Britain’s biggest wind farm companies are to be paid not to produce electricity when the wind is blowing.
Published: 9:00PM BST 19 Jun 2010
Energy firms will receive thousands of pounds a day per wind farm to turn off their turbines because the National Grid cannot use the power they are producing.
Critics of wind farms have seized on the revelation as evidence of the unsuitability of turbines to meet the UK’s energy needs in the future. They claim that the ‘intermittent’ nature of wind makes such farms unreliable providers of electricity.
The National Grid fears that on breezy summer nights, wind farms could actually cause a surge in the electricity supply which is not met by demand from businesses and households.
The electricity cannot be stored, so one solution – known as the ‘balancing mechanism’ – is to switch off or reduce the power supplied.
The system is already used to reduce supply from coal and gas-fired power stations when there is low demand. But shutting down wind farms is likely to cost the National grid – and ultimately consumers – far more. When wind turbines are turned off, owners are being deprived not only of money for the electricity they would have generated but also lucrative ‘green’ subsidies for that electricity.
The first successful test shut down of wind farms took place three weeks ago. Scottish Power received £13,000 for closing down two farms for a little over an hour on 30 May at about five in the morning.
Whereas coal and gas power stations often pay the National Grid £15 to £20 per megawatt hour they do not supply, Scottish Power was paid £180 per megawatt hour during the test to switch off its turbines.
It raises the prospect of hugely profitable electricity suppliers receiving large sums of money from the National Grid just for switching off wind turbines.
Dr Lee Moroney, planning director of the Renewable Energy Foundation, a think tank opposed to the widespread introduction of wind farms, said: “As more and more wind farms come on stream this will become more and more of an issue. Wind power is not controllable and does not provide a solid supply to keep the national grid manageable. Paying multinational companies large sums of money not to supply electricity seems wrong.”
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Here is output charts of UK Wind Farms.
http://www.ref.org.uk/Files/wind.overview.2008.pdf
Look at page 12 for Load Factors of a few European countries.
The Load Factor of Spain is only 20%. That is some “investment” in the future.
Also, note on Page 15 – The offshore LF is essentially the same as the onshore LF for the UK – 27%, which goes against the “dream” that offshore wind, although VERY EXPENSIVE is any better than onshore.
Veronica says: June 20, 2010 at 1:47 pm
Then why don’t they temporarily turn off the coal fired ones? Or does it take 24 hours to stop them in their tracks?
24 hrs is a bit long for coal and maybe not so much for nuclear, the electrical system is divided into baseload and peaking plants; Baseloads take a while to get going online or to bring down offline and tend to run very efficiently when going, like coal fired or nuclear. Peaking plants come up quick and go offline quick but are less efficient and used to cover short-term peaks. Windpower is a problem because you never know when the wind is going to blow or stop, if too much windpower drops out, the system will quickly sag and the expensive peaking plants will have to come online and supply the load and you have a brownout until that happens. The only way around that problem is storage; but a BOB, Big Old Battery cost $25 million for 32 MWhr of storrage, so I don’t see too many of these being built.
We are told Wind Farms cannot supply base load electricity (25-30% max) or they drive the frequency of the Grid up and down as the wind/load changes. But this is only because power generation hasn’t advanced since the day of Tesla.
So that begs the question.
Why can’t Windfarms sync to a reference frequency supplied by the power company?
It’s only 50Hz , we seem to be ale to sync Gigabytes/sec of data-streams pretty simply.
Syncing the wind farms electronically would make them act like base load generators and therefore avoid the stupidity of paying them to switch off during high wind low demand periods.
AJB writes “Not so. See here or, if you’re from the USA, here. ”
Sorry, you are misinterpreting what I said, or maybe I did not say what I intended. I know pumped storage works. But this is only true if the energy used to drive the pumps is from a reliable source. What I meant was that energy derived from wind farms cannot be stored. I am not sure of this, but from what I can gather, it is not possible to use the energy from wind turnines to drive anything, DIRECTLY. The power varies as the cube of the wind velocity, so the way the power output varies makes it impossible to drive anything like an electric motor DIRECTLY from a wind turbine.
If this is wrong, I would be grateful if someone could direct me to a source where wind power has been used directly to drive anything useful. So far as I am aware, wind power is only used by piping it into a stable electric grid.
According to BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy 2010
http://www.bp.com/productlanding.do?categoryId=6929&contentId=7044622
In 2009 Wind Supplied 1.8% of the US electricity and a little bit less for the World.
Also, using Oil Equivalents, a unit of energy measurement used to compare various energy sources, Wind supplied .321% of the world energy.
We Can Keep Trying!
What I hate about wind is that Wind completely tears up our environment.
http://www.klimabedrag.dk/attachments/Boone_GIS.pdf (slow loader)
It has to be the most environmentally “unfriendly” source of energy imaginable. Yet it is completely advocated by so-called environmentalists, just like very unfriendly Ethanol, which has polluted our US Gulf with agricultural runoff and has been partly responsible for destroying the South American rain forests.
I just happened to look at the UK Electricity Production right now. Wind is supplying .1% of the UK demand.
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B5vbWLK5dTl2Njc5YjQzYTctOGE2Zi00OTI3LWFhNTYtNjE3MzJhZWRmZWQ2&hl=en
Yet we have those that keep saying we are going to use Wind to replace something?? in the system. These same people say that Wind is going to help reduce our dependence on foreign oil, which his nothing but a complete lie, because we don’t use much oil to make electricity.
The Ireland graph is probably the best place to see how wind really works, how incredibly variable it is and how hard it is to forecast. You can click previous day and see. Look at frequent the forecast is off by 20%, that is “routine”.
http://www.eirgrid.com/operations/systemperformancedata/windgeneration/
So the real power companies have to play this constant balancing act which just costs us money for these silly little green games.
What I find so sad is that there are so many otherwise smart people, who have real jobs and educations, but they don’t have enough intellect to figure out the absurdity of Wind. Oh well, I guess we can add AGW to that picture also.
They do, but, to ‘add’ energy to the system you must necessarily lead (try to spin faster, but only really up the torque applied to the generator shaft), in phase, above that of the majority of the other ‘producers’ or gensets operating into the grid … and at that point then those plants you wish to ‘unload’ (use less of can) begin to back off as their primer movers (usually steam driven turbines and it does not matter so much what generates the steam except nuclear likes to see a more steady ‘load’ or output) are ‘throttled back’ … easy to say, hard to do when you have maybe twenty different generators at about 1/3 that number of physical sites operating as the ‘generators’ into the so-called ‘grid’ and one wants to load each one to some specific ‘level’ (some are base-load continuous operating plants like nuclear or big coal plants while others may be ‘peaker’ gensets powered directly by nat gas and they gas is burned dorectly in a turbine, the output shaft gear-reduced then into a generator) …
So then the trick is, throttle 30 different gensets at 10 to 15 spacially different sites over maybe +500 miles while maintaning phase coherency between sites with a nominal 60/50 Hz rate over time (as mentined in provious posts – this varies ever so slighty though!!) while controlling ‘power flows’ from each genset into the various ‘loads’ out in the hinterlands …
.
Jim Cripwell says:
June 20, 2010 at 6:47 pm
Sorry, you are misinterpreting what I said, or maybe I did not say what I intended …
I think you’re probably right. There’s an interesting WEB page here that gives some hints perhaps.
My point is simply that the additional cost of all this seems not to be included in the comparisons of renewable versus conventional that are typically bandied about, not to mention the eco-NIMBY issues DirkH rightly raised.
Troels Halken says:
June 20, 2010 at 1:45 pm
This site is usually worth the read. But as an engineer I find you[r] reporting on energy simplified if not plain stupid.
–end quote
As someone who’s done comparative cost analyses on engineering projects for most of his life I find the lack of the business aspects in your arguments astounding, “if not plain stupid,” as you said.
I don’t want to go through all of your assertions, but here is one you made that is obviously questionable.
June 20, 2010 at 2:20 pm
Smokey:
…..
“…But I can tell you this: The Danish citizens are some of, if not the happiest in the world year after year. That you can measure and you can find it on the website of the Economist.”
–end quote
Is that why Denmark finds itself in the upper quartile when it comes to suicide rates of countries in the world? The Danes find life not worth living because they are so exceedingly happy? Check http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide_rates/en/
Yes, that can be measured and gives Denmark about the same dismal rank year after year.
Another of your assertions,
Troels Halken says:
June 20, 2010 at 2:46 pm
Dirk: That is correct.
Well, guys. I’m of to bed so no more fun.
Yes, I am a business developer….
Yes I have worked in the wind turbine industry….
Wind has it’s advantages and it’s weakness. It is by no means a solve all do all thing. It is also a technology in it’s youth and so is the policies that are used to regulate the market for it. The world is not black and white but shades of grey, and so is wind power.
–end quotes
Wow! Wind power is a technology in its youth? Not so! It has been around for thousands of years, in the form of sails on ships and on windmills to pump water or grind grain, for example.
Non-one doubts that wind power once had overwhelming advantages, wherever it was used to replace man-power or animal power in treadmills and water power was not available. However, once it comes to replacing far cheaper sources of modern energy generation, wind power is left in the dust — and what use is it to go back to stone-age technology, no matter how much we wish to beat that particular dead horse to death?
Still, if you don’t wish to take anyone here at his word and keep on insisting to look at things through your rose-colored glasses, why don’t we look at a professional analysis of the technological and economic aspects of Denmark’s wind industry, why Denmark gives a large proportion of its wind-generated energy away at a great cost (note: not for free), and what the price of all of that is to the Danes?
A September 2009 study report by CEPOS (Center for Politiske Studier), “Wind Energy — The Case of Denmark” makes for fascinating reading. It addresses the illusions that anyone should hold regarding wind energy. The study report should be of interest to a wide variety of people, such as tax payers, electrical systems operators, politicians and policy makers. Check:
http://www.cepos.dk/fileadmin/user_upload/Arkiv/PDF/Wind_energy_-_the_case_of_Denmark.pdf
Enjoy, if the truth is not too hard to take.
Walter
John Cooper says:
June 20, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Do they not have pumped storage in England? Oh, I guess they can’t – few real mountains to speak of.
In California, the Helms Pumped Storage Plant pumps water uphill to Lake Wishon (7200′) when there’s excess electricity, then lets it flow back down through the turbines to Lake Courtwright (5,500′) during times of increased demand.
This allows the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant to run at 100% even during times of low demand. The same principle would work with intermittent wind power.
I know this doesn’t work with wind, but I am just waiting on a more elegant poster to explain this without the explatives that I know will come out of my keyboard.
Jim Cripwell:
You are partially correct. I work for an electric utility, I am an engineer by training but have spent most of my life in operations. The cubed relationship between wind speed and power is not unique to wind, it is the same for any energy conversion in a fluid. For instance, if you double the speed of a centrifugal pump you will double the flow, raise differential pressure by a factor of four, and raise power consumption by a factor of eight.
You are absolutely correct about our inability to store electrical energy in any significant quantity. The only exception to this I know of is pumped storage hydro and suitable sites for this are as rare as hydro sites themselves. There are some utility scale batteries (NaS, etc.) available but they are expensive and don’t really provide the level of power storage needed, typically only a few megawatts.
Some of the descriptions above are fairly accurate about baseload and peaking power. To be fair, I don’t work in transmission and distribution but it is almost simpler than described. Power plants are operated based on variable operating costs with each plant operated to meet demand having the next higher variable operating cost than the last. Load never drops below a certain level so some plants operate all the time, these are the ones with the lowest variable operating costs. Typically hydro, nuclear, coal, and nat gas in that order. I’ll get to where renewables fit in a bit. Peaking plants are just a term for plants that change power with demand. Nat gas plants are built as peaking plants because they cost a lot to operate (high variable operating costs) but are cheap to build ( relatively low levelized capitol cost). Renewables have essentially no variable operating cost but cannot be dispatched. If they are generating power and the grid can use it then it will be used, replacing the power with the highest variable operating cost that is operating at the time. This will frequently be nat gas, not coal.
Regarding the subject of the post, my guess is that these payments would be politically motivated (another subsidy). Technically, a wind turbine should be able to apply it’s brake and turn the blades out of the wind to stop generating power. If current turbines don’t have this capability then they should, my guess is many/most do. In any case, wind turbines have very high levelized capitol costs, higher than nuclear according to the US EIA, and no one would build them absent significant production subsidies. If they would, then subsidies would not be necessary. There are other issues with maintaining a stable electrical grid (reserve margins, maintaining voltage schedule, etc) but I hope this helps. Maybe others with more experience in T&D management will add to this.
I find this interesting. Let’s look at BP’s Statistical_Review_of_World_Energy_2010. I uploaded mine xls with a few figures an annotations.
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B5vbWLK5dTl2YTE2NGViZTEtZWI5OC00YzkxLTkwOTUtZTcwMTFkMWE5OTAz&hl=en
Click the Electricity Generation Tab – China is increasing their electricity generation by 300 TetraWattHours per year, divide by 8760 and 1 million(tetra to giga to mega) to get an increase of power of 34,000 MW per year. Go here http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/China/Electricity.html and those BP figures aren’t too far off from EIA. We read that they are building 2 medium(500 MW) coal fire plants per week, but that would yield 52,000 MW and only 83% is thermal not 100%. But still in the ballpark. 83% of 34,000 is 28,000, which would mean just a tad over 1 medium sized 500 MW coal plant per week, but they are planning for the future, so it is more.
Now look at Wind>Total World and see we are building turbines like MAD!!! From an increase in 15,000 MW in 2006 compared to 2005, to an increase in 38,000 MW from 2008 to 2009. We Will Save The World!
Now go back to Electricity Generation>Total World and you see that we went from Generation of 15,000 TWHrs in 1999 to 20,000 TWHrs in 2009, 500 TWHrs per year this decade, then divide by 8,760 hrs/yr and 1 million to yield MW(power not energy) and you have an increase of 57,000 MW per year. Meaning that during the past 10 years we are creating much more electricity than we are building wind turbines, even at the frantic page during this past year. And some European countries are being saturated and many other countries just don’t have suitable areas to build them or they are too smart to do so. So if you are going to try to save the world with wind turbines, you aren’t even going to match electricity GROWTH, let alone put a dent in it. Of course we can try.
The most interesting number for wind turbines is this one. The nuclear plant that is powering this computer puts out 2400 MW, sometimes all year long. (although they usually shut one tower down in the spring and fall for maintenance). We need 5,000 2MW turbines operating at 25% yearly output to equal that one single nuclear plant. We need to carpet my state with Wind Turbines, destroying every single beautiful ridge we have, literally billions of tons of concrete and steel, towering ugliness as far as the eye can see, to equal that nuke plant on about 60 acres of land, bothering no one.
Could an Electricity expert answer this question for me?
Go to Ercot, the Texas Grid. http://mospublic.ercot.com/ercot/jsp/frequency_control.jsp
And you will see that spinning reserve is usually about 10% of Total Online Capacity and Wind+Generation roughly equals Online Capacity.
I spoke to an electricity engineer, (he hates wind because it causes the voltage and frequency problems referred to above) and he said a Grid only creates EXACTLY as much power as needed at any given moment. But I know a grid manager would NEVER let a blackout occur, (unless there is a disaster of some sort, because blackout is a disaster for civilization), and electricity is used instantaneously, but they can’t create electricity After an unexpected surge, it must be created and there already, like a river ready to let loose. So does that ERCOT grid Spinning Reserve mean they likely have an extra bit of thermal energy already spining, 10% or so, ready for an unexpected surge in demand or an unexpected outage of online capacity??
See, if that is the case, and we know even hundreds of turbines can decrease output 10% quite suddenly, (look at Ireland link above), my “hunch” is that much of the wind turbines output is actually completely backed up by an extra bit of spinning reserve >meaning we are paying for it, but since it is only a few percent of total generation, no one notices that we are not actually decreasing the buckets of coal on the fire 1 for 1, but maybe just 1/2 for 1, because a grid operator WOULD NEVER let the screwed up fluctuating Wind to cause blackout havoc? He will go along with the politicians, the fleecing of the customers, but no way is he going to let a blackout happen on his shift? To the “experts”, does this make any sense?
John Cooper says:
June 20, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Do they not have pumped storage in England? Oh, I guess they can’t – few real mountains to speak of.
In fact they do, the first was built in 1963 at Tan y grisiau for peaking in conjunction with the nearby Trawsfynydd nuclear power station (I visited them both in 1966).
Trawsfynydd has been decommissioned but the pumped storage is still operated as the Ffestiniog power station. There has since been another station built at Dinorwig.
These things are a blight. Just look at the pic at the head of this story. What a shame and what a waste. I will never live near these things. Twirling, whirling, staccatto light effects….noise…yuk! I’d go nuts.
You most certainly can! … One only needs take a little trip through history. It is all spelled out quite clearly! … Smokey is not only correct, but the results of big taxes and especially big government, are extremely clear, with numerous and indisputably consistent results. ie: Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Chavez, and on and on. The results are ALWAYS the same, without exception.
Learn some history!
A half thought through plan yet again.
The answer?????
Build a reservior with two levels. The lower level is full of water, the upper is empty. Surplus energy is used to drive pumps that move the water from the lower level to the upper level. At peak demands open up the sluice gates and generate electricity.
Did IQ’s drop while I was away?
Welcome to the madness and futility that is the UK sustainable energy policy…
So many, many misconceptions and downright un-truths on this thread.
First, wind-turbines DO work. The earlier thread on WUWT Climate Craziness of the Week: Lighting Up Your Windmill has some comments (including mine) on this subject. Despite claims to the contrary, the evidence shows that wind-turbines work and work quite well. California and Texas are excellent examples. However, they must be installed where the wind actually blows, and rather consistently.
Second, grid operators are not running blind about wind speed and wind-turbine output. It seems obvious to write this, but weather forecasters study the wind along with many other parameters in order to produce their predictions. They know many hours in advance, and sometimes days in advance, what the likely direction and strength of the wind will be. Also, there are hundreds of anemometers in areas surrounding wind-turbines, some are part of weather information gathering systems. These also can be used to determine what the wind will be as it strikes the wind-turbines.
Finally, to repeat some of what I wrote on the earlier Lighting the Windmill thread, California’s experience with wind-turbines is at the 2 percent (average) production of the entire grid. Daily values can and are much higher, sometimes 5 and 6 percent. The grid handles this without effort or problems. The quantity of power produced in California from wind is 700 MW annual average, but some days is nearly 2000 MW. Texas has higher percentages and quantities, with no problems.
California is not likely to ever see higher percentages of wind-energy, as the resources for wind are nearly built-out. There are only three suitable locations and they have had wind-turbines for many years. Texas, though, will see much more wind-turbine capacity installed.
Given all of these facts, it is somewhat surprising to see all the negative comments about wind will never work, it causes problems on the grid, and such.
As to having free electricity from wind, this is not so unusual. In the early 1980’s Canada’s Quebec Province had a surplus of hydroelectric power and were offering huge incentives for industry to purchase the power. In the oil refining industry in which I worked at the time, the offer was to pay for the purchase price and installation of things that consume electricity. They even were offering large electric heaters for the oil refineries, which normally burn a mixture of gases in fired heaters.
I don’t recall anyone complaining about that.
“Is that why Denmark finds itself in the upper quartile when it comes to suicide rates of countries in the world? The Danes find life not worth living because they are so exceedingly happy?”
I do not trust suicide statistics (are people really honest about that?), but the Scandinavians have a problem with alcohol, too. It may be caused by the long, dark, cold winters.
Taxes are so high, Scandinavians have no money to travel the world (contrary to the Germans and the British who are everywhere). So when their governement tells them their system is the best, they actually believe it.
nofreewind says: “I spoke to an electricity engineer … and he said a Grid only creates EXACTLY as much power as needed at any given moment.”
Then he doesn’t understand the operation of a grid and misled you . Frequency varies according the the short term balance of supply and demand. Too much supply and frequency rises (the system speeds up) and vice versa.
You most certainly can! … One only needs take a little trip through history. It is all spelled out quite clearly! … Smokey is not only correct, but the results of big taxes and especially big government, are extremely clear, with numerous and indisputably consistent results. ie: Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Chavez, and on and on. The results are ALWAYS the same, without exception.
Learn some history!
Correlation is not causation?
nofreewind says:
“Could an Electricity expert answer this question for me?
…….”
I can’t speak with any authority on the Texas grid, but I am an electricity professional in New Zealand, and the general principles will still apply.
Spinning reserve is generally carried in an amount sufficient to cover the largest single contingincy on a grid, and must serve two purposes. The first is to cover the loss of generation and prevent the frequency from falling to unacceptally low values. In New Zealand we call this Fast Reserve. Traditional thermal plant (e.g. coal fired) is brilliant at providing this type of reserve, but often can’t sustain the extra generation for more than a minute or two. The second purpose to replace the lost generation and to restore the frequency and voltage stability in the grid. Hydro plant (where avialable) and gas fire GTs are the perfect solution for this as they can ramp up relatively quicklyand maintain that generation for an extended time. Here, we call that sustained reserve.
The best way to obtain that reserve is to have plant operating at less than full load. As a hypothetical situation, lets say that a grid has a largest unit generating at 1000MW. It would need to have at least 1000 MW of spinning reserve, both fast and sustained. To achieve this there may be a further 10,000 MW of connected capacity (maybe spread over 20 to 50 other units) all operating at 90% capacity and ready to pick up that 1000MW risk at a moments notice. In the event that the 1000MW plant should trip off the grid, the grid operator would not need to dispatch the remaining plant as the governors on that plant would detect the drop in frequency and respond automatically.
Wind provides a much more complex issue, as it can suddenly increase generation, or (as happened here an hour ago) can suddenly decrease generation. therefore where wind comprises a significant part of the supplied generation, there needs to be a much more complex mix of generation plant actually running. Not only does the grid operator need to carry reserve to pick up ge4neration if the WFs suddenly decrease their output, but must also have plant that can reduce output quickly should the WFs suddenly increase. That is a much more complex issue as most types of turbine have a minimum load that they can’t reduce below with causing damage or risk of trip.
*smacks palm to forehead*…… That’s it. The World has officially gone mad.