) that figure may be just about right. CEO said they could have never built the system without government help.
The following link to the National Renewable Energy laboratory explains capacity
value calculations for wind farms.
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy08osti/43433.pdf
A look at the document from NREL linked above shows that different regional power authoritys use varying calulations of capacity credit (value) in evaluating the performance of individual wind farms. It is clear they use optimistic forward looking capacity credits to encourage new wind projects but then revise it downward after a few years of actually power producing history has been established. For Instance the PJM RTO covering the mid atlantic states has downgraded wind generators capacity credit from 20% to 13%. The Southwest Power Pool has assigned a value of 10% capacity value to producers in its region.
In Minnesota Xcel is paying wind producers based on a 32.9% capacity credit despite a determination by the public utility commission that true capacity values were only 10 to 20%. In Colorado Xcel has recommended a 12% capacity credit.
Finally California capacity values are all over the place. However a 28% capacity value is IMHO unrealistic. This probably is one reason that California is seeking to import wind power rather than build new plants. The CUPC clearly needs to use a standard of calculating capacity value that is consisent with other power authoritys and therefore protects the rate payer. They are paying producers at 28% capacity credit when I bet the actual credit shoud be no more than 12%.
rafa (23:35:31) :
My Spanish is not all that good, but shouldn’t the ‘ciclo combinado’ translate as Combined Cycle? meaning, of course, natural gas combined cycle gas turbine.
richcar,
The key phrase in the document you linked is:
“The correlation of wind generation with system load, along with the wind generator’s outage rate, is the primary determinants of wind capacity credit.”
The author explains that where wind generation coincides with load demand, the wind capacity credit is high, and where the generation does not so coincide, the wind capacity credit is low.
The numbers on the CEC site for California are actual GWh generated by wind in a year, and the percentages I gave earlier are those GWH generated divided by installed capacity. And for some perspective, natural gas fired plants do not have 100 percent capacity factor, either. As they follow the load and are throttled back, they are not running at 100 percent.
@crosspatch, re windmills not turning when you drive by. That is likely because California wind is strongest at night; are you driving by them at night?
And to the earlier commenter who is critical of California because this state imports wind power, I say so what? Why do you have a problem with any state importing anything? California also imports nuclear power (from Arizona), coal-fired power (from Utah), and hydroelectric power (Nevada and Washington).
As it turns out, California also exports an awful lot of food. California also brings in huge amounts of goods through major ports, then ships them out across the country. California also makes an amazing number of tv shows, and movies (films), which are then distributed across the nation and world.
Do you oppose all that, as well? Would you be in favor of Texas and Louisiana keeping all that gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel fuel within their borders, or is it ok for them to export to other states? Just trying to see the logic behind your statements.
Italy,
wind turbines, the Government pays €0.68 cents per kWh
solar energy, the Government pays €0.44 cents per kWh
hydro turbines the Government pays €0.22 cents per kWh
all the above are subsidised to 80% of all repeat ALL costs ( no pay back) and the normal contract is for 15 years no taxes
This idiocy is to conform with EU emission laws,
i have interests in a 2.5 million a year kWh hydro plant at the bottom of my garden.
A question that I’ve wondered about for a long time, but I’ve never heard anyone discuss…
Doesn’t the large-scale use of windmills also have the potential side-effect of changing weather? I mean, if you’re sucking a significant amount of energy out of the air, then you’re necessarily slowing the air down, which could affect evaporation, cooling, drying, and whatnot downwind from the wind farm. Is it too small an effect to be significant?
This just published by EERE re wind power in the U.S.:
“U.S. Wind Power Industry Marks Strong First-Quarter Growth
The U.S. wind power industry installed more than 2,800 megawatts (MW) of new generating capacity in the first quarter of 2009, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). The growth rate is strong compared to the overall growth of 8,358 MW in 2008, which averages out to roughly 2,100 MW per quarter, but the growth is relatively weak compared to the fourth quarter of 2008, when the industry installed a record 4,112 MW of wind capacity. New wind power projects were completed in 15 states, including the 400.3-MW first phase of the Fowler Ridge Wind Farm in Indiana, a project that earned Indiana the distinction as the state with the fastest growth in wind power capacity: a 75% increase in just one quarter. But looking ahead presents a less favorable view for the nation, as projects now under construction will only add another 3,400 MW of wind power capacity. Even if all those projects are completed this year, which is unlikely, the total installed capacity for 2009 would only reach 6,200 MW, a 26% drop from the record pace achieved in 2008. See the AWEA press release and report (PDF 197 KB), and for comparison, see the AWEA press release on the growth in 2008.
Despite the uncertain outlook, a number of companies are pressing ahead with efforts to build wind turbine manufacturing plants in the United States. In late March, Vestas held a ground-breaking ceremony for two new manufacturing facilities in Brighton, Colorado, that will manufacture wind turbine blades and nacelles (the bus-shaped housings at the top of the towers). Vestas is also building a tower factory in Pueblo, Colorado, and expects to employ 2,500 people in the state by the end of 2010. The company is also establishing a research center in Houston, Texas. In April, NextEra Energy Resources (formerly known as FPL Energy) announced plans to build a wind turbine service facility near Story City, Iowa. And finally, in early May, Siemens announced plans to build a factory for wind turbine nacelles in Hutchinson, Kansas. Construction begins in August for the facility, which will initially employ 400 people. See the press releases from Vestas (PDF 26 KB), NextEra Energy Resources, and Siemens.”
Dear Roger (08:54:22), yes you’re right, it’s combined cycle, I was just trying to emphasize it’s based on natural gas (vs. the other energy sources, fuel, carbon, nuclear, hydro, wind, etc)
best
roger,
What I am trying to explain to you is that the number reported as produced is phony. The utilitys paid for that much power but they did not actually use all of it. It is like paying farmers not to farm. I’m sure the CPUC is under political pressure not to calculate a true capacity value because it would undermine their
renewable energy goals. Minnesota is a good example. Xcel is paying wind farms at a rate of 38% capacity value when the public service commission has determined it should be less than half this. Who is protecting the ratepayer. I do not believe that wind power in California is that better than elsewhere like Colorado where the capacity value is only 12%. I suspect at some point they will have to rate down the wind power and California and suddenly you will see the power reported drop by 50% at least. Green energy is full of smoke and mirrors.
rafa (23:35:31) :
Thanks for that Rafa. It now all fits into place.
By the way, it looks a nightmare to handle but they obviously do. In fact the Spanish power market appears to be worth a great deal more study in how they manage to accommodate the fluctuating power of the windmills.
Gracias
Roger,
Here is a simpler way of explaining it.
capacity factor is the amount of energy generated
capacity value is the amount of energy taken in theory.
capacity credit is what the wind farm is credited. This is what is reported as produced.
However it can get worse. according to the following blogger:
‘In Tehachipi, for many years there was a curtailment program, where the windmills were overbuilt for the grid and was to small to handle the surge. Edison made an agreement with the wind industry to just shut the machines down and paid them over $12 million which was also charged back to the ratepayers. ‘
http://windpowertalk.blogspot.com/search?q=California
I wonder if Edison would be interested in a virtual farm I am thinking of building.
I have posted this before, but this is further evidence of how useless wind power is. Surprising at it may seem Denmark, Europe’s largest producer of wind power, has never used any of its wind power – it sells it to Scandinavia instead, who can marry intermittent wind power with its instantaneous hydro-electric.
http://incoteco.com/upload/CIEN.158.2.66.pdf
The report also demonstrates large periods during the year without wind and thus no power. Indeed, on some occasions the Danish wind ‘carpet’ becomes a net consumer of power, as it tries to point its turbines into the non-existent wind. (Why did they build all wind turbines ‘back-to-front’, so they do not automatically trail into wind?)
.
>>the Spanish power market appears to be worth a great deal
>>more study in how they manage to accommodate the fluctuating
>>power of the windmills.
They manage the system by browning out the grid. But brown outs (down to 190 volt) can play havok with electronics, and the Spanish have nearly lost the entire grin on numerous occasions. They are playing with fire.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article384768.ece?token=null&offset=12
PS They are wind turbines, not windmills. Windmills make flour.
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