In a statement made last Friday by EDF Energies Nouvelles (French Green Power Company), a power purchase agreement was terminated without explanation by Indianapolis Power and Light Company regarding the supply of wind energy by enXco, a local EDF company. The contract was unilaterally terminated by IPL, and more than 10 days later, EDF has acknowledged it to the market.
The IPL wind power project web page is here
From the press release see here
======================
PRESS RELEASE
March 12th, 2010
Termination of the Lakefield PPA by IPL
On March 1, enXco, the US subsidiary of EDF Energies Nouvelles, received notification that the US utility Indianapolis Power and Light Company (IPL) would terminate the power purchase agreement related to the 201 MW Lakefield wind project currently under development (southwestern Minnesota).
The project received the approval of the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) on January 27, 2010. The IURC’s order was consistent with similar past orders. IPL has purported to unilaterally terminate the power purchase agreement on the basis of this order without providing further specific reasons.
enXco is considering its rights and remedies within the framework of the PPA. In addition, the Company is currently analyzing several options, including re-marketing the project to one or several other utilities.
Consistent with EDF Energies Nouvelles policy, construction has not yet started.
The 2012 operational objective of 4,200 MW net and 2010 objective of EBITDA will not be impacted by the Lakefield project evolution.
================
big h/t to Ecotretas
Page 1
PRESS RELEASE PRESS RELEASE
Paris, March 12, 2010 Paris, March 12, 2010
Termination of the PPA by Lakefield IPL Termination of the Lakefield PPA by IPL
On March 1, enXco, the U.S. subsidiary of EDF Energies Nouvelles, received On March 1, enXco, the US subsidiary of EDF Energies Nouvelles, received
notification that the U.S. utility Indianapolis Power and Light Company (IPL) notification that the US utility Indianapolis Power and Light Company (IPL)
would terminate the power purchase agreement related to the 201 MW would terminate the power purchase agreement related to the 201 MW
Lakefield wind project currently under development (southwestern Lakefield wind project currently under development (southwestern
Minnesota). Minnesota).
The project received the approval of the Indiana Utility Regulatory The project received the approval of the Indiana Utility Regulatory
Commission (iurc) on January 27, 2010. Commission (IURC) on January 27, 2010. The iurc’s order was consistent The IURC’s order was consistent
with similar past orders. with similar past orders. IPL has purported to unilaterally terminate the IPL has purported to unilaterally terminate the
power purchase agreement on the basis of this order without providing power purchase agreement on the basis of this order without providing
further specific reasons. further specific reasons.
enXco is considering its rights and remedies within the framework of the enXco is considering its rights and remedies within the framework of the
PPA. PPA. In addition, the Company is currently analyzing several options, In addition, the Company is currently analyzing several options,
including re-marketing the project to one or several other utilities. including re-marketing the project to one or several other utilities.
Consistent with EDF Energies Nouvelles policy, construction has not yet Consistent with EDF Energies Nouvelles policy, construction has not yet
started. started.
The 2012 operational objective of 4.200 MW and 2010 net objective of The 2012 operational objective of 4,200 MW net and 2010 objective of
EBITDA will not be impacted by the project Lakefield evolution. EBITDA will not be impacted by the Lakefield project evolution.
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Bribes kickbacks and subsidies. Both GE and Siemens relie on massive bribes and inducements from the government.
650 nacelles weight 50 tons each. That is a massive carbon footprint for trucking to sites.
How about over 20 million dollars from Stimulus spending, tax cuts, subsidies, rail spurs, revenue bonds and land plus construction.
Exxon pays 100 billion in taxes and Siemens and GE get to spend it.
Wind turbine power is extremely expensive.
GE was the reciever of the largest chunk of Tarp spending. So they can finance these money losing wind farms. Wind energy is a bad investment. The problem is it is so highly subsidized, they have no incentive to become more efficient. The only efficiency is lobbying. Got to keep up with China.
Jan 28, 2010 … Siemens has factories that make rotor blades and nacelles for wind turbines in
Hutchison, Kansas, and Fort Madison, Iowa. … That plant has been selected by
DOE for a loan guarantee of up to $2.5 billion. …
Bad projects need guarantees. Siemens won’t risk their money on the deal.
It takes a lot of booze and parties to impress the politicians.
Widespread corruption was exposed at Siemens Investigations in more than a dozen countries revealed that the concern was operating a system of cash handouts totalling an estimated €1.3bn in return for contracts. Only last year the company agreed to pay more than $1.6bn to settle the US and German investigations.
I understand the US DOE is sending this company 2.5 billion for new sources of power.
Poor Charles the Moderator hasn’t told us if BIG OIL sent him a Birthday card.
“Bribes kickbacks and subsidies.”
Yeah. A big conspiracy between the big capital and the green and the liberals and the utilities and the engineers and the economists and the finance boys and the service personnel and the doughnut lady to raise taxes, extend government and exploit Joe average…
I should have seen that coming.
Troels
Troels Halken (15:36:35) :
OK.
Let’s take away the subsidies!
You and some others seem to think it’s economically viable, let’s find the truth!
DaveE.
kadaka (11:10:27) :
You cannot get 100% efficiency with a water turbine, because the water has to leave the turbine. If you extracted 100% of all potential mechanical energy then the water would just lay there. But there is new water going into the turbine, the old needs to get out of the way.
Yes, so you need an air space on the housing side of the turbine so no back friction can possibly slow the massive torque being created. But as soon as the energy is used, water will start to re-energize itself with energy by gravity as it falls.
Now if one turbine has the capacity to replace 18 would you not think one part would be far cheaper to replace than 18? The life of the part should last the same as there is far less corrupted friction acting on this design. Mind you one chunk of debris would blow it apart so a debris screen would be needed.
Joe (18:04:02) :
(…) Mind you one chunk of debris would blow it apart so a debris screen would be needed.
Then I look at the Wikipedia images of turbine runners that have endured decades of service despite the occasional debris chunk…
So after many centuries of basic human greed trying to wring every last cent possible out of “free” water energy, you are asking me to believe: all these designers had the physics wrong; all the figures for mechanical efficiency are wrong; there is 18 times more energy available; and suddenly you have come up with an idea that is so revolutionary that it can make the hydroelectric operators tons of extra profits, yet none are interested.
Plus, water turbine technology can readily be scaled up or down. You could have had made a benchtop prototype that you could have tested for real-world efficiency and had as a demonstration unit. Yet despite being so passionate about your design, so certain of its breakthrough game-changing potential, you never did. You do however have a design on paper that you calculated at 78% efficiency, while Wikipedia has articles on proven designs with real-world yields of over 90% efficiency.
Thus I shall be compassionate, gracious, and only presume you have been deliberately leading me on with false figures and unreal-yet-scientific-sounding descriptions for some sort of personal amusement, just “yanking my chain.” I don’t want to play that game, so I am done here.
Troels Halken
You say in an earlier post…
‘Most storms would not be an issue’
….So, please tell me about the storms that would be an issue?!
You say…
‘Wind power has a high investment and low operating costs. That means that if the turbine is produced in the country, the money we pay for our electricity for the most part stay here.’
…So that will be Denmark then?
and you say….
‘For fossil fuel plants, a high part of the electricity price is made of up of the cost of fuel, and this of cause goes to the country where that have been bought.’
….So, in Britain, that will mean burning coal, and gas made from coal?….
‘I hope this clears up a few things’
….Yes, I think you cleared that up very nicely, thank you
kadaka (01:25:08) :
You have not done your homework.
How does the power generating companies come up with the efficiency figure?
Power generating turbines are over 150 years old.
Follow the time trail….
My efficiency figure is simple with the direct correlation to “for every action there is an equal opposite reaction”. The figure are directly off of how much deflection on the angle to turn the turbine with direct energy.
>>>Troels Halken (10:29:50) :
>>Ralph (07:50:42) :
>>“Try running a 24/7 society with that kind of power system.”
>>Well, with 20% it runs fine here. And a lot of people know a
>>lot about the Danish energy system it seems.
No it does not. That was the whole point of this report on Danish windpower.
http://www.thomastelford.com/journals/DocumentLibrary/CIEN.158.2.66.pdf
Denmark has NEVER USED ANY OF ITS WINDPOWER – it sells it to Scandinavia instead, as they can integrate this unreliable, intermittent power with hydropower.
Here is a quote from the ThomasTelford report just mentioned (08:39:00)
“However, as this paper reveals, Denmark is exporting most of its wildly fluctuating wind power to larger neighbours while finding other solutions for supply and demand at home. “
In other words, Denmark cannot use any of its unreliable windpower, and is resorting to greater use of fossil fuels to plug the gap.
That is why Danish electricity is so expensive. Denmark is having to subsidise expensive windpower, that it then sells to Scandinavia for less that the price of fossil fuels. So the Danish pay three times for their electricity.
They pay for the fossil fuel plants.
They pay for windelecs that they never use.
They pay for the windelec electricity to be exported to Scandinavia at way below production costs.
To which the Swedes say ‘tack’ (thank you).
.
>>>Oh–and don’t forget that you lose 25% when you do storage.
Its worse than that, he’s dead Jim.
If you propose storage of windpower, you not only lose 25% of the energy, you have to pay for another complete storage/generating system (in fact two or more systems, to cover for extra days without wind). You also have to double or treble the number of windelecs, to enable the excess of supply that can be stored in the first place.
Since the cost of a pumped storage system is about triple that of a conventional fossil fuel plant, and a windelec is also about triple, the total costs begin to escalate alarmingly.
We need:
Windelecs at 3x cost
Extra wind elecs for storage at 6x cost
Storage system at 6x cost
Thus the power of a wind-storage system is about 15x the cost of a fossil plant (if you could find enough hills). And this would only supply us for two or three days without wind power, not the 30 days we may need to cover.
.
>>kadaka (15:17:19) :
>>a major problem with wind power generation is it is most
>>productive at night, when demand is low.
>>Therefore balance it out with solar, which generates during the day.
>>As can be clearly seen, in the Green Logic World this makes perfect sense.
Not sure if this post was supposed to be ironic or not. But the main problem with Green Logic, is that during a winter anticyclone, there is often no wind and no Sun.
Problem most certainly still with us.
.
Watch the electric being exported from Denmark
http://www.energinet.dk/Integrationer/ElOest/ElsystemetLigeNu/energinet1.swf
But the windmils satisfy the posers.
I realize the Sierra Club and the enviro extremists will attack wind turbine power very soon. 4 months shut down per year in California during bird migrations. If Troels claims to be a wind turbine professional, he will have 4 months Holiday.
Please enjoy this link. It covers the story of broken turbines and dead wind farms.
As soon as too many fail, the operators leave the mess to rust and eventually they will fall down. For an expensive premium, the peddlers sell 2-5 year maintenance contracts on new equipment. In a few years, the breakdown raates start climbing. A non producling free wheeling tower looks just like a producing turbine.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/wind_energys_ghosts_1.html
The gold rush was replaced with a wind rush and now we see a wind bust.
Joe (03:29:05) :
You have not done your homework.
Well that’s a spurious charge. I’ve been studying up on water turbines for days now, starting with the main Wikipedia water turbine article, branching to the many additional articles on the numerous turbine designs, including water wheels which are not normally thought of as turbines, as well as sources outside of Wikipedia.
How does the power generating companies come up with the efficiency figure?
Very simply, you can read up on it yourself. It’s basic physics.
We are examining primarily potential energy. For there to be potential mechanical energy as we are considering, there must be a force that is trying to accelerate a mass acting over a certain distance. Acceleration is distance over time squared. For surface of the Earth calculations we use a standard gravity for the acceleration. Energy units are mass times (distance squared) over (time squared), as is seen in the famous E=mc^2. Of the available energy that a turbine could extract, there could be a pressure difference as with dams, kinetic energy as in the flowing water of a river, or a height difference.
Work done is denoted as the negative of the potential energy change, when you lower something you have removed potential energy therefore you have done negative work, but that is usually a “keep in mind” notation you ignore for simple calculations.
Power is the rate that work is done, change in energy over time, how fast a block is lowered from a height for example.
For a fluid you calculate with the rate of flow (volume over time), multiply by the density (mass over volume) to get mass moved over time. Multiply by a standard gravity. The last term multiplied in is head, expressed as distance. Head is a calculated value which incorporates the potential sources of energy, as in the incoming pressure, the natural speed of the water (applicable for waterwheels as opposed to dams drawing water from under the surface), and the distance the water will drop. It represents the potential energy available if a mass were to freefall in vacuum while acted on by a standard gravity, thus it is in the simple unit of distance.
The final result is available power.
At this point, the turbine becomes a black box. Design does not matter. Water of this amount of available power goes into the black box, from the black box this amount of power is generated, generated divided by available yields efficiency.
Thus I know your claims of “18 times the power” are bunk, and do not care about how you determined how inefficient current designs are as that is all obviously nonsense. This amount of power is available, this amount is generated, from that we find modern water turbines are yielding efficiencies around 90%. And you are claiming a calculated 78% for your design without a prototype and real-world testing.
Power generating turbines are over 150 years old.
Even older than that. Human beings, greedy little buggers that we are, have been trying to wring out the maximum profit from water for ages. Marginal improvements are being made using computer modeling and similar state-of-the-art technologies, but otherwise it is a very mature technology based on long-standing time-tested scientific principles. Thus the possibility of breakthrough discoveries is very low, and “18 times the power!” is impossible for a mere mechanical turbine.
If you are serious about your claims, then do what countless inventors have done for ages, take your own money, go get the benchtop model made (if you can’t do it yourself), and prove your claims. Until then you are just blowing smoke, and not moving water.
Troels Halken:
I genuinely appreciate your attempts to present the case for windpower here. A more balanced debate would have been more helpful to ‘uncommited’ onlookers. Without your input this would hve been a completely unbalanced discussion, and I regret that others have not supported you so the discussion could have been less one-sided than it has been.
I especially appreciate your patience in debating some who have been less than courteous to you. Your responses to them display admirable forebearance.
Thank you.
However, the most severe argument(s) against windpower were from me. And you have not addressed them.
I copy them here to avoid your having to find them above.
I first presented them at
Richard S Courtney (04:15:31) on 16.03,2010 :
where I said:
“Those with an interest in windpower – and other real and potential – ‘renewables’ for power generation may want to read my item at
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/reprint/courtney_2006_lecture.pdf
Windfarms are expensive, polluting, environmentally damaging, bird swatters that make NO reduction to emissions from a grid-distributed power system and provide NO USEFUL electricity to such a system.”
And I stressed my substantive point and explained it at
Richard S Courtney (15:08:22) :
saying:
“Several commentators here have discussed if a wind turbine can recover its ‘carbon footprint’.
No wind turbine can ever recover its ‘carbon footprint’ if used as a supply of electricity to a grid system because emissions from a power station providing ‘back up’ are properly attributed as emissions from the wind turbine.
An operating wind turbine supplying to a grid system displaces electricity from a thermal power station. Either that thermal power station
(1) reduces its output so it operates at reduced efficiency
or
(2) it operates spinning standby while waiting for the wind to change.
Operating at reduced efficiency reduces its electricity output and makes little if any reduction to its emissions. Indeed, such part loading may increase (yes, increase) its fuel consumption and, therefore, its emissions.
Spinning standby consumes fuel and produces emissions but provides no electricity.
So, WINDFARMS PRODUCE NO USEFUL ELECTRICITY because they merely displace thermal power stations that continue to burn their fuel while waiting for the wind to change.
And WINDFARMS DO NOT REDUCE EMISSIONS UNLESS NUCLEAR IS USED FOR NORMAL LOAD because the emissions from the displaced thermal power stations are properly attributed to the windfarms while the windfarms are displacing them.”
I would greatly appreciate your explaining why you think windfarms have any economic, environmental or practical benefit for power generation when their only effects are
(a) to displace thermal power stations to operate at reduced efficiency or onto spinning standby whilst waiting for the wind to change
(b) to cover countryside in concrete for the turbines’ foundations and the roads to access them, and
(c) to increase the costs of delivered electricity.
Richard
Ralph (09:04:29) :
Not sure if this post was supposed to be ironic or not. But the main problem with Green Logic, is that during a winter anticyclone, there is often no wind and no Sun.
Problem most certainly still with us.
Sad part is, I really have read it suggested that the nighttime wind generation peak can be balanced with daytime solar.
Just wait until we have the Whole World Power Grid, which will be brought to us, could only be brought to us, by the coming all-inclusive world government. Then we can go all-solar, as the sunny side of the planet can supply the power for the darker side, and all our power needs will be forever taken care of. I myself once proposed online the worldwide grid solar solution. I was taken seriously. It is worse than we thought.
Joe (03:29:05) :
In regards your design… you arnt taking into account line drag… by adding more blades you are increasing surface friction on the water, thats why water turbines have greater clearances than gas turbines… and i will also have to point out again you have your design running backwards… the outter edge on a disc will be moving faster than the inner part of a disk at the same rpm obviously… Now if you are taking energy from moving water/gas it will slow, thus if you are running it from the inside out, it will work against itself. You need to run the water in your exhaust and out your inlet.
Inventing stuff is great fun…but the design is only a small part of it… its the build, and experimentation from there is where you learn from… You should get yourself a steel mill, with a rotary indexer, and a lathe. Its a lot o fun, you wont regret it.
Oh also to put things in perspective, the biggest wind turbine in operation today is 7mw… the bigger hydro generators(not hydro station, but single generator) is 700mw… now im sure people understand how efficiency o scale works??? Yah looking at one hundred more bearings turbines and generators… to produce the same power… sometimes.
Fast breeder reactors are the answer to all our problems, there is no doubt in my mind that they will be what humanity turns to in time for our baseload power generation, but at the moment we have the luxury to play with lil curiosities while we have fossil fuels really supplying us.
im sure solar has great potential in some areas, but it is too dependent on latitude to be a blanket cure.
Re: Ralph (08:59:17)
At this point wind technology can overlap with water technology and possibly make wind profitable.
After days of studying various water turbines I am quite familiar with the similarity between the runner of a reaction turbine and the impeller of a high-efficiency pump. Wikipedia cites a Francis turbine as being capable of pumping by running in reverse, for example.
So first you have an existing hydroelectric dam using a suitable turbine driving a generator that can switch over and function as a motor, and relatively nearby you set up a wind farm. When the wind is blowing, at low levels you can start to offset the water power, reduce the dam’s output. When there is enough wind power to cover the load plus excess, then the dam goes into reverse and fills the reservoir.
There may be problems with the pairing. The downstream river would be an important issue, at a certain draw the river will start running backwards and then go dry. That can be handled with a double-dam double-reservoir setup, have a small reservoir below the main one. You could even place turbines in that dam to catch some more energy from the big dam’s releases when the small one is full.
Another would be responsiveness to wind changes. With large turbines, thus a lot of mass in the runner, it takes a while to slow them down and reverse direction, especially if you are trying to not stress the components by using the generator/motor for fast braking. Well, if it is a large enough dam that it has more than one turbine, and you’re throttling back the output anyway, you can have one or more on “Reverse/Standby” while the rest function normally. You can likely alter the turbine output quickly enough to respond to wind changes. Offhand it doesn’t seem to make sense to be filling and draining a reservoir at the same time, there will be losses, but it will yield a quick responsiveness whose expense could possibly be justified.
Thus for relatively little additional cost, with very careful site selection, you can have wind power with pumped storage that will accommodate very long periods without sufficient wind.
None of this really does anything to displace an existing fossil fuel plant that the dam itself doesn’t do, which will drive the greenies mad. However…
Look! Over there! It’s cost-efficient wind power! Isn’t it shiny? Yes, you like the shiny, don’t you?
If we’re talking pumped storage, why not have the wind turbine drive a pump directly?
Losses have to be less than generating electricity to drive a pump electrically!
DaveE.
David Alan Evans (15:41:25) :
If we’re talking pumped storage, why not have the wind turbine drive a pump directly?
(…)
Losses in the pumping, losses in using the previously pumped water for power generation. While as proposed is a simpler system, then you always have those losses. If power from the turbine is fed to the grid and also to the storage, then you only have the portion going to storage creating those losses.
After a detailed cost-benefit analysis, figuring in the expected lifespan of equipment, maintenance, and how important a smooth flow of current as found using only the pumped storage generator would be… Ah heck, guess it could go either way as to which is preferred.
Oh wait, scratch that. Now I get your meaning with the second part added in:
Losses have to be less than generating electricity to drive a pump electrically!
First question, where is the pump? Up on the tower, just the prop running a pump? Then the pump has to suction the water up there, a major effort. Losses over long reaches of piping, and the headache of piping period. Then there is the temperature. Pumped storage uses plain water, not an antifreeze mix. While “moving water does not freeze,” of course at some point the wind stops blowing. What then? It’s cold up there. Will you have pipe heaters running the length of the system? Or a system that keeps a minimum amount of heated water circulating?
Is the pump on the ground? You can have a gearbox on the tower driving a vertical shaft. And as high as they mount those things, that’d be a major hassle, with many bearing units where many short shaft sections are loosely coupled together (probably splined sections to allow for vertical movement) as the weight of a whole shaft is too much to bear, it’d bend from its own weight. Many mechanical losses.
Electric generator driving an electric pump really is best for those circumstances.
kadaka (14:48:58) :
You say:
“Look! Over there! It’s cost-efficient wind power! Isn’t it shiny? Yes, you like the shiny, don’t you?”
I agree.
I have often said that windfarms have the same primary purpose as the Great Wall of China. People think I am joking when I say this, but I am completely serious about it.
The Great Wall had a tertiary purpose of military defence. But anyone who has seen it recognises that the Wall is much more than was required for that.
Its secondary purpose was military deterence: potential invaders seeing the Wall would wonder what resources they would face if they were to get past the Wall and meet those who could build, maintain and man something so immense as the Wall.
Its primary purpose was political propoganda. The Great Wall is large, tall, covers hill tops over great distances and so can be seen from large areas. Every time those inside the Wall looked up they were reminded that the Emperor was so powerful that he could build the Wall, maintain it, man it, and take taxes off them to pay for all that.
Windfarms are large, tall, cover hill tops over great distances so can be seen from large areas. Every time those inside a windpowered country look up they are reminded that their government is so ‘green’ that it can build the windfarms, maintain them, man them, and take taxes off those who see them to pay for all that.
So, I genuinely think that governments will continue to subsidise windfarms until an alternative and equally obvious propoganda statement is found for governments’ to display their ‘green’ credentials.
Richard
PS There were three Chinese dynasties that built Great Walls. They each were overthrown because they were bankrupted by the costs of maintaining the Walls.
kadaka (16:46:59) :
Your second option, pump driven on the ground would be my choice. I would suggest that the mechanical problems you propose would be minor compared to the losses in converting mechanical energy to electrical energy & back.
DaveE.
kadaka (11:42:58) :
You still did not find HOW they had created the efficiency of a turbine.
All the rest you said is how much electrical power can be produced.
Also your physics is incorrect if you do not add ALL factors to why the turbines we use right now are garbage.
No use trying to show you things that you cannot comprehend as your mind is set on all answers come from wikapedia and it must be 100% correct.