The bad news about windfarms.... 14

[jmw]

It seems the problem is they had water available but didn't have a means to supply the same amount to more customers.

This is the wonderful non-joined up thinking of governments and some suppliers. I bet they made the plea to reduce water just to show they were environmentally concious but counted on most people ignoring them. I bet they were caught by surprise when people actually did as asked.



JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[lacajun]

cranky108, in reading Big Brother's literature on Smart Grid then reading the causes of blackouts last night, I failed to make the correlation Big Brother intends. Most of the problems were due to natural causes or human error. I guess I wrote too much and that got lost. I'll try to be more succinct.

Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC

 

[berkshire]

JMW
Your comment below was right on even 40 years ago.


""They are very user unfriendly. You set them and during the night they generate heat in ceramic blocks and then, during the day, release the heat. The trouble with the climate is that you don't know from one day to the next what heat you will need.""

My father and I were installing Night storage electric floors in the early 1960s in the UK and they had all of the problems you just describe. One day you would be cooking in the room and have all the doors and windows open, the next day you would be freezing, running fan heaters.
B.E.

The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them. Old professor

 

[jmw]

Maybe we can incite the greenies to have them banned.
The only trouble is the alternative is natural gas or oil fired.
But I'm sure storage heaters will actually appeal to greenies as a means to store wind turbine generated heat when they run and release it when they don't. Still no thought for convenience, but what people want or need isn't high on their agenda.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[cranky108]

Lacajun, It is my belief that most electrict utilities design and plan for 99.9% power availability, and planning or building above that increases the cost in an expontial manor. Most people are happy with that, and not willing to pay more for what I call fluff. Utilities also only build what they are allowed to build by the local commissions, or board.

People in DC want to spend what they believe is a big pot of money they believe utilities have on projects they favor for what ever. The issues are simple, utility are built to serve there customers, not wind farms. And wind developers can't afford to build transmission lines and make a profit. So the desire is to shift the cost to the utilities thinking they have all this money.

The issue of blackouts should be simple. We can't avoid them 100%.
The issue of brownouts because of VAR support seems simple to the simple minded, but is very complex. Simple capacitor support of vars, only works so much. At some point rotating machines are needed. Wind generation dosen't qualify because they depend on capacitors to supply the required VARS (Induction machines don't produce VARs, they consume them).

Water will become a big issue, and with farmers using most of the water, and a big farm lobby, it will be hard to get water rights. The ideas of cleaning and reusing water, or just reducing the use of it will become a big thing. It will affect many water utilities, not just how they operate, but how they bill there customers.

 

[lacajun]

cranky108, the plants I've worked in were the same. Money talks the same language everywhere. Some adhered to Crosby Zero Defects, which is brutal, in addition to up time issues. Down time is always unpleasant for the one causing it. Been there, done that, the T-shirt is always too big.

Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC

 

[cranky108]

The bitter sweet is recieving the t-shirt for a project you don't agree with. They are also difficult to work on.

Wind farms are hard to work on, because they won't give you the information you need, but they expect you to give them the information they want.

Other plants have simular issues in that they expect, but don't deliver.

The interesting thing is people don't trust utilities, thinking they are all greedy corporations. It never sinks in that some utilities are non-profit.

 

[berkshire]

Cranky
" It never sinks in that some utilities are non-profit."

Yes, but did they intend to be that way?

B.E.

The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them. Old professor

 

[lacajun]

Other plants have simular issues in that they expect, but don't deliver.

I respectfully disagree.

Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC

 

[stevenal]

"Yes, but did they intend to be that way?"

Yes.

http://www.publicpower.org/

 

[cranky108]

There are exceptions to everything.

Yes some utilities do intend to be non-profit.

And I do believe that often ther is a disconnect between designer and user. And having been on both sides (designer and user), that is our jobs as engineers to do better.
However, there are those among us who desire profit over technical execelence (or maybe we just have a boss like that).

I still don't see wind generation designers giveing much in the way as modeling tools for there products.
Maybe that is just the wind industrys attitude, "It's your problem, deal with it".

 

[SomptingGuy]

Without a natural gas pipeline to the area, homes where I grew up have limited choices for heating:

Night storage heaters. Horrible things.
Solid fuel. All that shovelling of coal/anthacite.
Oil. Requires a big tank somewhere.

There's still no gas there. My mother uses bottled propane for her heating. Now that is VERY expensive.

- Steve

 

[lacajun]

SomptingGuy, we grew up with a butane tank in the pasture for the hot water heater, stove/oven, and space heaters. Crude but we made it and didn't suffer any more than today. There were times Mr. Tom, the butane deliverer, would give Mother a bit extra or let her pay when she could. We all attended the same small country church and he knew our circumstances. There are things about those days I miss.

Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC

 

[SomptingGuy]

The propane delivery guy in my mother's village is probably the analog of the old milk man. The previous one died young (!), but he was a ginger, so we'd all know.

- Steve