The good news about windfarms 3

[jmw]

Well, I lie, there doesn't seem to be any unless you manufacture them i.e. you are Chinese.
(You may like to go to the thread730-257336 )
This article here is very illuminating, especially about the Dutch experience, they have decided that it is no longer for them:

http://www.aweo.org/ProblemWithWind.html

and following the link to the welsh wind farm development and its impact on the environment is well worth while:

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~hills/cc/gallery/index.htm

So, don't deliver what is claimed, badly made elsewhere than where the tax premiums are collected and destroy the landscape.
I wonder what the good news is?

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[jmw]

The article is a very illuminating read, especially if you follow the links.
Hollands 19% wind energy actually translates to around 1.3% but when quoting wind energy capacity we have to be very aware of what they actually mean.
"Capacity" seems to mean the rating of the turbine not what you actually get from it and if, as the Dutch found, you get it at the wrong time, you end up selling you highly subsidised energy at a thumping great discount.

But I had a surprise here:

http://www.aweo.org/windconsumption.html

Power stations are themselves consumers of power and their output is their generated power less their consumed power and generally they consume their own power.

Wind turbines apparently consume quite a bit of power but draw that power from the grid (I wonder why) and so the "Capacity" doesn't tell you that as much as 50% can be consumed by the turbine itself.

Boy oh boy, these wind farm people make double-glazing / aluminum-siding salesmen seem like the sort of blokes you'd want to see marry your daughters.


JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[dpc]

I think the aluminum siding will last longer than the wind turbines.

The data I've seen generally indicate actual power generation is between 10% to 20% of the installed capacity.

 

[BigInch]

You know, I think that the 10-20% must be pretty close to reality for most installations. It would fit my non-scientific observations. Here they don't turn at all in the summer, except for a couple of hours in the evening. They do run more during winter months, but still for every day they run there must be 3 or 4 where they hardly turn at all. I've had a suspicion that they were making 25% or less than their rated capacity and they were actually only being built to lock in the tax credits. I warned my brother about that when he was working on a potential project to lease all the available wind acreage from Wyoming to North Dakota, plus the investment needed to get any electricity generated out of there. Very interesting to start to see some confirmation of those WAG estimates.

Well now maybe they can be used to blow all that hot air back at the wind farm developers.

**********************
"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world’s energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies)

http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/

 

[cranky108]

The name I have herd for wind power is "vampire power", because it shows up mostly at night in the Winter, exactly when you don't need it.

Maybe a little different on the coast where the wind is a little different.

It's good that we have green power for our street lights, because no one else is awake to enjoy it.

 

[berkshire]

It brings up an interesting dichotomy, a group of environmentalists, are now, opposing a wind farm in eastern San Diego county California that they originally pushed.
Because of a lot of the things JMW mentions.
B.E.

 

[dpc]

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/10/state_lowballed_cost_of_green.html

Here's one reason why wind farms keep getting built - Business Energy Tax Credit (Oregon).

The cost to Oregon taxpayers has been 40 times what was originally told the legislators.

 

[jmw]

Well, it doesn't matter that the Spansish have chopped the subsidy and stopped fussing with wind turbines nor that the Dutch have cancelled plans for new farms and chopped the cash support and ditto elsewhere, in the UK Tony Blair said we'd have X% rated power from wind and Gordon Brown now has that at 20%.
Interesting to see that the more wind turbines you have the greater proportion of the power that has to be backed up.

Some nice comments about how the wildlife kill potential has been misreported and how the RSPB has rolled over and supported wind farms in the UK.

I was pretty shocked at the environmental damage done by the Cefn Cwyd wind farm (which can be seen very nicely on Google earth.)
This was one pushed through using streamlined planning consent procedure - a procedure which does not allow for public enquiries and apparently which doesn't require and environmental impact statement. he punch line was to discover that far from reducing CO2 in some cases they actually will never recover the CO2 from the concrete bases and the CO2 released by destroying significant amounts of peat.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[cranky108]

What is so hard for people to believe that to much of anything is bad? (Windpower included).

Please let the people of reason speak up.

 

[mauricestoker]

It would be a nice change if reason prevailed. I have a customer that wants wind power, rationale given is it is trendy and makes a PR splash if no one looks at the economics. I mentioned that they could save more energy than the wind can generate by spending money on insulating 65 year old buildings, which would be a lower cost investment, lower life cycle costs, lower maintenance and better work environment. Guess which direction was given? I'm thinking next they'll want VFD's on all the constant flow pumps, and some snake oil salesman will next be pushing the miraculous energy savings potential of magnets.

The only answer I can come up with is to wear a pointy aluminum foil hat next time we meet and tell him its to keep the aliens from reading my mind. If he takes it seriously, I'm selling magnets.

 

[BigInch]

Insulation definitely [≠] sexy

**********************
"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world’s energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies)

http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/

 

[BigInch]

Now I know why Spanish wind farm proponents are moving to the US. To market the tax credits.

http://solveclimate.com/blog/20090721/spanish-wind-giant-seeks-500m-slice-us-clean-energy-pie

**********************
"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world’s energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies)

http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/

 

[cranky108]

Tax credits? And we wonder why the deficit keeps going up.

 

[jmw]

Some curious wording in the article - apart from "Installed capacity" -

The wind power potential across the United States is tremendous—as much as 16 times its total electricity demand, according to a new Harvard-led study recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Something that hadn't really registered; that wind power is not limitless - their is just so much packing density to wind turbines, and limited areas with sufficient wind (whatever sufficient is defined as these days) so naturally there is a limit.
A capacity of 16 times current demand seems comfortable but if you only get 20% of the rated capacity and 50% of that is energy consumed in running the damn things then that's only 10% which means there is a potential of 1.6 times current use which, with growth in demand, ain't gonna last long.

But that assumes installed capacity will even come close to potential capacity or to matching demand and will require conventional power back up of around 100% so you have to spend twice, once of the wind farms and once on the back up power.

Boy, this is this a rip-off merchants dream or isn't it?

I also noted this:

Indeed, transmission may be the greatest challenge facing the U.S. wind industry. While it can take just about a year to build a wind farm, it can take around five to deliver the clean power to populated areas.

and the comment on the mismatch between the grid and areas with industrial capacity wind potential which mirrors some other report findings elsewhere.

So then you have an investment in grid structure to add in and if it takes 5 years to get the grid and 1 year to get the wind farm, why are they building the wind farms before they build the grids? To get the subsidies (stimulus funds) I guess. Probably no such finds for grid development?

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[mauricestoker]

The grid definitely can be a problem, especially with NIMBY always going to occur. Who wants a high voltage transmission line in their back yard?

 

[dpc]

When the wind is not blowing there is plenty of transmission capacity.

 

[BigInch]

It does seem like the parasitic instrument and oil pump power, cable unwinding power, etc. that were mentioned are too high at around 20%. I would think they wouldn't be more than 10%. But then again probably 5% is just from cable and transformer losses. Maybe 20% is correct, but I have no personal knowledge base there. Be interesting to hear from some insiders about that.

I was just estimating based on the amount of time they seem to turn verses the amount of time they're standing still, never mind on if they are turning near design point. On that on/off basis alone they simply can't be generating more than 25% of Capacity.

It seems like the name of the wind power game is to pass off all the big costs to the taxpayers, then claim a credit to boot. Did you see that even Marriott was reducing their taxes from 36% to 6%. This isn't really about the electricity at all.

**********************
"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world’s energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies)

http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/

 

[marks1080]

I am not an expert by any means but I always thought that when you see figures like 20 - 30% output for wind turbines that doesn't include when the turbines are off. That means that these units are only generating 20 - 30% of their nameplate rating when they are actually spinning.

Can someone enlighten me?

 

[BigInch]

Forgot to mention,

In one of the articles somebody implied that the Barcelona black out was caused by a wind power grid mismatch. I hadn't heard anything official about what it was attributed to, so I will try to do some research into that.

**********************
"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world’s energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies)

http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/

 

[cranky108]

So what is the total harvest factor of a wind farm? 25% of name plate, plus something for losses, plus the wind between the towers (so the standing towers don't interfear with each other), plus step up losses, and collector losses, and transmission losses. Factor in land non-usability factors (like off the coast of capecod), and what is the realistic deliverability total?

Now through the losses for storage of to much wind, and delivering when there is no wind. And what you have is no one has made a complete calculation, just some pie in the sky prediction that can never be relized.

Seems more like numbers to impress you friends, and influence people with.