Bishop Hill One turbine per kettle?
Aug 25, 2013 Energy: wind The Telegraph is on top form today, looking at the detailed wind power data and finding some horrific results:
The Telegraph examined a snapshot of RWE’s own figures on Thursday afternoon last week. One wind farm Trysglwyn, which is in Anglesey in Wales, was producing a total of 6 kilowatts (KW) - just enough to boil two kettles each with 3KW of power.
The wind farm has 14 turbines and a theoretical capacity of 5.6 megawatts (MW). In other words, the wind farm was producing just 0.001 per cent of its maximum capacity.
And, even worse, some windfarms were withdrawing power from the grid:
According to RWE’s own data, three wind farms on Thursday afternoon appeared to be taking electricity from the National Grid rather than supplying it.
That the political establishment has imposed this kind of corruption on the country will not go unnoticed forever. It will haunt the big three political parties for generations.
Reader Comments (73)
Teapots in a tempest.
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Wind turbines have a number of systems that must be kept running continuously in order for them to start when the wind starts blowing so it's completely normal for them to be taking power off the grid when it is calm. Usually the drain is trifling, usually a few kW per turbine. However if the turbines have electrical de-icing the power drain in winter can be quite considerable.
And the Telegraph clearly isn't too hot at arithmetic, 6 kW is 0.001 out of 5.6 MW which is equal to 0.1 %
We need energy to keep the turbines moving in wind farms in areas where the wind is not blowing. The solution is obvious - build wind farms in other areas so they can supply the energy to those that would otherwise be idle from lack of wind!
Hear hear.
" That the political establishment has imposed this kind of corruption on the country will not go unnoticed forever. It will haunt the big three political parties for generations.
Hear hear."
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Seconded.......
As an addit I would also like to state that they don't give a toss what we think. So it will be a 'haunt' as in they will say...."oh look at that.......titter".
Andrew says: "It will haunt the big three political parties for generations." I've seen absolutely no evidence that the message is getting across to the general, voting public. When (mainly Labour) MPs can write articles in the press decrying the power companies for creating fuel poverty and get away with it, it suggests to me that "Joe Bloggs" is thinking about other things. The evidence of the corruption of science in climate matters is there to see, but you still have to want to find it.
Ian, it wasn't in the context of 'climate matters' as a whole but the utter stupidities of wind adding significant amounts to fuel bills. Counsels of despair should be known to be true to at least 99.9% probability before being uttered. This isn't.
Apart from the few people interested enough to look into the issue, I suspect the general population think wind turbines actually work - they probably assume that, if they didn't work, they wouldn't be springing up all over the place. Surveys generally show a sizeable proportion of the population in favour of renewable energy. It would be interesting if these surveys also asked people for their estimate of how much energy we get from renewables too.
Certainly, from comments on the likes of the Guardian, it's quite common for people to say things like "I'd rather have a wind turbine on my doorstep than a nuclear power station/fracking rig etc.". They never seem to realise they'd need 500 turbines on their doorstep, and even then they'd still need the nuke/fracking as well.
Turning Tide: I agree that the polls show that a sizeable % - less than half though? - still thinks 'greenness' is free. But the facts can't be concealed for ever. The tide is turning, to coin a phrase.
I think the next question to everyone who would prefer a wind turbine to a nuclear power station or a fracking rig ought to be, "so you would be quite prepared to go without electricity for two-thirds of the time?"
It should be the starting point for a reasoned discussion (most people being reasonable deep down) about the impossibility of relying on "renewables" because of their inherent unreliability.
I should add that I support Ian_UK's position 100%. As long as MPs (of whatever stripe) can get away with loading the blame for energy costs and fuel poverty onto the power companies there is precious little chance of a groundswell of public opinion against renewables.
The average punter does not understand the finer points — as no more might the rest of us if we hadn't bothered to interest ourselves in the whole energy scam — and he still by and large trusts people in authority to tell him the truth. [Note I said 'by and large'] :-)
The most extraordinary thing about the Guardian's coverage is that the readers really seem to think that erecting turbines in the UK will somehow do something to reduce global warming. Its two errors compounding each other.
First they think that the wind farms will greatly reduce the UK carbon footprint. They don't seem to realise they will certainly not do that and may even increase it!
But second, even if at vast expense they did produce some reduction in the footprint, we are well under 2% of total CO2 emissions, so whatever reductions we do make will have no effect.
It really hard to understand what they are thinking. There seems to be a general view that all we have to do to reduce our footprint is stuff like solar panels, hybrid cars, wind farms. Everything else can continue unchanged, we will still have malls, still drive to supermarkets, still have a thriving car industry, still transport freight by trucks, still have air travel. Somehow miraculously doing all this energetically will meet the objectives set by the Climate Change Act - a CO2 reduction of 80% of 1995 emissions.
Its completely mad. I just wish they would advocate what it would really take to do that (useless as it would be in moderating Global Warming). We really would have to move everyone into high density well insulated housing, and they would have to walk or bike to the shops. We would have to close down the car industry. We'd have to move to a very different kind of agriculture and food distribution system.
It might be a nicer, calmer England. It would avoid killing and maiming thousands on the roads, cities would be quiet and walkable, there would be far better air quality. People would be fitter. It would basically be 1950 with Internet.
It would take a national effort that would dwarf that of WWII to get there. But my real bemusement is that its quite obvious this is the sort of thing it would take to achieve the goal, which in itself would anyway not affect global warming in the warmists own theory, but no-one seems willing to stand up and actually advocate doing it.
We seem to be passing laws which we have neither the intention nor the capacity to implement, which even if implemented would not achieve their objects. Why? Is it to make ourselves feel good? And why on earth would it even do that?
Teapots in a tempest.
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Aug 25, 2013 at 9:14 AM | Unregistered Commenterkim
Probably the first time I've clearly understood one of your delightful phrases.
michel:
Brilliant, thanks. Especially the final question. Answer: it won't, for ever. Either an even stronger delusion will have to come in to replace it or something called reality will win the day. And that's where I think our host's final paragraph is on the money.
Michel:
Nailed it. It is beyond baffling, beyond demented, beyond insane. How can apparently sentient, rational beings advocate anything so utterly and obviously foolish? And the whole at unimaginable cost.
"It might be a nicer, calmer England. It would avoid killing and maiming thousands on the roads, cities would be quiet and walkable, there would be far better air quality. People would be fitter. It would basically be 1950 with Internet." Aug 25, 2013 at 10:38 AM michel
I agree with your basic point - that the advocates of CO2 reduction should be honest about the meaning of the policies they advocate. But you are considerably too optimistic about that meaning.
An 80% reduction would not be some cosy 1950s fantasy: it would be 1750, or earlier: Cities would not be quiet and walkable - horse-drawn traffic on iron-shod wheels is not quiet. The air would be thick with smoke (while supplies of timber remained). Health would be far worse, becaue we would be unable to afford the fabulously expensive healthcare we enjoy today. And so on.
I contacted Prof Gordon Hughes about this issue of "internal consumption" by idling turbines. He replied:
" Wind turbines do consume power from the grid when the wind speed is not high enough for them to generate. In fact, some modern turbines are designed to rotate even when they are not generating in order to reduce the stresses of starting up (and stopping).
For a wind farm, net output is the net contribution of the plant to the grid. The usual figure that is put on internal consumption for wind turbines is 3-4% of gross output over a period of a year but detailed information is regarded as commercially confidential and is not publicly available. The data that I have analysed is collected by Ofgem for the purpose of allocating Renewable Obligation Certificates. The intention is that it should refer to net generation - in effect it is the difference between the readings on a grid output meter and a separate consumption meter (different meters because the vol.) I believe that Ofgem carry out periodic checks to ensure that this is what is reported."
It would be very interesting to know just how much power our wind fleet draws from the grid over a year during those many periods when the blades are not turning or even being "driven".
I am actually surprised at the lack of power produced by these wind-turbines. There performance is quite terrible or their positioning was completely mismanaged. In NZ, from a similar amount of turbines a significant positive output is produced. It is (obviously) not a power source however that can be relied upon to produce enough power to meet the UK's citizens and business needs or to meet the necessities and limits of economic possibility. Given that the data used in above article is correct.
However, all resources are finite and even with fracking, there are still limits to its eventual economic viability. I believe the UK should still invest in research towards a more 'recycleable' energy - even if it's just to help some folks two or three hundred years down the line. Be the innovators again.
Just my opinion, I don't live there, so none of my business any more really :-)
Mikeh
It's an extraordinary position that the info you mention is not available – presumably it is also exempt from FOIA on grounds of market sensitivity.
Mikeh: presumably that means the consumed power by turbines is charged at a much lower rate than the artificially high rate they get for any power they do produce?
tty
"Usually the drain is trifling, usually a few kW per turbine"
About as much as they often produce, then.. :-)
I'm afraid this is rather off-topic but hopefully it will serve to illustrate that those who are arguing against the onslaught of green lunacy are, if you'll excuse the term, peeing into the wind.
On Tuesday a fire started at a large waste storage facility close to Manchester. Today is Sunday; acrid smoke is still pouring from the plant, covering a wide area.
On Wednesday morning I posted the following on the Manchester Evening News website and have been criticised for my comments. It seems the idiots have won.
I watched, mesmerised, from a hillside two miles away. Whatever it was, it was obviously catastrophic. A wide base of flames had formed, tongues licking high into the sky. From this distance, the periodic explosions were muted to a series of dull pops. It almost sounded like bonfire night, but the crazily flashing blue lights racing headlong towards the blaze made it all too obvious it wasn’t. My first, horrified, thought was that I was witnessing the aftermath of a ‘plane crash. It was that bad. The spreading flames fuelled a rising column of thick, black smoke. Towering thousands of feet into the air, it started to obscure the evening’s full moon, artificially darkening the warm summer sky. High overhead, airliners inbound for Manchester disappeared into its fog and the gathering spectators began to wonder if the airport might close.
Thankfully, I was wrong. It wasn’t a crash. Before starting to write I listened to a radio report and there have been no reports of any injuries – I hope that remains the case. This morning, residents close to the fire have been warned to keep all doors and windows closed and the roads around the area are likely to be chaotic. This morning as the dust – quite literally – begins to settle it would seem the only related death has been the usual one: The death of sensible rationale.
The still-burning fire, cause as yet unknown, has destroyed a recycling storage depot. It is the second major fire at such a plant in as many months. Regardless of its eventual cause – the recent blaze at Smethwick was allegedly started by a falling Chinese lantern – it is further proof that the storing of large amounts of combustible materials in such a way is a thoroughly foolish endeavour.
Once upon a time, the local council used to dispose of waste. They sent it for landfill or controlled incineration. And then along came Global Warming. It was decided that the tried-and-tested methods that had worked for years were bad. Our hectoring politicians delivered innumerable patronising sermons, preaching that in order to reduce the release of harmful gases into the atmosphere, rubbish must be recycled. Unfortunately our society produces rubbish at a far greater rate than the recycling plants can manage. Yet, in an idiotically kneejerk response to a problem that may or may not exist, that consideration was not deemed important. So waste gets piled up. And up.
God only knows how much environmental damage was caused by Bredbury’s Junction 25 Recycling plant going up in smoke last night – and that’s real, actual, measurable environmental damage inhabitants east of the cloud can see, touch and taste today. It would be refreshing if those responsible for commissioning such places would pause to consider the irony of what they’ve done. By jumping on the little-understood bandwagon of global warming they have managed to achieve exactly what they set out to prevent. Refreshing but sadly unlikely – who needs to think when there is preaching to be done?
Re: john lyon
My reading of mikeh is that they are paid for the net contribution. This would mean that they pay the same rate for electricity as they get for producing it.
I wonder when one of them will realise that because of this it might be cheaper for them to run a diesel generator for the power they consume.
michel
There has to be something else at work since it is patently obvious that those advocating the extreme measures "necessary" don't actually believe anything of the sort.
I mean, if you really believed all the dire predictions about sea levels and melting ice and hurricanes and droughts and floods and all the other mayhem they are prophesying (note that there is never any upside to global warming in their book) you wouldn't just carry on driving your big car and flying round the world to pointless conferences in sunny climes, would you?
Have a look at my 11.52 post on the "A timely reminder" thread — save me having to repost it here; I think it's relevant.
Here is a useful analysis of the power source contributions in Austrailia (the same consistent story of how little reliability they get from "renewables") - From commenter "TonyinOz" http://joannenova.com.au/2013/08/weekend-unthreaded-16/#comment-1310598
Ospreyskypower
Observed Hieronymous Bosch;
Returns with the tale.
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Ospreyskypower (love the name)
I added quote marks round "accidentally".Breath of Fresh Air posted the following comment on 'Unthreaded' last Wednesday:
The Greens are stupid enough not to understand that in some cases landfill is the best solution to waste. There are more than enough holes in the ground in the UK that will remain as holes in the ground that could be filled in, covered with topsoil and planted to make a major contribution to improving the environment but it's always it might give off methane or some poison or other might leak into the groundwater, as if the UK wasn't an advanced enough country to take the necessary steps to avoid these things.
"My way or no way" is a bad enough state of mind to deal with; "my way whether you like it or not" has no place in a civilised society. But then ...
Folks; the info on internal consumption by turbines was an excerpt of a mail from Prof Hughes. I think it is clear that the power they draw from the grid during lulls is netted off against production so is effectively costed at their output tariff.
Specific figures for different sizes and brands of turbine are sure to be "commercially sensitive" as they should be part of a competitive evaluation. No doubt the authorities and suppliers are also reluctant to have them emerge into the public domain.
My guess would be that this impact could grow considerably as more of the latest, biggest machines are commissioned which - I understand - need to be kept turning, especially offshore.
Kim
Might I suggest you take a closer look at the website before passing judgement. All is not as it seems.
On the recycling fires, other countries make far more use of incineration. Denmark and Germany are two examples, if memory serves; neither are exactly cavalier towards pollution. Modern plants, properly run have little environmental impact and produce useful heat and/or power.
Re TerryS,
What you write regarding the pricing of power consumed is what it should be, but I suspect is not, but hopefully someone will have the answer.
Your other point about diesel generation raises the question in my mind as to how, in the event of a major powercut will the turbines be kept cosy, do they already have close proximity backup to ensure that they can stop the turbines being damaged by any adverse weather such as a extreme cold spell.
> in the event of a major powercut will the turbines be kept cosy,
If they don't that might make the electricity system a self-repairing system!
To many wind factories results in an unstable power grid which results in power outages which results in broken wind factories.
One can always hope.
Michel:
As a basis for addressing a hypothetical issue then your solution makes sense. Indeed there are green groups already intent on herding people into high density living spaces. However, it is social engineering at its worst with no consideration of the consequences on the human psyche of such high density living. Of course, there is also the small matter of liberty and choice.
TerryS
That would be impossible to parody or ignore.
Headline. PENSIONERS FREEZE WHILE WIND FARMS DRAW LECCY
Or my simpler one, which I tell anyone who will listen: WINDMILLS GENERATE MONEY, NOT POWER.
Question. Does anybody know what the installed faceplate generating ‘capacity’ is for the UK?
The rather excellent national power web page only gives you what is actually being generated. I'd really like to find out how far this falls short of the number that was on the front of the shiny proposal.
1 big recycling centre fire per week
With commodity prices low the selling prices of the recycling industry drop
Hmmm... wonder what insurance premiums for recyclers are doing?
mikeh
On atmospheric pollution and incinerators ...
Some years ago I read that more dioxin was emitted by Edinburgh's New Year fireworks than by all Europe's incineration plant in a year. I can't vouch for that figure but all the data I can find suggest that pollution from incineration is minimal when properly operated.
It's certainly less than setting fire to the occasional waste storage depot!
The trouble is that Greens have been conditioned to hate "chemicals" and the concept of "the poison is in the dose" passes them by completely.
For foreign readers, pl. tell us what RWE is.
Re: Stuck record
I found this which claims there was 4.7GW on onshore capacity in January 2012.
@ospreyskypower
According to my OH (who is an environmental consultant), the reason why we're stockpiling huge quantities of flammable "recyclables" is because China have erected a "green fence" to prevent us from dumping our low-grade rubbish on them.
See here, for example.
IMO, incineration is the answer, and - from the number of fires that have occurred recently - that seems to be the industry's answer too.
E. Martin:
Try this, RWE is (presumably) Renewable Wind Energy and this is their website.
http://www.rwe.com/web/cms/en/10122/rwe/about-rwe/
Stuck Record
Funnyly enough I was looking for capacity of wind mill sites yesterday.
These might help
UK Offshore Windfarms
UK Onshore Windfarms
Cheers, SandyS.
So 2679.2MW.
Generating right now...700MW! Roughly 25% of faceplate.Hurrah!
Ooops!
Missed the offshore, which takes it up to 6358 and brings the output to 10%.
Ouch.
Okay, its worse than we thought. Try this,
Onshore: 6,374
Offshore: 3,653
Total: 10027
Which makes the output 7.2%
bernie, agreed, it would be forcible social engineering of a sort that most would find quite unacceptable. My point was not to advocate it, but to say that if you advocate certain goals, and that would be the only way to them, then there is a problem. Either give up the goals, or advocate the means. One or the other. At the moment we are blissfully pretending that passing laws is going to lower our carbon emissions. Whether this is the right or wrong thing to do, that is not a way of doing it.
Muke J - I don't feel as sure as you what is going on. I think its more likely to be incoherence and delusion than people trying to achieve social reform. Its a moral panic of the kind that we have seen in the past. They usually result in people advocating and doing crazy things, most of which would have no effect on the problem they are worried about even if the problem were as they think it is.
There may be some for whom AGW is a bad reason to advocate the forms of society they believe in on instinct, but I think mostly its just basic intellectual laziness, inability to think through what they are saying and why and a desire to feel virtuously self righteous in a noble cause. We have seen it before.
You talkin' to me, muchel?!
I'll not disagree with you. Your view is probably just as likely to be the right one as mine and certainly there is a lot of incoherence and delusion on the go.
Just don't underestimate the capacity of the evil-minded to capitalise on that incoherence and delusion for their own ends.
Actually the UK might consider exporting garbage to Sweden. Most larger Swedish cities have built large garbage fuelled heating and power stations, as a matter of fact so many that we are unable to create enough garbage to fuel them. We are already importing from e. g. Germany, Netherlands and Italy.
Incidentally I don’t think that building garbage fuelled power stations in the UK is a good idea. They work much better for generating heat than electricity, and really require large municipal heating systems to make economic sense. They do produce some electricity as well, but the amount is closely tied to heating requirements, so it is not really controllable. However it does mean that they produce most electricity when it is cold and power is most needed.
Incidentally garbage fuelled stations should be BIG, it takes large, specialized boilers to achieve stable, high temperature combustion with low-and-variable quality fuels, and large and complex scrubbers, dust- and ash separators to avoid environmental problems.
And, yes, it is definitely not a good idea to store large amounts of unsorted garbage with unknown characteristics. Just-in-time logistics is just the thing here.
Inevitably there has been opposition to “garbage power” in Sweden too, particularly to burning imported garbage. However the fact that a single garbage-dump fire produces more pollution than all the garbage-fired power stations in Sweden do in a year has won the day.
I have started monitoring the total power fed into the National Grid at peak times from all the UK's wind farms. So far I have (in Mw)
Date ---------Peak--Wind--%of total
21st August 38333 520 1.4
22nd August 38918 229 0.5
23rd August 36807 1415 3.8
24th August 32889 552 1.7
One trick the renewable lobby use is to always quote capacity figures. So DECC quotes UK's on-shore and off-shore Wind as ~10GW. This is all pie in the sky because wind never actually delivers when it is needed. 90% of the time it falls even below imported French "nuclear power".
http://clivebest.com/rgraph/Fuel.html
MICHEL
'BACK TO 1950 TO AVOID KILLING 1000's ON THE ROADS'
Sorry, I think I'm a bit older than you. I remember the 1950's when many of my friends were killed on the roads, so I thought I'd check the statistics.
1941 - 9169 deaths
1950 - 5012
1960 - 6970
1970 - 7499
1980 - 5953
1990 - 5217
2000 - 3409
2012 - 1754
Much credit must go to racing driver Sir Jackie Stewart who after a horrendous high-speed crash at Spa-Francorchamps in 1966 (same race held safely to-day) where he was trapped for ages before being rescued, campaigned for greater safety on and off the track.
As a former racing driver I've always resented modern restrictions, but those stats are quite startling !