Tuesday
Sep132011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Windy-day power
Sep 13, 2011 A reader asked how the windfarms did yesterday in the UK - we caught the tail end of a hurricane so there was plenty of puff around.
The answer is, not desperately well, but well enough that one can almost feel the money being sucked out of one's pockets:
With many thanks to Rob Schneider for the data from his iPhone app.
Reader Comments (38)
Just posted this on unthreaded - but will repeat here as it is on topic -
Two academics speak out on Scotland's renewables delusion -
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/news/SNP-warned-of-39white-elephant39.6835373.jp
Here's the link to live grid data from NETA -
http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp.php#generation_by_fuel_type_table
and an interactive graph of the data which permits restrospective analysis -
http://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/~dcurtis/NETA.html
Wind is actually generating more than 2GW just now - still only a fraction of gas, coal & nuclear though.
The scary thing is the amount of conventional capacity we are due to lose over the next four years.
According to the Association of Electricity Producers, due to various plant closures, we will lose the following amounts by the end of 2015:
Coal: 8.3 GW
Oil: 3.5 GW
Nuclear: 3.8 GW
15.6 GW in total.
How do we replace that lost capacity? Not going to be renewables. Imports?
Er… is that iPhone app currently available?
The Anglo-French interconnector is only 2GW. The new Dutch is only 1GW and they are already at 100% capacity in winter cold spell peak. There is talk of a new connectors from Scotland to Norway and possibly Iceland, but the expense will be great and the capacity low. More delusional madness on the part of the renewable industry lobbiests. With Germany shutting down their nuclears early there is not going to be over capacity on the European mainland anyway, and French excess will find its way Rhineland much easier than the south of England.
Good to see Tom Mackay and Dr Euan Mearns speaking out (in the Scotsman link above) but it will probably be too late now to avoid future brown outs and rolling blackouts when the winter cold spells bite.
If, as I believe, wind installed capacity is 5 GW their output is 42% of maximum even with this blustery spell of weather.
Do politicians ever look at the results of their crazy dreams?
Sorry an extra bit.
I regularly check www.geog.ox.ac.uk/~dcurtis/NETA.html which gives nearly real time electricity production and not infrequently we import more electricity from the `French interconnector than is produced by our windmills. Nuclear of course.
The money will be sucked out of your pocket even faster if giant offshore proposals get the go-ahead. See for example the proposed Atlantic Array for 1.5GW installed capacity (250 turbines of 6.15MW rated capacity) at http://www.rwe.com/web/cms/en/354740/rwe-npower-renewables/sites/projects-in-development/wind/atlantic-array-offshore-wind-farm/the-proposal/
As usual there is the usual array of lies and myths and shortage of facts about how much it will cost you and where your electricity is going to come from when it is cold and wind isn't blowing. For those who like wasting their time and developing lumps on the forehead, there is a public consultation ongoing.
The iPhone app is found on the iTunes Store, searching for "GridCarbon". The purpose, far as I can tell, is to inform you (and perhaps make you "wince") at the amount of carbon dioxide being emitted real-time. More interestingly, is the real-time power generation figures.
I occasionally find myself in conversations with people who purport to be knowledgeable about renewable energy. The vast majority are shocked when they see the actual numbers of percentage of power sources "right now".
The phone sideways to see a 24 hour time time-trend (took me a long time to discover that one).
For more info, see www.ideasproject.info.
Wow. Wind was On a roll. That is about THREE times the daily average for wind. I glance at NETA most days. sad I know.
The wind will never be harnessed, to think we could is man's folly laid bare - she is too capricious and on days such as yesterday, how the elemental forces of mother nature deign with malevolent mirth, to mock us.
Barry Woods
And therein lies the problem. People often focus on what happens when wind speeds are low, but the problem of variability from an average output works both ways.
Obviously spinning reserves have to be brought on line rapidly when wind speeds fall over a wide geographic area.
Conversely, when wind speeds are high over a wide area, grid balancing has to accommodate a large increase in wind generation.
This isn't too much of a problem now, when installed wind capacity is small, but it will be a very different story when we have a nameplate capacity of 33GW.
Conventional capacity will have to be ramped down or taken off-line. Then ramped up or brought back on-line. Often. This is exactly the opposite of the way it was designed to operate.
What people like Zed don't understand is that it is the range of variability that is the problem, not just the drop-out when wind speeds fall.
Just had a look at the neta site, (11.15am) and the usual table for generation types is not loading. Just above it is the wind forecast and outturn. That seems to have just dropped dramatially from around 2.4GW to around 800MW. That could be a monitoring issue, or perhaps there's a wider problem.
@Sep 13, 2011 at 8:31 AM | lapogus
I'll see your Scotsman link and raise you 100% renewables by 2020, oh and 60,000 jobs as well (Although I suspect what they don't tell you is most will be to keep the windmills running).
http://news.stv.tv/scotland/north/269151-first-minister-renewables-will-revitalise-scottish-economy/
For those who are interested, there is an article by Fred Udo examining the CO2 emissions of the Irish power stations and the way the emissions change as the conventional (mainly gas) power stations adjust their output to back-up the wind turbines and maintain grid stability. The conventional power stations providing the back-up clearly operate inefficiently and increase their emissions per unit of electricity generated (it is like the difference in mpg driving your car on a busy road with traffic lights where you constantly accelerate and decelerate compared to driving on a quiet road at constant speed). He showed that the CO2 emissions saved were small (a fraction of that claimed by the wind industry and believed by Governments) and that didn't take account of things like the CO2 emissions during manufacture, construction, operation and decommissioning of the turbines. We are being ripped off for no benefit and lots of harm. I would be interested in what anybody elese thinks of Udo's analysis.
According to RenewableUK (formerly BWEA):
(a) there are 3,407 operational windmills with a nameplate capacity of 5,732 MW,
(b) there are 1,142 windmills under construction with a nameplate capacity of 3,436 MW
(c) there are 1,973windmills with consent with a nameplate capacity of 5,482 MW.
Total = 14,650 MW (14.65 GW).
See http://www.bwea.com/index.html
The Infrastructure Planning Commission has 19 windmill farm pre-applications on its books totalling 32,322 MW of which 31,437 MW is offshore.
Now, the greenest government ever has in mind about 30,000 MW (30 GW) of wind power (National Grid uses a figure of 29.1 GW wind and 3.3 GW other renewable in their document ‘Gone Green’ a Scenario for 2020).
Therefore, taking RenewableUK figure of "known + possible" developments at about 15 GW, we only need another 15 GW of wind to meet the target.
So why is the IPC accepting all these applications which total about 32 GW?
See http://infrastructure.independent.gov.uk/projects/
When is somebody, say Dave, going to tell the Commissioners (!) at the IPC to start returning to sender the excess 15 GW of wind on the basis of last in, first out, and also to start refusing to accept any more pre-applications?
A reasonable question, surely?
Rob - if you are reading here:
The units are GW. Presumably this graphic was a snapshot for 06:55GMT valid only for that instant/update?
Can your app show the GWh energy contributions for the day as a whole? How does that compare to the same day of the week from the week before?
Thanks
Phillip - please do you have a link to Udo's work?
I worked out (via the NETA information) that the windmills were producing about 70% of available capacity in the gales (why not 100%..?)
Anyway - let's see how they get on Thursday, when a nice anticyclone is promised....
Defn: Wind turbine.
A device for extracting money from poor electricity consumers and putting it into the pockets of rich landowners and farmers.
Pah. Wind is so last year. This is the future - NewsBiscuit
Hang on a minute. I thought the handbrake had to be applied to wind turbines during strong winds?
I'm sure I saw a wind farm shut down yesterday, or was I dreaming?
@not banned yet
It's not my app. As mentioned above, downloaded and installed from iTunes a year or so ago after hearing of it. Yes, it's a snapshot at the moment. However, when one turns the iPhone horizontal it magically turns into a time series showing the last 24 hours. I just gave the snapshot (not the time series) to Bishop. When I get a few minutes this evening, I'll put a couple of screen shots from the iPhone on my own blog.
Wind turbines have some merit after all.
Yesterday one of the young Dyfi ospreys decided to depart for Africa, flew almost due east across England and out into the North Sea, off Essex but seems to have found sanctuary for the night on a wind farm at Gunfleet Sands off Clacton on Sea,
http://www.facebook.com/dyfiospreyproject?sk=wall&filter=2
Thanks Rob - I'm not an iPhone user so I didn't pursue the app link. Will check your blog images - please can you post here when they are up?
Reuters report: High winds lead UK to halt turbines for third night
http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL5E7KD1QS20110913
For some bizarre reason the report is in the Africa edition under the heading "agricultural commodities"
not banned yet: Sory I meant to give the link.
http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wind-energy-in-the-irish-power-system/
Thanks Phillip - I'll have a read.
@ not banned yet
See http://rmschneider.wordpress.com/2011/09/13/the-wind-blew-yesterday-in-uk-how-much-wind-power-got-generated/"
I hope that when I am old and decrepit, my ventilator does not use green energy, one day I shall be running like a greyhound the next kaput.
And how much did Europe's largest on-shore wind farm produce?
Nothing.
Whitelee is currently turned off, and seems to have been largely idle since late June, ostensibly to allow the connection of new turbines - http://www.whiteleewindfarm.co.uk/news/work_commences_whitelee_extension_grid_connection.
Could any electrical engineers here please explain why it could take so long to attach some new turbines?
dak
Well, they seem to be upgrading the grid connection as well as adding more turbines. Testing and proving the new connection is not something that should be rushed ;-)
However, your link reminded me of the old fib about 'powering' however many hundred thousand 'homes'.
The quote is:
“On completion the extended windfarm will be capable of generating 539MW in total of cleaner, greener energy - enough to power the equivalent of over 300,000 homes.”
The truth is rather different. The ever-helpful David MacKay illustrates the calculated misrepresentation nicely:
"Could any electrical engineers here please explain why it could take so long to attach some new turbines?"
Yes.
The special crocodile clips required come from France. They are being transported by electric car from Marseilles. The repeated 15 hour recharging times en route mean that the lead time will be "worse than we thought!"
Thanks Rob - interesting to see the minimal impact of wind on the total picture, although daily total curve is flatter than I remembered it. Also interesting to see that gas is turned down way less than coal during the night. This suggests to me the profit margin on gas MWh is better than that for coal MWh?
Does the app give access to data other than the current day?
(I would pick up at your blog but I'm not WP registered.)
Pardon my ignorance;
Is it true that wind power is so subsidised that the power it produces is far more expensive than that of coal or nuclear?.
Thus creating the opposite of the much vaunted "free power from wind"?
I must admit, I did visit http://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/~dcurtis/NETA.html before asking ;-)
Wow. Wind was On a roll. That is about THREE times the daily average for wind. I glance at NETA most days. sad I know.
Sep 13, 2011 at 10:15 AM | Barry Woods
Barry, if one could not remove the main generating sources from the graph you would never notice the Wind line!
Sun: Windfarms shut by too much wind UK’s grid ‘can’t cope’
The disappearance of power capacity in the near future will bring back the Great Unwashed...in the shape of people unable to clean themselves in water that will simply be too cold...
Jiminy Cricket
Please see my response to Barry Wood upthread at Sep 13, 2011 at 11:19 AM.