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The good news about windfarms 3

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Pretty obvious that both sides will make "factual" statements as perceived by their own biased viewpoints.

The fact that someone will claim that a coal-fired power plant can be placed "anywhere," like in your backyard, is likewise, b***s**t.

TTFN

FAQ731-376
 
One peculiarity of windfarms is that all of the turbines are designed to decouple and lose their load if the windspeed exceeds 50.00001 mph. This characterisitc provides a severe potential for system instability, as proven in the 28 Feb 2008 Texas ERCOT event.

Over 1000 MWe of wind electric power was removed from the grid over a 45 minute period when the local weather at a large windfarm experienced severe winds , forcing some emergency backup generation to deploy and also forcing the dispatch to remove from the grid some large elect consumers. Then, just to make things intereting, the wind died down to below 49.99999 mph, and the wind turbines reloaded and surprised the grid with 1000+ MWE of power it no longer needed.

The promoters of wind generation now claim that issue can be mitigated by installing improved wind predictors ( using the same style mathematics as used by the financial derivative crooks) and allowing the dispatcher to schedule alternate generation based on these predictions.

Other means to minimize the sytem impact is to (a) interconnect ERCOT to the rest of teh civilized world and (b) install "smart meters" at everyon's home to offload all consumers largte appliances when such events occur.
 
Many of us already know of this problem, and have been trying to make it known to the rest of the world.

Personally I believe the wind farms should purchase and manage the backup generation as to level out the generation to the grid.

Because what I believe won't soon come true, we need to lay this issue at the doorstep of NERC, for creating this mess.
 
An interesting tidbit of information about the turbines assembled locally.
A local company that assembles the nacelle from parts made wholly in China started assembling a new model this week. It is a 2.5 MW unit to replace the 1.5 MW now being assembled here by GE.
The Chinese got to whole thing, the new factory and the new jobs. The local company called back 4 workers they had laid off last June.
 
Everybody give a big "Thank you" to GE's free trade unit. I'm sure the cost of electricity will go down now.

**********************
"The problem isn't finding the solution, its trying to get to the real question." BigInch
 
The good news is we will be building vertical turbines in Canada that will be superior to the horizontal.
If you give up hope you might as well go down deep into the CRSS (from another thread) [cheers]

[peace]
Fe
 
So if I may ask, what is the difference between horizontal and vertical blades?

If the blades rotate, at some point they will be either vertical, or horizontal. Or are you talking about some sort of egg beater design?
 
He means rotation about a vertical axis.

They supposedly are somewhat better because they don't lose energy overcoming the gyroscopic effects of the rotating blades and equipment as they swing to the keep the direction of changing winds.

vawt.jpg


**********************
"The problem isn't finding the solution, its trying to get to the real question." BigInch
 
So an egg beater design.

The "vertical axis" term would have explained it to me.
 
Yea that's right, vertical axis.
The R&D is not quire complete yet though. [smile]

[peace]
Fe
 
quite* [pipe]

[peace]
Fe
 
Nope. Technically the "eggbeater" refers to a Darrieus turbine,
Darrieus-windmill.jpg


**********************
"The problem isn't finding the solution, its trying to get to the real question." BigInch
 
The even better news for Brits is that not only are wind farms subsidies paid for building the damn things, they are now paid subsidies to switch them off when the wind blows.
The other links are also worth a read.
Sadly, with a financial crisis in the UK, the new government is even more committed to wind farms. The deputy prime minister's (Clegg's) Spanish wife has taken a high paid job with a Spanish wind turbine company and the Prime Minister's Father in law is another wind farm entrepreneur.
What makes you think the taxpayer is being shafted?

JMW
 
Thought they only made those kind of relationships in the Ozarks.

"We have a leadership style that is too directive and doesn't listen sufficiently well. The top of the organisation doesn't listen sufficiently to what the bottom is saying." Tony Hayward CEO BP
"Being GREEN isn't easy." Kermit[frog]
 
I don't think its the eco-fascists that are the ones financing these things. As they say, "If you want to really find out what's really going on, follow the money trail". You will find out that things like, Marriott Corp (the well-known eco-fascist's hotel chain) reduced their tax burden to 5% by buying into excess tax credit sharing funds. Funds composed of tax credit based investments that were so high, the wind project proponents couldn't use all of them. I think Wall Street likes them as much, or more, as any eco-fascist does.

"I am sure it can be done. I've seen it on the internet." BigInch's favorite client.

"Being GREEN isn't easy." Kermit[frog]
 
Never over-estimate the stupidity of people, and it takes a college graduate to make truely stupid decisions.

This whole discussion has unfortunately reduced my faith in wind power by a lot and is starting to remind me of the whole push for bioethanol from corn. The vast majority of people bought into that idea when it takes only a modicum of common sense to realize that that whole scheme made no sense no matter which way you look at it. Just three years out and you no longer hear anything about it in the news.

Common sense seems to be in critically short supply.

That said, dedicating wind power to pump water into storage lakes seems to be a great way to store energy to me. I have faith for the future of wind power so long as people with common sense are in charge of the projects. If only we could find those people with common sense... and the honor to admit when they've made a mistake in policy.
 
Yes. It does seem to be one practice exercise in the oncoming Chinese (not intending to be politically incorrect, just how the saying goes) fire drill. I do think a lot of aspects of wind power make sense, but like most everything, it too has specific applications and locations for where it works and IMO a lot more where it doesn't. When tax credits got attached and wind became a general universal solution for taxes and not a specific solution for the supply of energy at locations where it could be used as efficiently as possible was when wind started loosing relevance.

"I am sure it can be done. I've seen it on the internet." BigInch's favorite client.

"Being GREEN isn't easy." Kermit[frog]
 
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