Sunday
Jan022011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Greens distance themselves from wind power
The leading Scottish environmental group, the John Muir Trust, have described wind power as a scandal and called for an urgent review. The story is on the front page of today's Sunday Times. More details are available from Rob Schneider.
Reader Comments (83)
theford
All energy sources are 'free'. Solar, wind, coal, natural gas, oil.
They are all free.
I'm with Tom on the "red-haze" bit here.
I do go off the edge, at times, with rosy-rage. I'm wrong, of course, at getting angry just 'cos i do bristle, reflexively, when "Greens" are mentioned.
I'm 180 degrees out of order though. The majority of, but least vociferous, Greens are pretty well, spot-on. The environment we share, is the only one we have and, ignoring off-the-post extremism is an issue we have to resolve.
Reasonablists, from whatever direction, desire similar outcomes but, far too often, we slump into tribalism. TFP, I've followed your posts on CA for some years and have no wish to cross swords in a contest in which Id come a poor second !
I do have a question though. How certain are you?
Hang on - efficiency quote was nothing to do with me!
However I will point out that 47% is the usual peak energy extracted from wind - less in slow wind and less as peak output is reached:
http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/762/powercurvefh1.jpg
generation losses will be small - windturbines do not in general have cooling towers. I seriously doubt figures of wind energy in to electrical energy out of 25% (this would require dissipating 1MW in a 2MW turbine.
I would still like (seriously!) Tom to point out where Enercon's brochure is incorrect with ref to his ABB book.
Apologies, Mr FP but I think I asked a really silly question. Too vague, too much to warrant a response.
May I rephrase?
Do you have any reservations about the role of CO2 wrt adverse climate change?
Jan 3, 2011 at 2:06 AM | RoyFOMR
Unfortunately I believe the balance is in favour of CO2 induced GW (it will most likely not be catastrophic - "humanity" and technology will survive!). Of course I have reservations about CO2 as being the cause of 100% of warming to date. There is still the possibility it's cyclicle but then you have to show a cycle of over 300years. It's not the sun!. The real problem is can we afford to wait for data to proove AGW, and will it be too late when we get it. It must surely be better to start along the path of sustainability and to allow future portable energy to be passed to our children?
Wind
This site explains more on windpower including a power calculator and states why you do not spend millions on a wind turbine that reaches Betz' limits - its cost vs benefit vs windspeed. http://guidedtour.windpower.org/composite-726.htm.
Ahoy, me Hearties!
TFP
"I believe active power/reactive power/no power can be fed into a short circuit. "
You are talking about circuitry that protects the Industrial Wind Turbines Generator/Alternator. Useful if you don't want it to smoke when feeding a "short". Anything which continues to feed power into a "short" just becomes one more nuisance to deal with when clearing the fault. But keep promoting those useless beanies for windy ridges -- maybe your shares will go up....
As for the 59% (The Betz Limit) -- as wind speed goes up the efficiency of the blade goes down -- at least that is the way the the blades are designed... all part of the effort to keep them from ripping themselves apart. That is why variable pitch and gearing systems are so handy. Again part of the effort to keep the ripping apart when there is too much wind... A wind of 6m/s is about the minimum to get anything terribly useful. Not a lot of onshore locations have that much "constant" wind.
See: http://ontariowindperformance.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/chapter-3-1-powering-ontario/
For some information on the behavior of IWT's in Ontario Canada -- where the (lack of) efficiency is essentially the same as the UK -- indeed all of Europe. At the end of the article are links to the supporting data, and links to a further article.
thefordprefect:
You then quote the Danish wind calculator. Well then, tfp, instead of doubting the 25% efficiency I quoted, use that calculator and see for yourself. I've used that calculator many times for real wind turbines at real wind farm sites. It's amazing how different reality is from people's beliefs or wishes.
I'm with Shub. All sources of energy are free. It's the cost of the usable energy derived from that free energy that counts. In the case of free wind energy, the price of the resultant electricity to the consumer is enormous. Only hidden subsidies make it happen.
Let's cut to the chase.
In terms of providing electricity, 24/7/52, these things are useless.
Why on earth do politicians (and it is they who are the drivers of this situation) seem to think that suddenly, in 2011, that wind is a 'useful resource'..? Sailors gratefully abandoned it two centuries ago in favour of steam power - ditto millers and drainers of the Fens - because it ONLY BLOWS SOME OF THE TIME - and very rarely when actually required (h/t to the Telegraph article).
Slightly off-topic - but who sanctioned the turbine right next to the clockwise M25 near the A1 junction..? I wonder how many accidents or 'near misses' in that area are actually due to drivers coming under the influence of the soporific effect of the blades..?
Pages 6 & 7 in today's Times has Paul Simons blaming latest bad weather on La Nina and Ben Webster
detailing the contribution of Wind Power to the Grid (0.5%) showing that even Hydro (1.3%) and the French (5.2%) make it's sheer existence look stupid. (Quite a turnaround in views although they can't help adding the '2010 one of the warmest......' blah).
Even Robert Lea (Industrial Editor) page 35 reveals that the electricity market shake up to fund Wind Power and Nuclear will raise prices far higher than previously indicated at 32% by 2030 to more like 52% as Huhne had assumed a 12.5% reduction in consumption ! (Where are you plugging in all the electric cars Huhney ?)
Reading the paper's front page headline "NHS wastes millions by overpaying for supplies" it is quite easy to see this headline re-written as:-
"Huhne wastes BILLIONS as households overpay for electricity supplies"
A rather more serious headline I think.
Wind Power is ok if you
..have your own access to pumped storage
..have lots of small rock island and therefore able to build very cheap "off-shore" wind farms
..really don't need the extra energy anyway
..live next to power and storage hungry states
..are Norway
Errm...excuse me Tom, "...I respectfully refer you to the T&D book..."
Just out of curiosity I followed the link you gave, and started getting interested until I saw the cover price of $250.
So I came back to pdq to BH.
Brgds.
"Slightly off-topic - but who sanctioned the turbine right next to the clockwise M25 near the A1 junction..? I wonder how many accidents or 'near misses' in that area are actually due to drivers coming under the influence of the soporific effect of the blades..?"
Likewise the daft thing at Reading on the M4 which rotates majestically by magic 'pon occasion - physical propaganda - surely not?
Peter Melia at 4:58 PM
I suppose what I was getting at was that although very high power electronics has come a long way, the essential principals are long standing. One thing increased amounts of wind energy has brought to the party is imbalance and instability. Anybody dealing with dramatically fluctuating loads on a generator will tell you that eventually a weak spot fails. In electrical power transmission air gaps are what keeps stuff safe, not solid state electronics - which does indeed have its place - but braces are mandatory with a belt in this case..
If a system malfunctions, it's usually best to rebuild from the ground up with full connection control - you really don't need a bunch of independent software controlled power sources doing their own thing - unless it's in an extremely rigidly defined and well tested and understood manner and even then big red button and an air gap - mandatory..
Somebody pointed to a document torrent earlier...
Jan 3, 2011 at 4:40 AM | WillR
TFP
"I believe active power/reactive power/no power can be fed into a short circuit. "
You are talking about circuitry that protects the Industrial Wind Turbines Generator/Alternator. Useful if you don't want it to smoke when feeding a "short". Anything which continues to feed power into a "short" just becomes one more nuisance to deal with when clearing the fault. But keep promoting those useless beanies for windy ridges -- maybe your shares will go up....
Does no one follow links? The Enercon PDF shows what their ELECTRONICS does to the output of the generator. The AC is rectified and then chopped at high frequency to generate a 50/60Hz sine wave to feed vis transformers to the grid. The electronics allows the generator output power to feed into a shorted grid. It can deliver reactive power/real power/no power during the short. A short is not of course 0 ohms (==no power) but the elecronics can provide a fixed power output into whatever impedance remains in the stub of the grid to which it is connected. Read the referenced document at Enercon for mor complete details. Remember there is no physical wires between grid and generator the electronics does it all.
I do not believe anyone thinks that wind will be the backbone of the grid there will always be a requirement for conventional power stations to ride through storms and stills. But as someone stated 10% of requirements has been generated with the few wind turbines in operation this is about 6GW of power not generated by burning fossil fuels. This unburnt fuel is now available for future generations!
thefordprefect
While I am all for reducing fossil fuel use, I am equally dubious about wind as being much use as a power generation technology.
Intermittency and output fluctuation when operational make it a liability rather than an asset to engineers trying to balance the grid.
The absolute requirement for conventional backup is indisputable. Most backup must be kept running or cannot come on line fast enough when needed. Ramping conventional gas turbine plant up and down all the time to compensate for wind intermittency and fluctuation causes it to run inefficiently.
Simply put, this means it burns more gas and releases more emissions.
The more wind you add in to the generation mix, the more this exacerbates the problem and the more emissions are generated by the conventional backup.
But all the while, the wind is costing every UK consumer serious money. Yet it delivers very little actual power in return.
Where is the engineering or economic sense in that?
Jan 3, 2011 at 6:35 PM | BBD
The real balancing problem is rapid loss of generating capacity - a few tens of MW wind (which can be predicted) is not a problem but the instantaneous loss of 350MW to 1GW generator has to be handled and this is problematic. However this is covered by current systems
The wind problem is a slowly building loss to perhaps 100% for many days. This requires that sufficient reserve is on hand but it does not have to be instantly available. Wind is a predictable loss.
wiki:
The point to note is that complicated as this may sound, this has been going on for many years as the loads imposed on the grid, and supply of power from power stations is by itself extremely intermittent already, simply due to the sudden and unpredictable failure of these large 660 MW generating sets, or sometimes entire power stations; and the sudden changes in load which can happen at the end of a major TV programme, or events such as the last eclipse of the sun. These latter can cause surges of several GW which whilst larger in magnitude than the sudden loss of 2 × 660 MW sets, are not instantaneous and so are not as severe a shock to the national grid system.
However reliable a power station is, grid operators have to assume that it will fail, so its replacement must always be running and available.
The value of providing this service is considerable.[9]
http://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/Electricity/Balancing/services/balanceserv/intro/
As somebody with a direct interest in (25kW-100kW) hydroelectric power generation I have to volunteer that I cannot see what justification there is for the massively distorted subsidies allocated to wind for miserable returns.
Primary school children can appreciate the difference...
I smell a rat, I really do.
There will be some revelations about the role of UK government agencies in the "race for wind" and renewables which will be arriving in public space in 2011.
I earnestly expect a few professional obituaries.
I suppose what I was getting at was that although very high power electronics has come a long way, the essential principals are long standing....
If a system malfunctions, it's usually best to rebuild from the ground up with full connection control - you really don't need a bunch of independent software controlled power sources doing their own thing - unless it's in an extremely rigidly defined and well tested and understood manner and even then big red button and an air gap - mandatory..
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Jan 3, 2011 at 5:27 PM | Tom
The various DC links (to France and NI) are proof of the effectiveness of electronics - Out of interest do you have any idea of the reliability of these links?
TFP:
"Remember there is no physical wires between grid and generator the electronics does it all."
That is an absolutely astonishing comment. You have displayed your lack of knowledge before on Climate Audit. I tried to assist you then. You thought I was being rude.
You are discussing circuitry that protects the generator. It protects the Generator! So what? If the generator does not short out and burn up then there is simply one more subsidy sucking machine left in the system. This is NOT a "good thing" -- at least not in my opinion. The investors who installed the wind turbine and the operators -- who collect the payments will of course be grateful. Me? No!
Suggesting that this circuitry is a reason to install wind turbines is ludicrous at best and just plain silly at worst -- in the style of Alice in Wonderland!
I have designed my share of electrical and electronic equipment and do know a little bit about distribution grids. I can assure you that a lot of electrical engineers might be having a giggle or two at your expense! Please try to sell them on "efficiency" and "capacity factor" -- not that that is not silly as well!
http://ontariowindperformance.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/chapter-3-1-powering-ontario/
Feel free to debate the author of the link I provided. (He's in the expensive chair at this office.)
Wind Turbines are a waste of money. Do the math. Learn from the mistakes.
TFP @1:48 AM
well, actually I do, and the trans Baltic lines and the Norway - Denmark link and a few assorted AC island links.
As WillR points out you need help...
tfp
Your comment on wind intermittency is nonsense. As per other commenters above. If you will not accept the flaws and admit the illogicalities and evasions in your argument, you simply step outside the bounds of rational discourse. The adults leave the room.
from National Grid
UK Government figures show that in 2008, renewable sources generated
21.597GWh of electricity (5.5% of the electricity generated in the UK). This was made up of
Wind (33%), Hydro (26%), Landfill Gas (22%), Biofuels (14%) and Co-firing (7%).
The persistence effect of wind (i.e. its output is naturally subject to fluctuation and
unpredictability relative to the more traditional generation technologies) coupled with the
expected significant diversity between regional variations in wind output means that, while the
balancing task will become more onerous, the task should remain manageable. Provided that
the necessary flexible generation and other balancing service providers remain available, there
is no immediate technical reason why a large portfolio of wind generation cannot be managed in
balancing timescales.
Some of the earlier technologies used in wind turbines were very sensitive to voltage
depressions, even where such depressions lasted for very short periods of time, such as the
140 milliseconds that protective equipment on the national electricity transmission system
typically take to remove a line fault caused by lightning. Such faults can result in voltage
depressions over an extensive area of the system potentially causing a large number of wind
turbines to trip as a result of a common cause. In recognition of this the Grid Code has now
been revised to include revised minimum technical characteristics for such generation
technologies.
TFP:
"from National Grid...
UK Government figures show that in 2008, renewable sources generated 21.597GWh of electricity (5.5% of the electricity generated in the UK). This was made up of..." yadda, yadda yadda...
What exactly is the point of that post? Could you state your premise clearly?
BTW --- before you even try it... a BROWNOUT condition (i.e. an inability the system generators to provide sufficient current at the required voltage) is very different issue than a generator working into a SHORT condition. To some they may appear the same -- but they are not the same!
I suggest that you engage the services of an electrical engineer with a power transmission and distribution specialty to assist you in making your point... whatever it might be...
Again, protection circuitry that protects the Industrial Wind Turbines is not a reason for the CUSTOMER to invest in wind turbines. That circuitry is a requirement if you wish to preserve the investment of the generator owner.
Again, what point are you trying to make? This is truly puzzling!
@ Andy (Jan 2, 2011 at 2:41 PM)
I've been in email contact with Helen McDade at JMT today and she indicates that the info reported in the Times article is indeed new (analysis was with data until late December 2010). Further, they did not put out any report in September, so they aren't sure what you are referring to. They don't yet have a report on this new analysis; but plan to do so). That's all I know.
TPF
My original point was that wind requires 100% backup by conventional plant. Said plant has to run continuously in readiness for use, and cycle frantically to keep up with wind fluctuation and intermittency. This means it runs inefficiently much of the time and so burns more gas and emits even more CO2 than it would under normal, stable operation.
Egro, wind power simply does not reduce CO2 emissions and may well increase them.
Since reducing CO2 is the only justification for the expense and technical problems of wind generation, the argument is thus fatally flawed. We should be building nuclear. Period.
Along with others here I find your position a bit impenetrable:
1. Are you advocating wind but denying that it will in fact increase net CO2 emissions?
2. Are you being contrarian for the sake of it?
3. Is there something I am missing?
Said plant has to run continuously in readiness for use, and cycle frantically to keep up with wind fluctuation and intermittency. This means it runs inefficiently much of the time and so burns more gas and emits even more CO2 than it would under normal, stable operation.
Ummm! What do you think they do during the advert breaks in a football match/coronation street/etc. The HAVE to keep up with demand with and without windpower.
there are many different stages of operation of power stations. From wiki:
There is generally about 1.5 GW of so called spinning reserve—this is typically a large power station paid to produce at less than full output. So, a typical power station, which might have 4 generating sets each of 660 MW, giving a total output of 2.64 GW, might only be operating at 2 GW, with the steam boiler full, but with the steam valve not fully open. At the request from National Grid control centre, or under command from the generator governor this valve can open up and deliver an extra 640 MW in 20 to 30 seconds. This requires the boiler air fans and the coal feeders to increase output accordingly. The greater the total load on the system, and/or the greater the expectation of large demand fluctuations (at the end of popular TV programmes for example) the larger the proportion of spinning reserve set by National Grid plc.
NG pays to have up to 8.5 GW of additional capacity available to start immediately but not running, referred to as warming or hot standby, that is ready to be used at short notice which could take half an hour to 2 hours to bring on line. Generally, there will be more of such hot standby capacity whenever there is a large amount of expected disturbance on the system. The cost of fuel or tonne of CO2 emitted by keeping such plant warm is tiny in comparison with the amount of fuel used to generate power, maybe equivalent to the fuel used to produce a quarter of a MW compared to a full load fuel demand for a large set of 1.8 GW. Often quoted talk about the high costs of standby spinning reserve are misleading.
A similar amount of power stations (8–10 GW by capacity) are operable from a cold start in about 12 hours for coal burning stations, and 2 hours for gas fired stations.
...Other stations are mothballed or deep-mothballed which means they cannot be readily called upon; even in an emergency it may take several months to de-mothball. In Summer 2006, Fawley Power Station near Southampton was de-mothballed to cope with anticipated power capacity shortages for winter 2006/07
Not mentioned is the short term 2GW available in seconds from pumped storage Dinorwig can provide full output within 65secs from startup and 16 second if spinning.
As I mentioned the grid HAS to have spinning reserve to cope with current generator failures Building large Nuclear stations of over 1.5GW capacity will require an increase in the spinning reserve to allow for failure.
Unpredictable wind turbine trip will remove perhaps 3MW from the system. Predictable loss of wind (an increasing loss because wind does not stop instantly over the whole country) can be handled by the warm reserve or even cold start gas turbines (I acknowledge that the combined cycle gas turbines - 60% efficient - should only be brought online if prolonged windlessness were predicted, however the standard GT - 30% efficient - would only be required for short interruptions.
Every watt that the wind generates in electricity is equivalent to preserving up to 3 watts equivalent in gas/oil/coal for the future!
Limits to natural resources and co2 reduction is why I see windpower as essential (until something better and safe comes along).
If you could PROOVE to me that AGW was not happening and that natural resources were limitless I would gladly shift my position.
TPF
1. You do not seem to understand that spinning reserves now will be wholly inadequate to cope with a massive increase in the proportion of wind in the UK energy mix.
2. Pumped storage in the UK is a tiny reserve resource. You are grossly misrepresenting its actual potential as an offset for wind intermittency. Especially in the light of the gigantic proposed increase in the percentage of wind in the UK energy mix. The problems that you deny exist will become insurmountable once wind becomes a significant factor in the UK energy mix.
3. I have never denied AGW. I assert that wind is a mirage, and that it will in fact increase CO2 emissions. I have explained this above. You do not address this central point in your cut'n'pasted response from Wikipedia.
4. You have a limited, parrot-like grasp of the engineering realities. Others here have also pointed this out. Further reading on your part is urgently required (not Wiki).
thefordprefect
"Every watt that the wind generates in electricity is equivalent to preserving up to 3 watts equivalent in gas/oil/coal for the future!"
I think you are confusing power (watts) with energy (watthours). The energy content of gas/oil/coal would be measured in watthours. When you've sorted out the units you may let us know where the factor of three comes from.
Jan 8, 2011 at 7:15 PM | BBD
You are looking at a 20% increase in intermittent renewables and even the National grid have stated that this will not be a problem even with the current system.
11. System balancing entails costs which are passed on to electricity consumers. Intermittent generation adds to these costs. For penetrations of intermittent renewables up to 20% of electricity supply, additional system balancing reserves due to short term (hourly) fluctuations in wind generation amount to about 5-10% of installed wind capacity. Globally, most studies estimate that the associated costs are less than £5/MWh of intermittent output, in some cases substantially less. The range in UK relevant studies is £2 - £3/MWh.
http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/Downloads/PDF/06/0604Intermittency/0604IntermittencyReport.pdf
Pumped storage has only to provide power until the slower starting stations can take over. Remember wind systems travel slowly so a lull will take time to hit all wind installations. This together with wind forcasting, gives time power-up the CCGTs from cold. Why do you think that spinning reserve will not cope with windpoer intermittency?
Could you please show me otherwise?
Can you please show me your figures for CO2 produced from wind/convntional mix? Nuclear is of course not CO2 free (mining transport refining enriching etc)
No power generator generates 100% of the time Nuclear has been as bad as 70% anfd as good as 8%
http://www.euronuclear.org/info/encyclopedia/images/NPP-energy-availability-1991-2008.gif
The next few years will be interesting for NP as many of the stations reach their (extended) life:
http://www.euronuclear.org/info/encyclopedia/images/npp-by-age.gif
Decommissioning cost will have to be found - the us has a fund, I believe the UK public will be charged for costs of decommissioning above £150M(?)
Cost of decommissioning
In USA many utilities estimates now average $325 million per reactor all-up (1998 $).
In France, decommissioning of Brennilis Nuclear Power Plant, a fairly small 70 MW power plant, already cost 480 million euros (20x the estimate costs) and is still pending after 20 years. Despite the huge investments in securing the dismantlement, radioactive elements such as Plutonium, Cesium-137 and Cobalt-60 leaked out into the surrounding lake.[62][63]
In the UK, decommissioning of Windscale Advanced Cooled Reactor (WAGR), a 32 MW power plant, cost 117 million euros.
In Germany, decommissioning of Niederaichbach nuclear power plant, a 100 MW power plant, amounted to more than 143 million euros.
"Every watt that the wind generates in electricity is equivalent to preserving up to 3 watts equivalent in gas/oil/coal for the future!"
OK I agree to some extent! but what I was trying say was that every erg of energy wind creates becomes available to the future as erg* [efficiency]-[balancing losses of fossil fuel] to the future - the time that the watt is produced is irrelevant! (efficiency of oil/gas to electricity is generally about 30% (60% with CCGT)).
My understanding is that the UK target is 30-35GW wind capacity (20GW offshore) by 2050.
That’s 40-47% of current generation capacity.
Of course as demand rises the % will drop – but 20%?
30% might be more realistic. So the politically enforced optimism you so freely reference might be a tad misleading.
I wish you were right though.
But save the anti-nuclear propaganda for someone else, please. I know where you are coming from.
thefordprefect
Was the last paragraph of your reply to BBD adressed to me? I'll assume it was.
Your equation is difficult to follow but I take it your factor of three is the reciprocal of 30%. I have a windmill, a generator and an oildrum. You argue that if I generate a kilowatthour of electrical energy using my windmill I am avoiding converting the three kilowatthours of chemical energy contained in my oildrum into one of electrical energy and sending two of thermal energy up the chimney. So far so good. Now next week, when a winter anticyclone sets in for ten days and my windmill stops turning, I have to burn my oil and what do I get? One kilowatthour of electrical energy. One not three.
TFP;
It is up to you to prove your case. And you are not doing very well. I still have my EE texts. Clearly you have never studied in the field. I can recommend it as a field of study though. Exhilarating!
I really cannot follow the dance between spinning wind turbines and whatever it is you are trying to say about nuclear.
Please review the Ontario Wind Power site and see that yes, here too, in Ontario Canada, the wind power is correlated across large regions. Drop that argument. I did the math for the original paper on that subject and don't find it's worth the time to argue the points. The work is simple to duplicate. DO so! THEN come back.