Bishop Hill Stuart Young on the IPPR report
Sep 2, 2012 Stuart Young, whose report on intermittency of wind generation I discussed here a week or so ago, has written a response to the IPPR puff piece last week. He doesn't seem impressed:
The conclusions of the report note that:
- It is inaccurate to describe the output from wind power as ‘unpredictable’.
- In the short term, wind power output is remarkably stable and increases and decreases only very slowly.”
National Grid records generation by technology every five minutes and that is to be found on the NETA website at www.bmreports.com. National Grid also forecasts wind output for two days ahead and refines that forecast daily. This is recorded on the “Wind Forecast Out-turn” page on the NETA website...
This clearly shows the difference between the refined output and the recorded output to be as high as 1250MW, and the difference between the initial and refined forecasts to be almost 800MW over a 24 hour period. This is not a reflection on National Grid’s forecasting ability, it is an illustration of the impossibility of accurately and reliably forecasting the availability of electricity generated by wind.
Reader Comments (20)
... even if we have to redefine what "predictable" is.
it is an illustration of the impossibility of accurately and reliably forecasting the availability of electricity generated by wind = unpredictable !!!!
The pdf file seems to have been corrupted - won't open either onscreen or when saved to a home directory and attempted to open there.
The PDF opens OK for me.
Certainly there is a certain uncertaincy. Of that we may be...quite sure.
It is also interesting to note from the tables that at no point did wind generation reach 50 per cent of installed capacity ( 7000 MW)
The authors of the original report in effect lied.
'Having confirmed that the Report actually includes these claims and that they have not been
quoted out of context, I see little point in a detailed examination of a document which makes
two so readily dismissible assertions'.
you might like to consider nthis PhD thesis...the first page seems rather question-begging and I have not read the remaining 190 pages....but it seems that any hand-waving, un-evidenced nonsense can get accepted as a thesis if it says "RENEWABLES ARE AS RELIABLE AS COAL".
"... even if we have to redefine what "predictable" is." --graphicconception
If it's predictable, we'll call it 'projectable,' so when the prediction fails, we'll say it was a projection, not a prediction.
If it isn't predictable, we'll call it 'remarkably stable, increasing and decreasing (we have no idea which it will be, you understand) only very slowly.'
[NB: zero wind is as ideally stable as you can ask for; it rarely decreases.]
end sarc.
begin cutty sark
The pdf opens OK for me in Firefox but fails with Internet Explorer - where is Bill Gates when you need him?
sorry...the link failed
http://www.olino.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/ummels_phdthesis.pdf
"In the short term, wind power output is remarkably stable and increases and decreases only very slowly.”
How long is "short-term"?
The PhD thesis has a lot of arm waving about the known technical problems, just assuming they will be solved. Everything else seems to be modelled on the ideal world. There seem to be no real costs, like the interconnectors or standby generation, only the fuel costs and carbon savings.
I had to laugh when I saw the discussion on pumped storage about table 3.4. It has a lake storing 20GWh with only a 30m head. He doesn't calculate just how big that lake has to be. I am not that certain about the topography of the Netherlands but I am fairly certain that there is nowhere in the country to put a lake that big. Maybe it is a new take on Vietnam saying where we now have to flood the country to save it.
Signatories and expert advisors to the IPPR report will ultimately be held accountable for its findings.
If, in this cold and northern climate, lives and/or livelyhoods are lost through powercuts due to COI issues, then criminal proceedings will happen.
It's either the 'consultants' or the politicians, who will plead a defence of 'Misleading Information', that will be held as responsible for any consequent deaths!
For sure, the more obvious trough-snufflers will be publically pilloried and eviscerated but the majority of our representatives will 'get-off' by laying the blame on others.
IPPR and 'others', take care; Your heartfelt, noble-cause thinking and selfless sacrifice will not be regarded as worth diddly-squat to an angry citizen who has just lost his freezer-contents, job, business, granny and internet connection thanks to your dislike of ...
Well, actually, just about anything that involves numbers, technical literacy and common-sense!
Roger Tolson: "at no point did wind generation reach 50 per cent of installed capacity ( 7000 MW)"
The caption to Young's second figure mentions "a metered 4686MW of wind capacity." This baseline is given on the web page which provides his data. Relative to a 4686MW capacity, the maximum in the three-day capture is about 71%.The average is about 21%. [Note that my figures may differ slightly from Young's as the data period has rolled on by 2.5 days.]
For reference, one may download the recent history in Excel-compatible .csv format by using this link. The headers unfortunately don't find their way into the .csv file. Wind is column "H". One can view the categories (fuel types) by going to this page, scrolling down to "Generation by fuel type (graph)" (or clicking on the corresponding box in the left frame), and clicking the "Current/Historic" button. Be aware, though, that the columns in the .csv file are not in the same order as those on the web page.
Here is a very interesting piece of analysis on the supposed savings from windmills --from the Netherlands perspective
http://www.clepair.net/statlineanalyse201208.html
Ross, take a look at this also. Apologies if it's been posted already.
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/09/wind-farms-are-96-useless-and-cost-150-times-more-than-necessary-for-what-they-do/
In its Summary (section 2.4) the IPPR report makes five claims:
Having demonstrated comprehensively that the first two are false, Young (as AlecM has noted above) is caustic about the rest:
Gulp. I hesitate to point out that I did an analysis of the third claim (in my view most important) here - Aug 31, 2012 at 6:42 PM.
AlecM
No, the IPPR authors didn't lie. But they were very careful with their presentation of the truth. An example can be find in their selection of emissions savings from SOME of the USA grids, all of which show favourable emission reductions which could be attributed to wind. They're all for grids heavy in the use of coal-firing. Go to the Bentek report and see what happens in a gas grid.
Poeple like the IPPR, BWEA are masters in this art.
CIVITAS UK 2012 and numerous papers on wind energy such as Eric Rosenbloom's ' A Problem With Wind Power' http://www.aweo.org/problemwithwind.html show how costs are going through the ceiling while productivity's going through the floor, in good ol' on again, off again, intermittant wind technology.