Before other comments appear, I want to state once more my position in this matter. In addition to a base of reliable and relatively inexpensive nuclear, some of the wishes of persons like the ignoramus I referred to above should be respected, because many voters are afraid of nuclear - which they shouldn't be - and at the same time do not understand most of the deficiencies of...renewables. This is a fact and it is not going to go away regardless of the arguments of persons like my good self. The thing to be understood though is that people like the aforementioned ignoramus - and perhaps the author of this paper - want to do away with ALL nuclear, but I don't think that the voters in e.g. this country (Sweden) are going to allow him and his friends to do that.

Thanks for your comment. You may enjoy reading the following document, which discusses the roles of wind energy and baseload energy (including nuclear) in meeting our energy needs. http://www.awea.org/pubs/factsheets/Baseload_Factsheet.pdf

Michael Goggin American Wind Energy Association

As I said, politically some wind will have to be used. I don't see how this can be escaped, and I don't worry about it, but the question remains as to how much wind and the other renewables should be provided. Your intermediate economics book might be able to tell you how much in theory, but theory won't help much here, and so it will have to be left up to the politicians. Hmm

Ordinarily, evaluating the value of wind turbines would be a relatively straightforward Pro Forma exercise. Needs include: facility’s location; site time varying wind profile; expected time varying price of power (can obtain from Regional Transmission Operators); all-in cost of facility, including transmission lines/upgrades; terms for borrowing money, etc. However, throw in huge subsidies and requirements for set percentages of renewable energy and the analysis becomes riskier, particularly when considering the governments (politicians) involvement. Those who live by the government overtly distorting the market can easily die from it, as a number of bankrupt ethanol plant’s can now attest.

As I sit here in Kansas, the temperature is headed towards 100F, with the wind dead calm. Power demands are high. What is a more valuable capital investment in such a situation? An inexpensive gas turbine that will always run when required or wind turbines that can only operate when the wind is available?

From my limited perspective, I wonder how well the consumer and industry interests (cost of energy) are actually served by the governments “hep”*

*Texas term: less than helpful.

As noted by Michael Keller above when there is no wind (and that is very often) the output of wind generators is zero. Unfortunately this is also when the peak air conditioning dem,and is.

Here are some ACTUAL numbers from the IESO website in Ontario Canada for today.

Installed wind capacity is 896MW. Not once today did the total wind output rise above 79MW (<10% capacity factor) at 10am the output was 2 (yes TWO) megawatts. Peak demand today was nearly 24000MW. wind energy produced less than 0.1% of the power required. It would not have mattered much if there was ten times the installed capacity. If the wind does not blow the power output is zero. And please do not tell me that back up power is not needed. Something WAS replacing the rest of the installed wind capacity. It was coal gas and nuclear.Go to the IESO website and you will see what was doing the job when wind was not.

So please Michael more facts and numbers and less of the hep. The best sites in this Province provide capacity factors of about 30% annualized and these are the windiest sites.And as Michael ably points out you really need the electricity when the temperature is high. Unfortunately that is also when the wind is low. And you say no back up is needed....complete poppycock.

Malcolm

<< System operators use two main types of generation reserves: "spinning reserves," (regulation reserves plus contingency spinning reserves) which can be activated quickly to respond to abrupt changes in electricity supply and demand... >>

No... Spinning reserves fulfill separate functions in the grid. Regulation, typically 1-2% of load, responds to changes in load in a very short time span, seconds to minutes. Reg is the throttle that maintains the precise balance between load and generation.

Otoh, spinning reserves (aka synchronized reserves) in a control area are there to respond to an EMERGENCY. They must be greater than the single biggest contingent failure and must respond within ten minutes, must be able to operate for at least two hours and must actually be rotating while waiting. Non spinning reserves fulfill the same function, and must also be able to respond within ten minutes, but don't have to be actually rotating. They can be load shedding.

<< natural gas plants can also be used to provide spinning reserves because they can quickly increase and decrease their generation with only a slight loss of efficiency. >>

Wrong. Only OCGT plants can be operated like this. CCGT plants cannot. Furthermore, oil fired plants provide more spinning reserve services than natgas. They do so by consuming about 1mw of energy to provide, say, 40mw of spin.

<< Fortunately, the same tools that utility system operators use every day to deal with variations in electricity supply and demand can readily be used to accommodate the variability of wind energy. >>

Exactly right. Wind adds substantially to both regulation and spinning reserve requirements, while socializing all of the added cost to the rest of the system. Spin and reg services are very expensive. Several ISOs publish prices for spin and reg, why don't you look them up?

<< changes in aggregate wind generation often cancel out opposite changes in electricity demand >>

Or amplify it. They are not negatively correlated.

<< The conclusion that large amounts of wind energy can be added to the grid with only minimal increases in the use of reserves is supported by the experience of grid operators in European countries with large amounts of wind energy >>

Of what relevance is the experience of winter peaking European countries to most of the US? The only summer peaking European countries are Spain and Italy. The wind is actually blowing when they need it to blow. The ONLY major metro load centers in North America that are winter peaking are Boston and Seattle. Even northern cities like Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, New York and even Calgary are strong summer peaking.

The biggest problem with wind is that it is not there when the system really NEEDS it. The lowest wind speed hours of the year are summer, midday, especially when temps are HOT. Well, until the tornadoes spin up. Capacity factors on hot summer days are 10-12% (if that) in the midwest. The highest capacity factors are spring and fall overnight, often over 80%.

So.... If we actually build a large fraction of wind as proposed by several state portfolio standards, wind will supply over 100% of the overnight power for most months of the year. Hmmm... what will the coal and nuke units be doing while the wind is blowing? Shutting down? They can't be operated that way. When they shut down, the maintenance cycle to get back up is several days. In fact, they endure negative prices in many regions at times to avoid shutting down.

Normally, I would say, "Tsk, tsk, too bad". However, government is mandating wind projects with massive subsidies. If wind had to compete on an equal footing with other generation technologies, how many wind turbines would be installed? None.

When talking about capacity on the power system, it is important to keep in mind the timeframe one is dealing with. This article was designed to address the need for capacity in the operational timeframe, which deals with making sure that the power system has enough capacity in the immediate future (typically one day ahead or less). This is the timeframe over which operating reserves are held, and thus is the only timeframe that matters when discussing the cost and emissions associated with holding those reserves, which is the point of this article. Over this timeframe, wind energy forecasting provides grid operators with a great deal of certainty about what future wind output will be.

Almost all of the comments above apply to the planning time horizon, which involves planning to ensure that the power system has enough capacity at a distant point in the future, typically several years from now. Over this time horizon it is reasonable to assume that there will be time periods when the wind plants in that region will be producing only a fraction of their rated capacity. The wind industry has never disputed this - we have consistently maintained that wind energy is primarily an energy resource, and although it provides some capacity value, wind energy should not be viewed as a capacity resource. Utilities and others who are investing in wind energy are doing so because of its tremendous value as an energy resource. The wind is free, and the energy produced by a wind plant displaces expensive energy that would have come from a fossil fuel plant, with its associated fuel use and harmful emissions. For a more lengthy discussion of energy, capacity, and related matters, I'd recommend the following resources:

http://www.awea.org/pubs/factsheets/Baseload_Factsheet.pdf http://www.uwig.org/UWIGIntSummary.pdf

Michael Goggin, American Wind Energy Association

Be that as it may, I would guess that you probably get tired of wind critics always throwing “capacity” and “capacity factor” in your face just as much as nuclear proponents get tired of critics portraying intermittent renewable capacities as of equal value to all others. For example, many contributors in this very forum have said (I paraphrase), “1000 MW of wind (or solar) is equal to (or can replace) one nuclear plant.”

Obviously, misconceptions abound and capacity/capacity factor is not the best instrument for figuring out needs. Our needs are for both energy AND power (MWh and MW) so we should make performance comparisons by another standard. A far more insightful view of capability of any particular source is the ratio between deliverable energy (MWh) and capacity (MW). I like to call it a capability factor because it can be applied independently to any source with a production history in order to describe the number of deliverable energy units per unit of capacity.

To give a few examples of capability factors (2007 EIA data):

Coal --- 6448 MWh/MW

Natural Gas --- 2282 MWh/MW

Nuclear --- 8042 MWh/MW

Wind --- 2086 MWh/MW

Solar (PV + Solar Thermal) --- 1219 MWh/MW

Grid as a whole --- 4399 MWh/MW

Clearly, the leading players in the Great Energy Debate are not equal.

In considering capability factor we get a little closer to a valid way to compare sources, ***but not completely***. There is still the matter of “when needed.” We don’t have a correction factor, index, or curve to add or subtract points for on-demand merits, or de-merits as the case may be. Historically the issue was handled pretty well --- the entire generation and T&D infrastructure was built upon serving all customers on-demand.

You are now wanting to introduce a large system under a whole new paradigm --- intermittent sources. So “when needed” brings up the seemingly unfriendly, but natural, challenge of “where’s the backups?”

The stock answer growing in the camps of wind and solar advocates is this: “with a large enough number of solar and wind units there would be no need for backups.” The argument being that over a large enough area there would be enough wind and/or sunshine to make up for random variations in outputs.

I don’t believe you can make that assertion so easily either. Sure, there are painstaking studies that have come to that conclusion, but they all seem to be supported by broad averages --- and averages mean nothing to dead air and darkness. Our needs do not go away just because the sun is not shining or the wind does not blow. If you are shivering in cold darkness, it doesn't help that the average temperature may be 70 degrees. And speaking of studies, minute-by-minute up to one hour is not very convincing.

And what large areas are we speaking of? If it’s where the resources are, then for solar it’s the great SW desert of America and for wind it’s the high plains starting in north-central Texas extending into Canada plus there are the Pacific Northwestern states. The greatest number of consumers live elsewhere, but that's another issue.

Large scale drops in solar power occur daily over pretty much the entire continent at once and as for wind, we can think of it as a storage and distribution system for solar energy. It simply extends the availability of solar over a longer part of the day. Unfortunately, the wind does not “average out” according to needs either. Large scale drops in wind can and do occur over large regions at the same time, most often observed within a few hours after sundown, which is also daily. Calm air + darkness = backups. It’s not a myth.

I agree however, that the need for backups is not one-for-one, and you should admit that neither is it negligible. Besides, as you have pointed out so well, adding wind would retire some amount of fossil burners…. and in so doing would not that also retire some of the spinning reserve that you admit is very helpful?

OK, but I still get your point. Wind is not for adding capacity, it’s for energy…. wind energy replaces fossil energy. The trouble is, not necessarily when we need it; backups are necessary; and the cost is staggering.

Instead of building fossil fueled generators to meet capacity, and then installing wind turbines that force them off-line when the wind is blowing, why not install storage with each wind turbine? Storage adds capacity to the wind resource, allowing it to be dispatchable and scheduled. That would increase the value of the wind resource, enabling on-peak use of off-peak generation, and reduce the added emissions caused by ramping generators to meet intermittent wind power. Storage-wind hybrids make more sense then natural gas peaker-wind hybrids. And, storage capacity doesn't have to be 1:1 with wind. Sumitomo installed VRB flow battery technology (6 MW) at 20% of wind capacity to achieve firming at a wind farm in Japan.

Technically you are correct that "adding" wind to an existing system does not significantly increase the need for backup. However, the assumption of minimal backup is valid only if the addition of wind is not intended to increase the abiltiy of the system to serve load. To serve increased load, wind requires backup of roughly 80 to 90% backup generation for the increased load served.

To provide a simplistic example: Case 1: If you are serving 100 MW of load and that load does not increase, you can add 100 MW of wind without much backup other than probably some minimal regulation capability. The sytem that existed prior to the wind addtion will still serve the load when the wind is at zero (which occurs unpredictably) In this case the integration of wind energy into a system can be done at a reasonable cost - many studies suggest roughly 10% of the cost of the product.

Case 2: However, if you are serving 100 MW of load and the load increases to 200 MW, you can't reliably serve the increased load by adding 100 MW of wind. You will also need to add roughly 80-90 MW of dispatchable generation as backup to reliably serve the full 200 MW of load.

The general public doesn't understand this key difference, and all too often has the misimpression that baseload generation can be replaced by wind. As an AWEA representative, you have an obligation to educate, not mislead. Make it clear that wind alone can't serve load. It needs work together with other resources to "keep the lights on". Our society is energy intensive and we need energy from all sources. Wind is a very viable source of energy, but not capacity. Don't over-sell it because all the legislation in the world won't overcome the physics. Raising public expectations above the ability of wind to meet those expectations will, in the end, hurt wind's progress, not help it.

1> Wind adds substantially to spinning reserve and regulation requirements because it is not reliable.

2> Coal and nuclear plants cannot simply be "displaced". If you shut them off, they can't come back on for a few days. We already have problems with this overnight as reflected in negative prices, what is going to happen when wind supplies EVERY megawatt overnight in the spring and fall and often in the winter and summer?

Charles: The problem is COST. Wind is already horrifically expensive. Adding wind makes a very bad situation much worse.

Another point is that when wind energy replaces enegy from dispatchable fossil fueled plants, it reduces the amount of fuel consumed, but it does not reduce their capital and O&M costs. So the fossil fueled plants are generating less energy, but have nearly the same total costs. That raises the average cost of power to consumers.

Wind turbines can produce cheap energy -- if you happen to have discretionary loads that can take that energy when it's available. Large commercial freezers, ice-based air conditioning systems, energy storage systems, electrolytic hydrogen and oxygen production, cold water storage for inlet air cooling on gas turbine power plants, .. probably several others that I can't recall off hand. Oh, PHEV recharging -- though that's just a particular form of energy storage.

The bottom line is that if wind and solar are to be mainstays for power generation, we need to also move from supply management to demand management.

For some real time facts that help put this debate in perspective, the Midwest ISO provides a moving 24 hours of wind production in its market footprint - http://www.midwestmarket.org/page/Total+Wind+Generation

The Midwest ISO also provides the real-time load for each operating day - http://www.midwestmarket.org/page/Real+Time+Info+(EOR)

One can then observe the wind output over a large geographic region (Midwest ISO footprint spans from eastern Montana to Ohio and from Manitoba to Missouri) compared to the demand on the system.

Last week when the upper Midwest was seeing temperatures in the 90’s with high humidity and thus high loading conditions, the wind generation in the Midwest ISO footprint had several daytime hours with 100 MW or less of wind generation and many continuous hours less than 1,000 MW. This week, with the temperatures in the 60’s and 70’s and low humidity and thus low loading conditions, wind generation has topped 3,000 MW in some hours (highest wind output I have seen in the Midwest ISO footprint is over 3,800 MW this spring).

As far a wind farms go, is Fast Neutron's statement

fast neutron Santa Fe, NM January 12, 2009

From actual experience, wind farms produce 1.2 watts per square meter. Solar Thermal and Photovoltaic methods capture 5 to 6 watts per square meter. There is no economy of size in either technology. Dividing the watts you need by those values gives the land area in square meters needed to produce the juice. The numbers are astronomical

http://www.topix.net/forum/source/santa-fe-new-mexican/T0QVJ5UD3R25C8HRL

correct or not?

IF Fast Neutron is wrong about wind farms, then what is the correct value?

Thanks in advance. bill

The 'figurins' of Goggin are the stuff of Enron, and his references are from studies of CO2 offsets – not resource planning.

To label wind’s reliance on a growing load balancing resource pool of fast ramping, expensive and high carbon emitting open cycle gas generators and additional inefficient spin a "myth" must make all the energy professionals here bristle. As ludicrous is Goggins’ assumption that coal facilities can stop burning and emitting with each gust of wind and begin generating again as it calms with no heat rate penalty or additional emission rate.

The United States was founded on and has often fought for NIMBYism, and I walk in that proud tradition. In Ohio, politicians are ramming wind projects down the throats of rural residents. Ohio ranks high in rural vs. urban population (5th), high in rate of rural population growth (8th) high in population density (9th), and low in wind resources (38th). The only running wind facility in the state has an annual capacity factor between 22 and 25% year to year, and undisclosed likely high – variability on the 5 minute interval time scale. At least Ontario Canada has the decency to make their five minute wind data available for study by independent researchers.

Now in terms of emissions, it is important that an isolated case be constructed to measure the incremental heat rate of, say, OCGTs in the role of transforming wind energy into a capacity resource above the heat rate that OCGT would experience in its current role in the mix. Measure the emissions from that gas plant and subtract them from the amount saved system wide by the associated wind facility. Then look at the all-in capital and operational costs and divide by production. Before a dollar of tax money is given to wind based on carbon savings, foreign oil reduction, national security and cost stabilization, I’d like to see the numbers – not the sensationalistic numbers in tons and gWh, but the percentage change wind delivers to the nation’s energy and emission reduction needs. Until the proof is shared openly– right down to the minute scale anemometer data from every test site and running project in the country, I will contend that wind energy is no more effective in our grids than sailing ships are in our cargo fleets or gliders in our airline industry. It's simply an unreliable product hiding behind a century of sound, technological development in low cost, compact, highly responsive and reliable forms of capacity from the rest of the generation fleet. It stands no chance of lowering energy prices or boosting our economy.

The burden of proof is on the wind energy industry.

Mr. Tanton's implication that wind energy does not lead to reductions in fossil fuel consumption due to inefficient operation of the rest of the system is largely a myth infecting and spread by the anti-wind camp. Every regional balancing area (RBA) is different, in terms of the number and types of generating assets it has to draw upon for load balancing, but it is exceedingly rare for the ISO in any RBA to have to command any asset to operate at an inefficient partial output in order to accommodate wind generation. That would be an emergency situation reflecting a deficiency of regulated capacity.

Normally, variations in wind supply are accommodated through scheduled starts and stops of dispatchable generators, based on day-ahead and hour-ahead forcasts. In most cases, accommodation doesn't even affect the number of generator starts and stops; just their timing and duration.

The problem that I mentioned earlier does remain: the capacity factor of non-wind dispatchable assets is reduced, tending to raise the overall cost of power. That's a valid criticism, and it should be factored in when trying to arrive at a fair valuation for wind energy. On the other hand, there is an offsetting saving that should also be factored in, and that's the affect of lowered fuel demand on fuel prices. When supplies are tight, that can be quite significant.

To label wind’s reliance on a growing load balancing resource pool of fast ramping, expensive and high carbon emitting open cycle gas generators and additional inefficient spin a "myth" must make all the energy professionals here bristle. As ludicrous is Goggins’ assumption that coal facilities can stop burning and emitting with each gust of wind and begin generating again as it calms with no heat rate penalty or additional emission rate.

My ISO source, BTW, hated wind power -- not wind power, per se, so much as the way it was being foisted onto the system. Wind farms were allowed to connect to the grid without the kind of storage that Charles Toca mentiions that would "firm" its output and add reliability to the hour-ahead forcasts.

The ISO was obliged to accept whatever the wind farm threw at the system, and make the best of it. That involved scrambles to make last-minute adjustments to the start and stop schedules and sometimes the ramp rates of gas and coal-fired generators. In addition the microvariations from gusting in wind farm output caused voltage and frequency fluctuations that impacted the quality of service metrics on which ISO performance is evaluated. It forced them to eat the cost of adding synchronous capacitors or increased regulation capacity.

But it did not require the operation of peaking units to fill in when wind generation was down. The system had enough load-following dispatchable capacity to handle the load at most times. The open-cycle CTs and diesel gen-sets that are resorted to for meeting the highest peaks were actually used somewhat less than they would have been without the wind farms. That's because the wind was sometimes blowing at the time of the highest peaks, when the peaking units would otherwise have been switched on.

Finally, a comment regarding dispatchability of coal-fired plants: as it happens, coal-fired plants normally make very good dispatchable resources. That's because a coal-fired plant is almost never a single train of boiler, steam turbine, and generator. It's common for one plant to have two or three boilers and up to a dozen steam turbines and generators. Boilers definitely don't like being shut down completely, but they can be throttled over a wide range with no ill effects. It's the axial turbines that have a very limited throttling range. So one boiler is normally connected to several turbines, through valves. It's no problem to shut down one turbine and generator, while others continue to operate.

Now we have the spector of a new "final solution" to the problem of wind's uncontrollability - "Since we can't control the wind, let's control demand so that it conforms to wind's whims." Big Brother, where art thou?

God help us all.

David Smith Moscow in the Free State of Idaho

But Sweden doesn't need saving. I talked to people at a big math conference here yesterday, and it was quite clear that if Swedish politicians and some media people didn't understand the position of Sweden in the international environmental picture, those 'nerds' very definitely got the message. And if they didn't and went down to Stockholm last night, they very definitely got it.

(By "it" I mean the message, and not what Tokyo Rose often mentioned during WW2: "I got mine last night, American soldiers. Did you get yours?")

Then why is it that if you pick up a Swedish newspaper you risk being told about the need to rip apart the nuclear facilities and replace them with windmills. The answer is money. Persons arguing economics or technology are missing the point. The voters in this country have been tricked into believing that they have a choice between nuclear and e.g. wind when, in fact, they have no choice at all, and so money that should go to the construction of another nuclear facility will go to wind and its sponsors.

BUT, once again, as long as there are these doubts in this matter, I have nothing at all against a little spending on wind. if Sweden cancelled its contributions to wars and nonsense in Stone Age countries, and parasites in Brussels, it would be a simple matter to give the TV audience the windmills that many of them are desperate to see, and feel good about, without raising my taxes.

And Roger, you speak of energy professionals "bristleing". What they need to do is to start talking! Why do they essentially remain passive in the face of the nuttiness that the official US energy policy may take? Yes, individuals in mid-career can't speak out, but what about persons with loud voices and adequate pensions.

As others have pointed out, wind typically produces most when demand is least, while it produces often nothing at times of peak demand. Its national annual capacity factor (with nearly 35,000 huge turbines) is around 28%. More than 60% of the time, wind projects produce less than their capacity factor and about 20% of the time they produce virtually nothing. They rarely produce their rated capacities.

Working to integrate such a volatile energy source as wind with the precision, high-powered, highly responsive machinery that enables modern society seems such a backassward engineering scheme. Unless Mr. Toca knows chemistry that I don't, battery "storage" for wind at levels that would balance its relentless variability is not remotely on anyone's horizon, unless we look to the pr folks at NREL and AWEA for assurance that it is. Building widely scattered wind plants all the hell over the place in order to make the variability more predictable is also scattered brained. The "Smart Grid" is an effort to control demand; we'll see how far that gets as a tool to dampen economic production at a time of high unemployment....

I understand--and agree with--Ron Rebenitsch's point but thought it was not illustrated very well by the example he chose in his Case # 1. Better if he would have cited a 1000MW non-increasing load system. As it is, his example would have sizable and extremely costly regulation problems (far beyond 10%), not to mention perhaps insuperable problems with voltage regulation and transmission.

As for Roger Arnold's comments about wind's ability to offset fuels used by thermal generators, I'm not sure about his ultimate point. As Tom Tanton implied, any offsets would likely be dependent on many factors and be grid specific. These factors would include the nature of the fuel and the ramping abilities of any fuel wind might temporarily displace, along with the nature of the fuels used and the ramping limitations of regulating units involved with balancing wind flux. The real question here is wind's ability to offset meaningful levels of CO2 emissions as it skitters on and off the grid. From the evidence I've seen, I believe wind has minimal ability to achieve this goal.

So where's the independent measurement, using a load dispatch analysis that accounts on a five minute basis for the variables mentioned above with others like wind's effect on voltage regulation and transmission, not to mention the CO2 used in the construction and maintenance of a wind project (all that concrete adds up...)? The fact that the massive public subsides for wind aren't indexed to actual reductions of CO2 is, well, a staggering tribute to the power of glib politics in thrall to the gush of lobbyists.

Millions of windscrapers scattered throughout the land would do little to make our world better and would do much to make it worse. The uncivil nature of massive wind is well documented. The environmental threat posed by such development should alarm all knowledgeable people. And the lost opportunity costs involved by throwing billions down the rathole of wind should sober us all. There are so many other more elegant ways to produce electricity without resorting to the tedious and intellectually disingenuous gymnastics now in play to "rationalize" wind technology that frankly this discussion is embarrassing.

Again, this article was designed to address misconceptions about wind energy and emissions reductions. As such, it only deals with the operational timeframe, not the planning timeframe, as fuel use and emissions are only relevant in the operational timeframe. Yes, over the planning timeframe, one cannot expect a wind plant to provide close to its full nameplate capacity at all times. Of course one power source alone cannot provide the power system with all of the energy, capacity, and flexibility that it needs. I never claimed anything to the contrary - if you actually read the article you'll see that. Again, wind plants are not capacity resources, although they do provide some capacity value. Fortunately wind is being integrated onto a power system with a diversity of other resources that can provide capacity at low cost. Most of the comments above seem to focus on that issue, a topic that this article did not even attempt to cover. For those of you who want to get into the discussion of wind, capacity, and the planning timeframe, please read: http://www.awea.org/pubs/factsheets/Baseload_Factsheet.pdf

Some of the comments above do embody the myths that this fact sheet was trying to address: that wind plants do not reduce emissions, or that the reduction in emissions is greatly mitigated by an increase in emissions elsewhere on the power system. As the article explains, most changes in wind output occur very slowly. Thus, most of these variations can be accommodated without the use of expensive and modestly emissions-increasing spinning reserves. Dozens of wind integration studies have looked at this issue and found similar results - wind adds very little if any need for regulation or spinning reserves, and only modest costs over the unit commitment timeframe. The act of committing a plant has no real effect on emissions. Read these wind integration studies for yourself if you don't believe me: http://www.uwig.org/opimpactsdocs.html

Other commenters also argued that some coal plants are too inflexible to rapidly turn on and off. Wind integration studies have noted this and concluded that a likely scenario as we reach high wind penetrations is that many coal plants will no longer run during certain parts of the year, with their capacity replaced by more flexible natural gas plants. Thus, total power system emissions will be reduced by an even greater amount than is directly offset by the wind plants.

Michael Goggin, American Wind Energy Association

Modern grids can integrate virtually anything, if their political bosses so demand. I've read the "integration studies" offered up here by the American Wind Energy Associations employee, and found that none engage reality. They're little more than thought experiments, but ones that aren't very honest. Their operational definitions slide all over the place and they don't account for important variables. Their methodology is similar to that employed by Cinderella's stepsisters as they tried to make that damned sister fit their outsized feet.

The AWEA has as much scientific credibility in the area of electricity as PHARMA has in the area of medicine. Selling snake oil is a tough business these days, and making wind technology seem modern, cutting edge, and effective requires all the tools for making cognitive dissonance seem like reality--Orwellian disinformation, highly paid pundits who tailor their expertise to the needs of their clients, big media (note how NBC shills for its parent GE in trying to unload the wind business the latter bought from Enron), and, of course, studies produced by those with a vested interest in the outcome--no conflict of interest here (the science is absurd, for there's no attempt to eliminate bias, the first principle of the scientific method).

http://www.prosefights.org/pnmsolar/pnmsolar.htm#sobel

I should have picked up on the “necessarily” in Mr. Tanton's statement that “it is NOT true that wind displacment of fossil unit output necessarily reduces those unit's fuel requirements.” He's correct, in that there are scenarios in which the normal load-following methods of scheduled starts and stops for dispatchable generators become inadequate to handle supply variability from high levels of wind penetration. In those scenarios, it would be necessary to resort to open cycle CTs or other peaking units to back up the wind supply. Or to operate units beyond their optimum throttling ranges.

It's also true, however, that those scenarios rarely arise in practice, at the levels of wind penetration found in the North American market. What level of wind penetration can be accommodated before impacting the overall efficiency of the fossil fuel fleet is a matter of legitimate debate. Studies such as those cited by Mr. Goggin suggest an order of magnitude higher than current levels. But it's hard to nail down, because it depends heavily on details of individual RBAs. It also depends on assumptions about what else is added to the grid along with any proposed wind capacity.

I'm strongly in favor of regulations that would require wind farms, as a condition for licensing, to guarantee “good citizenship” on the grid. That means delivering steady power at the levels and ramp rates agreed to in hour-ahead contracts with the ISO (through the ISO's SCADA network). There are a variety of ways to accomplish that. Storage is one obvious option. It only requires storage on the order of 15 minutes of the wind farm's rated output to stabilize it to hour-ahead agreements with 99.9% confidence. Hour-ahead wind forcasts can be reasonably accurate to begin with. Although momentary gusts and “anti-gusts” (drop-offs) do occur, the average wind output over any 5-minute period just doesn't change all that quickly. So the storage system only has to handle the small minute-to-minute variations and deviations between the contracted output and the actual turbine outputs.

The storage option is attractive because, if done right, it not only “firms up” wind farm output, but can allow the installation to supply ancillary services to the grid. However, it's by no means the only option. Another is simply a control system that throttles individual turbines according to what is happening in the wind farm, as a whole. That meant that the contracted output will normally be slightly less than what the wind farm would actually be able to supply. However, the difference need not be more than a few percent. Assuming that the turbines and generators are designed for it – and they have to be, for this option to be viable at all – rotational inertia in the turbines can be tapped to cover momentary drops, and to store momentary surpluses.

(to be continued .. )

A third option is to couple the wind farm with a large discretionary load – e.g., an electrolysis plant for making hydrogen and oxygen. A variable portion of the wind farm output is diverted to the discretionary load, so that what is sent to the grid complies with agreements. The agreements will be set safely below what the wind forcast suggests could be supplied, but that's fine; the discretionary load will produce value for the energy surplus.

Finally (sorry about the length), for the record, I wish to note that I am not a big fan of wind power. It's for aesthetic reasons, however, not technical. My early memories are from Colorado in the early 1950's. I grew up in a semi-cowboy culture, and there were still a few “old-timers” around who remembered driving cattle across an open range. Like any young cowboy wannabe, I hated fences – never mind phone lines and power lines cutting across the landscape. And to this day, I resent the way that wind farms overpower the land around them and put a “dominion of man” stamp upon it that can't be ignored. If I had my 'drothers, I'd 'drother that the anti-nuclear movement in the 1970's had been strangled at birth, allowing us to proceed along the path that France managed. We'd have cleaner air, and no global warming threat.

But none of that changes any facts. And one big fact is that, of all the current technologies for obtaining energy from non-fossil resources, wind has both the lowest capital cost per kWhr per year and the lowest lead time from capital commitment to operation. Those facts alone guarantee that it is going to be a big part of our energy future, whether we as individuals happen to like it or not. So I prefer to focus on how to make best use of it and to mitigate its negative features, rather than bitch about it.

Aside from the technical debate, what about the practicality of his latest musing? That coal plants would shut down part of the year (they call that stranded cost) and natural gas plus wind would replace it (stranded cost in the gas plants, too, during the part of the year THEY are idled from their primary role - can you say "redundant capital investment?" Sure...)

So the gas plants emit CO2 at some rate, and logically at some higher rate during those "rare" times wind energy output fluctuates rapidly. Whatever that carbon emission rate is must be subtracted from the coal plant's emission rate to arrive at wind's THEORETICAL carbon avoidance. Once that number is estimated, then we need to

Perhaps many energypulse readers will want to read AWEA reports Mr. Goggin references and swallow them whole, but I hope not. And supposing CO2 turns out to be the big lie many suspect? The climate sure does change, all right. I wore a sweater all day today in the Ohio valley! To be sure AWEA has many more sales pitches about national security, helping to stabilize volatile natural gas prices, and the list goes on.

Perhaps T. Boone Pickens said it best when he replied to a real life question this way, "I don't want to replace natural gas with wind (a foundational part of 'The Pickens Plan'), I want to add wind to natural gas. We have plenty of natural gas to serve both electricity and transportation markets for 60 years." Transcript and audio available here: www.savewesternOH.org - Click on links next to the "Pickens Plan B" icon.

Since Mr. Goggin claims wind output changes gradually, perhaps he would consider lobbying for the release of all wind gen data over any given year on a one minute interval scale. That data is just not available to the public that I can find. I wonder why not.

We have all seen the output charts for Germany's EON.Netz, but for any newcomers, here's a link to an annual report: http://www.countryguardian.net/EON_Netz_Windreport2005_eng.pdf

There is no myth in challenging the wind industry to prove their emissions reduction. The myth is in the ridiculous numbers the wind industry has claimed - whatever they think they can get away with, apparently. The UK advertising standards authority HALVED the amount of CO2 wind energy companies could claim to avoid, from 860 to 430 grams per kWh. That info here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/23/wind_spin_overblown/

Someone did some real research to conclude 860 grams was inaccurate. No lawsuits resulted from BWEA as a result of this new law. Will AWEA do the work to prove that 430 grams isn't too ambitious? Don't hold your breath (unless you are getting paid in carbon credits to do so.)

"With the continued expansion of the use of wind energy in Germany, demand for standby reserve capacity will continue to rise, and will increase around fivefold by 2020."

As he points out, much of the time the wind flux is not large. But it's not small, either. A visit to both the Ontario IESO site and to the Bonneville Power Authority site showing wind performance in the Pacific northwest should be instructive, for the latter shows minute-by-minute changes of as much as 40MW. Occasionally, as has happened in both areas, there are wide swings in the wind energy, such as occurred this past December 20 at the BPA, where, with 1600MW of installed wind, the flux went from a 180MW to over 1300MW in one hour, threatening grid security.

The question should not be whether today's grids can "handle" such volatility. Of course they can, at least at levels of around 5% of wind penetration (this level of penetration really depends on the grid). Beyond this, things get sticky, expensive, and threatening. The real question is why in the world should any grid be required to?

Mr. Arnold's closing "big fact"--that, of "all the current technologies for obtaining energy from non-fossil resources, wind has both the lowest capital cost per kWhr per year and the lowest lead time from capital commitment to operation"--is only a fact in a narrow kind of wonderland, one that places value on pixie dust, rather than genuine providers of modern power and capacity. Subsidizing wind technology (and solar), with its non-dispatchable energy and zero capacity value and then claiming it is competitive with other systems that are dispatchable and provide high levels of capacity value, seems more than foolish. And unpersuasive.

I too don't think we ought to just bitch about this zaniness. We should ridicule efforts to make it happen and not stand idly by while such vapid "engineering" approaches fleece our pocketbooks and endanger the reliability of our electricity systems. The politicalization of our energy supply must stop. Surrendering to trendy energy schemes hatched by corporate bullies is something knowledgeable people, even engineers, should not do. We should tell GE, Florida Power and Light, AES, and BP to "tear down that wall" of bromide constructed to separate people from their reason and the contents of their wallets.

You see, she wants to believe in windpower. She desperately wants to believe that the 6000 turbines the ignoramuses are talking about will make everything right. Yes, wind has a place in the energy portfolio of this country, but not the place that she believes. As for Mr Gyllenhammar, that pensioner just wants something to do that will put him on the front page of a newspaper now and then. As for the hundred million or so of American dollars that are involved, many of which will be wasted, well the hell with those. As Tokyo Rose said, he's got his.

But as I pointed out to Mr. Coggins the electrical output CAN and DOES vary significnatly, in 5 minutes increments under gusty winds, unless you consider +/- 20% or more not significant. I don't consider it significant if wind is ~1-2% of a grid---but I do consider it significant if much more than that. For those of you who have kindly written and suggested I didn't finish my last post "Wind gusts can have a profound impact on output, in both signs. " I simply meant that output can increase OR decrease OR both, by the amounts indicted. For those unfamiliar with wind measurement, "gusty" is an official weather term (NWS) with >10 knot differences in peak wind v lulls---and then remember the third power rule. So what happens if you have 20 knot, but gusty winds?

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory also has excellent publications and raw data on this topic: http://www.nrel.gov/wind/systemsintegration/publications.html http://www.nrel.gov/wind/westernwind/

All of this data shows that, while a single wind plant may occasionally experience somewhat rapid changs in output, the aggregate output of wind plants spread over a reasonably large area is remarkably constant over time periods of 30 minutes or so. Again, variability over shorter time periods is what matters from an emissions standpoint - slower variability can be accommodated without the use of spinning reserves.

When reviewing the results of a timed study of eight-hour-ahead wind production forecasts over 6650 MW of installed wind capacity from 7,000 widely dispersed wind turbines, E.ON Netz in Germoany found that, although forecasting errors of more than 1000 MW were “fairly rare,” about one-third of the time they exceeded 500 MW. This casts doubt on persistent claims that better forecasting of wind availability will allow grid operators sufficient knowledge to accurately plan the amount of backup generation necessary to safely compensate for the widest wind fluctuations. Such evidence reinforces the axiom that wind patterns are inherently random. Moreover, the size of the E.ON Netz sample demonstrates that spreading large numbers of wind turbines across the landscape—diversifying the aggregate wind supply--would not vastly improve the stochastic likelihood of more accurate forecasting, as many wind developers maintain.

Recent data compiled by the Renewable Energy Foundation in Britain, looking at eight widely-separated wind regions, showed that, although aggregating does reduce the wind flux somewhat, “the overall power output is far from smooth.” In January, for example, the output variations over 12 years varied by 94% of the installed capacity, causing the remaining power plants on the grid to work harder in order to compensate.

Do go to the Ontario IESO site for wind performance data: http://www.ieso.ca/imoweb/marketdata/genEnergy.asp. And check the wind performance at the Bonneville Power Authority: http://www.transmission.bpa.gov/business/operations/Wind/default.aspx.

And, Ferdinand, why not take the lead in Sweden by writing an op ed for the papers there that will expose the political grandstanding you mention. Point out that, although wind may be the stuff dreams are made of, the Maltese Falcon of electricity production, such a confection is not for healthy economies that seek higher levels of productivity and performance. Quite the contrary.

It so happens however that I am a bottom line person. In the contest between standard of living and energy preferences, standard of living will come out on top. We will lose millions - or billions - of dollars before we get the energy structure we deserve, but in the long run the TV audience will be convinced that 2+2 =4, because if they continue to believe otherwise they might find themselves wining and dining in a soup kitchen. Incidentally, I was once in the US Army in Japan and Germany, with enough leisure to find out why those lovely people thought that they could take on Uncle Sam, and what I discovered is that our fellow humans hardly deserve to be awarded sleepwalker badges. As I have noted many times, even when American bombs were raining down on Berlin, and the Russians were in the suburbs, some of the best educated Germans still preferred to believe that they could win.

Knowing about that - I mean really knowing about it - keps me from being frustrated by some of the foolishness that I encounter.

How does that square with your statement that we already have such resources to compensate?

<< Wind integration studies have noted this and concluded that a likely scenario as we reach high wind penetrations is that many coal plants will no longer run during certain parts of the year, with their capacity replaced by more flexible natural gas plants. >>

So, you are ADMITTING that we will need to displace $20 marginal cost plants with $60 marginal cost plants? How do you think this helps your case?

<< Dozens of wind integration studies... >>

Then, cite the best ones specifically and stop referring to them generically. Why should you expect us to wade through dozens of studies you dumped into your 'Wind Integration Library' website?

Michael: We already know how wind varies. Midday, summer, especially when hot, no wind. Overnight during spring and fall, blowing lke a banshee.

<< All of this data shows that, while a single wind plant may occasionally experience somewhat rapid changs in output, the aggregate output of wind plants spread over a reasonably large area is remarkably constant over time periods of 30 minutes or so. >>

Please cite a specific source when you post this.

I wish all a terrific July 4 celebration.

Nevertheless, at what is now typical capacity factors of 92% for nuclear (U.S.), an annual yield exceeding 8,000 MWh per MW of nuclear power is the norm and 100% of it is consumed in the baseload. Such an extraordinary capability allows nuclear to produce 20% of the nation’s electricity with only 10% of the capacity.

Baseload capacity can be thought of as the MINIMUM of our power needs at any time of day, night, or season and is vital to maintain. The baseload on the grid is approximately the average capacity factor of all grid inputs, which is roughly 50%.

The total energy consumed annually from baseload capacity is around 2 Billion MWh, about ½ of present total consumption. The other 50% comes from generators that can vary the capacity more quickly upon demand and meet other specific needs. Coal, at nearly 50% of the MWh delivered with only 30% of the capacity and a 74% capacity factor, is obviously doing some double duty as baseload and variable.

The capacity to meet annual energy consumption depends entirely upon what type of fuel is used. At present, 50% of the electricity comes from baseload, 50% does not – and there is no compelling reason to change that ratio in a way that would weaken the baseload. Any means of generation (fuel type) with a capacity factor of less than the grid’s capacity factor of 50% would weaken the baseload and is therefore not a real contender for baseloading.

The reality is wind and nuclear do not compete, but they can play on the same team.

There are only two serious contenders for supplying baseload – they are coal and nuclear. Together they supply 70% of the energy on the grid with a combined MW capacity of about 40% of the total. At 8,000 MWh per MW the entire baseload of around 2 Billion MWh of energy could be handled by about 250,000 MW nuclear, which is hardly more than doubling the present capacity.

Note that I did not figure in economic growth. That’s because all growth projections at this point are conjecture at best. On that note, forced reductions far beyond what is presently managed (peak shaving, load shedding, etc.), are possible alternatives to “meeting” demand.

A doubling of nuclear capacity can and should be raised as soon as possible and it is entirely possible to do it within a decade. Present capacity structure was raised in decade in the face of powerful political opposition and it can be done again, given the political will to allow it.

A mere 100,000 to 150,000 new MW of nuclear capacity (1) would keep our baseload strong; (2) is achievable at reasonable cost; (3) does not release CO2; (4) would replace coal on a >1-for-1 MWh/MW basis; (5) would obviate the need for many “double-duty” fuels such as natural gas; and (6) would allow plenty of room for growth of renewables to flatten grid peaks and valleys and serve fringe niches off-grid. Note that “fringe niches off-grid” does not mean small.

Contrary to the faith of extremists on both sides, a rational energy policy is not a contest between nuclear and renewables. On the larger playing field nuclear and renewables are specialty players on the same team, not enemies, in the struggle for clean air and enough electricity.

Obviously, nuclear is not the total answer and no responsible nuclear advocate has ever said that was so. The original grand plan was simply to retire coal, not take over everything. A doubling of present nuclear capacity would cover the majority of our baseload needs, and that is in both capacity and deliverable energy.

A doubling would keep our base loading strong while more quickly than anything else retiring over half of our coal plants, whose deadly pollutants include arsenic and mercury. Oh yes, and for each Bbtu of coal not combusted it would prevent releasing around 500,000 lb of CO2 into the air.

Presently, the grid still has tremendous strength with nearly 70% of it propped up by the primary baseloaders, coal and nuclear… which, incidentally, is exactly why we can experiment with new variables. Incredulously, although baseloading capability is the very foundation of our generation structure, somehow that entire paradigm has gained powerful political opposition. I say don’t mess with it.

Nice summary. I think I'm in full agreement. Can't say for sure, because I don't know quite what you mean in that last paragraph -

Incredulously, although baseloading capability is the very foundation of our generation structure, somehow that entire paradigm has gained powerful political opposition.

I never could see what the pro-DG / anti-central power activists actually had against central power. They seemed to be making power utilities a symbol for everything they didn't like about modern industrial and consumer society. Now there are plenty of things that I don't like about our consumer society, but laying the blame at the feet of the the power utilities and chasing a cockeyed notion that distributed generation would somehow bring us back to the land to live in harmony with nature struck me as singularly stupid.

The other thing it occurs to me that you could mean by a paradigm of baseloading capability is the current system of flat electric rates that make it the utility's responsibility to meet whatever demand the customer base presents any given moment. It seems unlikely, but if what you're opposed to is the movement to introduce smart meters with real-time pricing of electricity aimed at flattening the demand curve, then we're on opposite sides of the issue. I'm strongly in favor of it.

Although there are folks like David Smith above who see "demand management" as code for "big brother messin' with our lives, telling us when we can and can't use power", to me real time pricing is just common sense. It's a way to flatten the load curve, and allow more of our power to be supplied by low-cost baseload capacity. I see flat-rate pricing as an artifact of regulation that raises costs to electricity customers by requiring the utility to carry a lot of heavily under-utilized capacity.

As it happens, real-time pricing, while encouraging the introduction of discretionary loads and leveling the load curve, also makes it easier to accommodate intermittent sources like wind and solar. Perhaps that's what you meant when you referred to nuclear and renewables as "specialty players on the same team".

Or in any case, not antagonists.

Unfortunately, decentralization to some means a large and sporadic array of individual units answerable to no authority whatsoever. Here’s a thought: what if reactive power on the grid needs adjusting? In the past it was no real problem given adequate response time. Individual large units, in communication with the collective other large units, would simply tweak generator field currents to balance the VAR loading.

I suspect that the vast majority of the advocates among decentralized renewables haven’t the vaguest notion of what reactive power is, much less know how to control it and could not be depended upon to control it if they could.

Just since the year 2000, major population areas like California, Northeastern U.S. and Florida were stricken by weaknesses in the infrastructure, not only in the ability to deliver power, but to adjust for the heat load on the system. Note that those areas are as remote from the to-be-wind-farmed central plains as you can get. Note also that those weaknesses were not just generation capacity, but in response capability weaknesses among the power providers. The T&D system gets its share of the blame too.

More and smaller BASE units, providing more MW, MWh AND better control of reactive power, would better serve the large and populous areas just mentioned.

If history is any indicator, think of this: In the past 30 years we have had a large scale use of small independent suppliers (small fuel oil or diesel combusters) in the Northeast, de-centralized, if you will, and they failed miserably to provide any relief in the great blackout of 2003. The system was fully restored after the base units came back up, in a highly controlled demand environment, which took days to complete.

We can tolerate a large number of independants coming and going on and off the system, only if we have the centralized infrastructure to back it up. In total that includes all things that make the grid stable. One shining example, among many, is having a strong baseload capability.

150,000 more MW of nuclear baseload does not necessarily require LARGE nuclear units. Instead of a hundred 1500-MW units, employ three hundred 500-MW units. They would be cheaper to build individually even if the cost is more in the long run (less opposition by cost basis) and could be spread out more and located more strategically at vital grid junctions.

I don’t mind a paradigm shift that does not weaken BASELOAD or that will further strengthen it. Period. I all for real-time pricing, providing that pricing and wattage at all times are on display in the home or workplace so we can have some control over our spending and usage patterns.

As for the motives of the anti-centralized groupies, the more I read into it the more I sense the presence of political wingnuts spinning ever more tightly on a left-hand thread. Ever since the 70s, these people (the leadership that is) were in favor of anything that de-stabilizes status quo, to wit, cheap electricity, jobs, comfortable homes, etc., etc.

Oddly enough, not only is a massive large-scale development of wind just another form of centralization (collectively speaking), but the operational reports from Germany indicate that greater de-stablilization of the grid will happen as wind power grows. Quite the opposite of current claims of many wind reps.

In the 4+ years since then, there has been no movement, AFAIK, toward such a standard. (If anyone knows otherwise, please let me know.) Also, progress toward hight temperature fuel cells as DG resources has been slower than I expected, while hybrid FC - CTs seem to have fallen clear off the radar screen. Yet if the reports bear out of massive methane clathrate deposits being safely and economically exploitable, natural gas may have a larger and longer role to play than most of us have been expecting. Again, if anyone knows more about this, please let us know.

I agree with most of the commentary in your most recent post. However, this statement and others in support of wind energy deployment are vague:

"The reality is wind and nuclear do not compete, but they can play on the same team."

I would like to understand the extent to which you feel wind can "fill in the valleys of supply and peaks in demand on grid," and the details of the "not small" niche markets it should fill.

Here is a recent example of wind not filling for peaks in the whole of Germany: http://reisi.iset.uni-kassel.de/bilder/dyn_pics/Erzeugte_Energie_aus_Wind_de.png

Then to the degree wind IS available during base load periods, it increases our reliance on "generators that can vary the capacity more quickly upon demand and meet other specific needs."

So I see a negative impact on base load from wind, and an inversely corresponding need for added load balancing capacity. Please justify your position. Thanks.

As someone that can see the Altamont wind farm in California (having killed a member of the public by the way) and has marginal electricity costs of $0.37/KWh, wind is a disaster. As an Electrical Engineer, this is more than an embarrassment, it is a failure of public policy. All of that concrete, steel, and copper would have been better invested in a nuclear power plant that would be purring along 24/7.

Lastly, state law requires the reporting of wind power performance data in California. The last Wind Performance Reporting Report available from the California Energy Commission is for the period of 2000-2001. I cannot even get current data to write my representatives and the public utilities commission. What does that tell you?????

Right.

Kent << The reality is wind and nuclear do not compete, but they can play on the same team. >>

Wrong. Why? Because the wind blows primarily at night during the spring and fall. The minimum generation times are overnight during the spring and fall. Without storage, wind DISPLACES baseload, whether nuclear or coal.

This can be accessed at: http://whitherindustrialwindpower.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/response-to-komanoff-case-study-version-v2.pdf

I would love to hear the opinions of this piece from both sides of the issue.

If nuclear takes over the baseloading side of coal, that will still leave 20% in MWh of coal as a variable and 30% of the remaining MWh in non-baseload/non-coal variables to swing to the whims of additional wind. As I have understood the numbers, it takes a relatively high % of wind penetration to start inflicting down time on baseloaders (I think it was 10 to 15%. Anyone see it differently?).

Until then it will be the variable dispatchable sources, which includes coal in the mix, to tackle the responsibility of making up for the variances of non-dispatchable wind. The variance of wind will certainly reduce some of the BTUs burned by combustion sources, but will cost us dearly when throttled-back assets demand a higher price when they come back up to make MWh when winds are down.

Yes, I agree that wind can, and may, over-penetrate the grid to the point of lowering the output of our baseloaders and result in instabilities (e.g., Germany and Spain), but that point is far enough away from us for the present time to allow continuing with wind experimentally, even regardless of presently unproven merit. And continue it will. Remember, it’s the VOTERS who are clamoring for it, and they are not necessarily the great middle class of ratepayers and taxpayers.

But all that is an aside. The main thing we must get over is the notion that wind/solar will cancel the need for nuclear and the only way to prove it is with performance data. Of course that means spending greater and greater amounts of Giga-$$$ to prove a point, which may be disproven as well despite gleeful spending of other people’s money and popularity. [continued in next post]

(“super expensive support” I define as the collective additions of more exotic control systems, more reliable gearboxes, extra T&D, and of course the stock answer, storage in massive proportions)

I am simply saying that I am open minded enough to let the wind experiment continue for a while until enough actual performance data are collected to give us a better understanding of what is or is not achievable and allow new technological developments to show themselves. Present wind performance is not very encouraging, although improvement is likely – but will it be enough? Whether it will be enough will either be proven or disproven by performance indicators. Not promises, not nay-saying, not thought experiments; just performance. A doubling of wind MWh in the next 3 years is virtually inevitable. Secretary Chu will ensure it. He further says that WIND, not just any mix of renewables, can supply 20% of the grid. In today’s terms, the 20% goal must deliver 800,000,000 MWh per year while completely ignoring the “when-it-is-needed” (non-dispatchable) factor. Therefore, I admit my “peaks and valleys” comment reflected more optimism on my part than facts would bear out, at least for now. Peaks and valleys COULD be matched, but it would be by pure coincidence. That’s why wind is referred to as “non-dispatchable.”

The greater good of wind would be in supplying off-grid discretionary uses which are currently vastly ignored. I suspect that the politics driving grid-connected wind is more of an attack against nuclear dominance of the baseload than anything else. Why else would there be so many false comparisons to nuclear and little outcry against coal?

With today’s wind capability of around 2000 MWh/MW of capacity, producing 800,000,000 MWh is calling for 400,000 MW of wind capacity, a 25-fold increase over the present wind capacity of 16,000 MW and for only a 23-fold increase in MWh (wind presently produces 34,450,000 MWh per year). Whether or not a doubling every 3 years, or 2400% increase over roughly 15 years is sustainable is highly doubtful, but for the sake of open-mindedness let’s not say impossible, yet.

Only one thing will either support wind’s promise and keep it moving for that long, or cancel it completely after a few short years, and that is PERFORMANCE. Will it prove that complementary variable generation will be curtailed or be even more reliant upon? PERFORMANCE will tell. Keep track of it and follow along each year. It is the only real indicator. http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epaxlfilees1.pdf

If I may come to a bottom line here, when it comes to baseload sources, anything with a capacity factor of less than 50% need not apply. And I am not the only one who sees it that way. Even Secretary Chu says that NUCLEAR should supply the baseload.

Unfortunately, until we actually start seeing more such production facilities in service, there will be no data base to go on, which is what I prefer to go by, therefore vagueness is unavoidable, ....but I will be happy to read more in-depth specifics if anyone has any.

KiteGen - kites at 1000 meters with generators on the ground

Sooner or later someone is going to figure out how to access Jetstream winds, at which point your discussion of baseload may/should change.

Tomorrow's wind turbines in the jet stream? Sure. As long as they are safe for humans and other species, do not impinge on adjacent landowner property rights, are technically advantageous to the grids, and can compete on price without government carrots and sticks. Today's wind energy technology isn't there on any of these three issues. If it were, we would see open reviewed irrefutable evidence. As it is, we see very little sub-hour production data. It's held in confidence, presumably under the guise of "competitive secrets."

If and when any electricity generation technology is ready, investors will naturally show up. And I don't mean our elected officials investing money they have collected in taxes!

I read an article in the Ontario Globe and Mail yesterday http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/pickens-pullback-could-signal-shift-in-the-wind/article1210924/ that contains a quote from the CEO of AWEA saying the industry is "hanging on by its fingernails." After all the subsidies they have absorbed and continue to have draped on them, this is an indication it is time to cut the tax dollar umbilical cord.

For example the author claims that wind requiring backup is a myth. I beg to differ! There is a mathematical proof called "Proof by Contradiction".

Can wind energy meet energy demands by consumers if wind energy has no backup? NO, of course not!

Can wind energy meet energy demands by consumers if there is a backup system that can provide demand driven energy supply? Yes

Therefore wind energy requires a backup.

Recent research from England and Germany showed that over a 5 month period there were 11 days where wind energy sources across the 2 nations provided less than 2% of their capacity.

Knowing this, and knowing wind energy can only meet demand when sufficient wind blows, means wind energy must be part of a package that can meet consumer demand, where overall may not be a renewable resource at all; as very few renewable resources can actually meet consumer demand eg hydro can, solar can't.

Knowing there can be largely windless days across any nation irrespective of size, and knowing from previous research that there are days where wind energy sources provide almost no energy, the wind energy backup must be able to provide a 100% backup for those windless days.

Therefore wind energy is dependent upon the backup system, however the backup system is not dependent on wind energy.

Therefore wind energy is a largely redundant energy source on the grid.

More coming on hidden costs soon.

Cheers

We agree, essentially. Research grants and production tax credits are entirely different. The former says "we need a better mousetrap." The latter says "We HAVE a better mousetrap so let's build it as fast as we can." Wind energy, in its currently commercialized form is not the better mousetrap, yet it is funded as such.

Speaking of numbers, do have any on decentralized generation (DG)? Advocacy is one thing, but a few specifics on performance would help.

It strikes me as odd indeed if DG were to be favorable, because it is a very old concept, and has been an alternative ever since the introduction of marketable generators. The reason we (collectively) went to utility generated in the first place was to have a widely availble clean, in-home or workplace, supply of electricity at least cost and greatest convenience to the overall population. The key words are "regulated capacity" and "economy of scale".

If you just don't like paying utility bills, you have, as you have always had, the choice of breaking off anytime you like. All you have to do is purchase a generator, install a fuel supply, install some wiring and controls, disconnect and pay for O&M and fuel. Nothing to it. Even with "free" fuel, the only thing you would be missing is reliability, expense, convenience, and a whole lot of choices in lifestyle.

I looked into it once and figured I could not beat the utility rates. Be careful of what you wish for.

Wind is already reaching that critical point in the midwest and Texas. Further, if we actually come anywhere near the stated goals, wind will overwhelm the rest of the resources in the offpeak hours.

<< Why else would there be so many false comparisons to nuclear and little outcry against coal? >>

Because the regions where they are building windmills are very heavy coal users.

And I pointed out why I think that is wrong.

<< I agree that wind can, and may, over-penetrate the grid to the point of lowering the output of our baseloaders and result in instabilities (e.g., Germany and Spain), but that point is far enough away from us for the present time to allow continuing with wind >>

Wind is already reaching that critical point in the midwest and Texas. Further, if we actually come anywhere near the stated goals, wind will overwhelm the rest of the resources in the offpeak hours.

<< Remember, it’s the VOTERS who are clamoring for it, and they are not necessarily the great middle class of ratepayers and taxpayers. >>

What is your evidence for this? The polls I see say otherwise.

<< The main thing we must get over is the notion that wind/solar will cancel the need for nuclear and the only way to prove it is with performance data. >>

The point you don't seem to 'get' is that wind (not solar) WILL displace coal and nuclear, even though it CAN'T.

This may or may not be relevant. The relevance depends on whether these were also peak days. In winter peaking regions like Germany the lack of wind resources on these days may not be important. HOWEVER< we already know that in the US, highest demand days are also low wind days.

Somewhere in this thread and others, it has been pointed out that there are many non-baseloaders in reserve plus of course, forced load reductions, for taking up the fluctuations caused by wind. But with too much wind penetration, those resources can reach the limits of their flexibility and baseloaders will then be affected, to the detriment of the entire system, to wit, Germany, Spain, Texas (rolling blackouts in Texas narrowly averted twice since 2006 by spinning reserve and emergency load-dropping when wind suddenly stalled across a vast area).

[Aside to DG fans:… it was UTILITY-owned generation and controls that saved some Texas bacon on the above mentioned occasions (and myriad other load emergencies throughout the land that we never hear about.)]

I also tried to make myself clear that I recognize the instabilities that come with higher grid penetrations of wind. I also agree that we are on the brink of instability already, especially in Texas. My pro-wind points (such as they are) were more along the lines of supporting the growth of wind in OFF-GRID applications.

The wind machines connected the grid already are here to stay for a while and I am OK with that as long as we track performance and learn and grow from it. Meanwhile, instead of importing more wind turbines and connecting them to the grid, which is already bordering too much in Texas, the wind industry should focus its resources and talent to making better use of what is already in place, else risk total collapse of support if the public ever senses betrayal or fraud.

For instance if it is true, as pro-winders say it is, that storage is the key to success for intermittent sources, why are they not concentrating more on STORAGE as they progress?

Why indeed? Because it’s like a famous bank robber once said when asked why he robbed banks,….. “that’s where the money is.” The developers are not interested in resolving the problems of integration onto the grid. Their interest is simply doing what they are paid for doing, installing windmills.

I don’t know whether wind development is supported externally by coal interests or coal opponents, but I do know that natural gas suppliers are downright giddy for it. Just ask T. Boone Pickens.

I personally would favor storage over natural gas as a backup because of the direct competition that NG has going with something very close to me, home heating.

But what really I favor most of all is clean, cheap and abundant electricity. And for that, I want more nukes.

Regarding my earlier claims, my source has disappeared from the web. However this article sources the same material, but applies a different interpretation. http://kwag.co.uk/whenthewindstops.htm

This article uses real world data, from England and Germany, and truly demonstrates just how much SPIN is used to promote wind energy.

James

If we have a peak period and the wind is not blowing do we or do we not have a redundant and intermittant energy supply?

If wind farms require an energy supplement from fossil fuels to meet demand, then at the end of the day when all the sums are done, it isn't that much of a renewable resource is it?

Am I right in saying that all wind energy really achieves is a small reduction in fossil fuel use at the expense of a vastly larger and more costly redundancy?

In a hypothetical world where Company A owns a coal power plant Company B owns a Nuclear power plant Company C owns a hydro power plant Company D owns a series of wind plantations (and whatever as backup eg gas)

and all 4 companies share the costs of power lines, substations etc; and all 4 companies are unsubsidised by govt on a level playing field; and consumers (from all economic sectors)can exclusively pick which company they want as their prefered supplier; and all 4 companies can provide the same maximim energy output

Wouldn't company D be at the greatest disadvantage on the basis that with the exception of fuel, their installation costs would be high as well as the maintanance costs for 2 energy facilities?

Cheers

In your comment above from 7.8.09, you chide me for saying "I never could see what the pro-DG / anti-central power activists actually had against central power." Then you proceed to elaborate on why you're pro-DG. Is any argument in favor of DG automatically supposed to be an argument against central power?

I certainly don't see it that way. I'm all in favor of DG and CHP in those circumstances where they make sense. But I don't believe that DG is unconditionally superior to central generation With current technologies, there is simply no way that a sub-megawatt generating plant can match the cost-efficiency of a big central plant for power generation. Perhaps new technologies like those you advocate will be able to change that. But right now, one can't even make much of a case for DG with CHP for space heating. It's more efficient, in both fuel and money, to employ heat pumps powered from the grid.

As to your complaints about the barriers PUCs erect that make it difficult to connect DG resources to the grid, that's an issue to do with regullators and utility management; it has nothing to do with the merits of central vs. distributed power generation per se. In fact, given that your central concern is being allowed to supply power to the grid, you could hardly be anti-central power. Without central power, there would be no grid in the first place.

I'm also convinced that it's almost impossible to settle this disagreement without knowing in advance what will happen to N. Gas prices for the lifetime of the systems, eg. 20 years. Evidence should come first in Britain, where gas shortages are due to start any year now. I noe that British Gas has already contracted with WhisperGen for 800,000 DG CHP units, and AFAIK zero heat pumps.

I didn't find a detailed spec sheet on the WhisperGen site. There was a technical paper on development of stirling powered battery charger. The bottom line was 200 watts electrical output, and a thermal efficiency of 12%. Not too impressive.

SOFCs might do much better, but don't appear to be ready for deployment at the level of individual homes. What makes more sense to me is SOFC-CT based DG at the neighborhood level -- ~100 homes to ~1000 apartment units -- integrated with neighborhood heating and cooling.

Tom Stacy www.savewesternOH.org

Iran, like the rest of the world, needs additional electrcity which comes from BTUs.

Google 'scripting languages pollute' to read more about

HOW MUCH ENERGY IS IN?....

Energy Source Energy Content (Btu) Units Sunlight 200 Btu per hour per square foot Wind 75 Btu per hour per square foot of wind turbine swept area in 22 mile per hour wind. Biomass 7,000 Btu per pound (value is for switchgrass)

Wood 8,000 to 10,000 Btu per pound Coal (Anthracite) 14,000 to 15,000 Btu per pound Coal (Bituminous) 10,500 to 14,000 Btu per pound Oil (#2 Fuel) 137,000-141,800 Btu per gallon Natural Gas 950 to 1,150 Btu per cubic foot Gasoline 109,000 -125,000 Btu per gallon Kerosene 130,000 to 140,000 Btu per gallon Nuclear Fuel (Uranium) 35,000,000,000 Btu per pound Uranium-235

"[S]o far I have only described what is already obviously going on. Add to this the likelihood that Iran is closer to achieving membership in the atomic weapon club. They’ve been spinning their centrifuges all year and nobody has done anything about it. My guess is that neither the US nor Israel will attempt to take out their facilities in the year ahead. If Iran used a nuclear device against Israel, or anybody else, they would be asking to become, in turn, the world’s largest ashtray. ...

James Howard Kunstler

We appear to be getting into some SERIOUS energy and political stuff.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6936798.ece

I'd sooner be bird huntiing.

http://www.prosefights.org/kansas2009/kansas2009.htm

That an industry can be so evasive, and its hirelings so incessant in their double talk. It is truly quite nauseating!