From the “you can’t make this stuff up” department comes this inane story. Josh has his take on it.
Scottish Power admitted 71 of its windmills were hooked up to the fossil fuel supply after a fault developed with their power supply.
Full story here
Josh, as usual, is on the case.
Like his work? Buy him a pint.
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-Daily Record
linked above
Wind Farms.
Also known as (borrowing a US term) ” Future Superfund Sites.”
The Daily Record article is (predictably) vague about what the diesel generators were actually doing. In one place it was “de-icing” and elsewhere it was “energizing” which (if I read that right) means they are induction-type generators, without permanent-magnets. They would be similar to the alternators in our (ICE) cars, which (in my experience) need a current from the battery to actually generate. In another place, it was to power “monitoring and safety equipment”.
Or it could be to keep them turning when there’s no wind, or no grid connection to take their output, as interpreted by other commenters.
Or all of the above. In any event, it’s obvious that these monstrous blots on the once-idyllic landscape of my old homeland, need external power to operate. I think I knew that already.
Also, at some point between the turbines and the actual grid, there must be grid power so that the wind-generated current can be inverted and synchronized to it.
nukes are also consuming power when not generating:
Daily Status | Our Power Stations | EDF (edfenergy.com) data as 2023-02-06
Reactor 8
Turbine Generator 8Offline
-19
MW
Shutdown category
Planned
Expected return to service
26 Feb 2023
StatusOff load refuelling extended to address turbine vibration
Next statutory outageMay 2023
Reactor 2
Turbine Generator 2Offline
-4
MW
Shutdown category
Planned
Expected return to service
17 Feb 2023
StatusOff-load refuelling
Story tip
Wind power for 1.2m homes is wasted because of lack of storage (yahoo.com)
They forgot to mention “for an hour or two.”
This is another reminder that wind power is still unreliable despite all the subsidies and assurances that it and solar are essential for saving the planet. What their proponents should be adding is that fossil fuels are essential for keeping renewable energies operating.
Not to mention FOR THEIR VERY EXISTENCE.
If only someone could invent a system in which the fossil fuels were used more efficiently to create electrical power.
This strongly suggests that it is worst than we thought. Wind droughts are common, be it for minutes or weeks. If the information provided here is valid, turbines need to be kept turning, if only slowly, in order to avoid very costly damage. That means, for instance, when wind power fell from 25% to 27% normally supplied at that time of year to 3% and less during the Texas freeze, a great many turbines had to be drawing operating power from the grid in order to avoid extremely costly repairs (unless they had their own diesel backup systems – unlikely I’ll bet). Therefore those turbines were directly partially responsible for the misery and death Texas suffered at that time.
They were anyway, even without their own parasitic loads; they are the “domino” that caused the power failures.
From the full story “The firm said it was forced to act in order to keep the turbines warm during very cold weather in December.”
This reminds me of the case where solar panels in Spain were producing electricity between midnight and 7am. 🙂
https://theecologist.org/2010/apr/16/spanish-nighttime-solar-energy-fraud-unlikely-uk
Nuclear power station also absorb much power from the grid as witnessed by their status:
Heysham 2Last updated:
03 Feb 2023 14.38hrs
Generation (MW) data as at:
03 Feb 2023 14.00hrs
Reactor 8
Turbine Generator 8Offline
-19
MW
Shutdown category
Planned
Expected return to service
26 Feb 2023
StatusOff load refuelling extended to address turbine vibration
Next statutory outageMay 2023
Heysham 1Last updated:
03 Feb 2023 14.38hrs
Generation (MW) data as at:
03 Feb 2023 14.00hrs
Reactor 2
Turbine Generator 2Offline
-4
MW
Shutdown category
Planned
Expected return to service
17 Feb 2023
StatusOff-load refuelling
Loss of all power is not good for nukes (e.g fukushima)
Wind is a joke. In the end real economics will largely kill off the wind industry. It wouldn’t exist today if not for political capitalism and big wind living off “corporate welfare”
But… there are SO MANY politicians.
The climate changers have a cunning plan to back them up with used EV batteries-
EV batteries getting second life on California power grid (msn.com)
Batteries are worked hard during their years powering vehicles, and over time their range deteriorates. But they still hold value as stationary storage, which has gentler demands, Hall said.
The batteries in the B2U system are up to 8-years old and once powered vehicles built by Honda and Nissan.
Riiiiight! Got it-
Electric (EV) Car Battery Replacement Cost [2023 Prices] (mechanicbase.com)
Aka “the new source of California fires, and in more populated areas.”
We don’t need fossil fuels to lubricate the windmills. We can use whale oil from all the whales washing up on shore near the wind farms.