Windfarms Efficiency Not So Good

[John D]

This is a very interesting report and indicates what some of us have being saying for sometime. It is now time for all 'related authorities' to take serious notice of the facts.

BBC News - Wind farm efficiency queried by John Muir Trust study

John D

http://johnswildworld.zenfolio.com/

[nightshade]

I was in Cornwall (King Arthurs neck of the woods) we had been there all day in the area studded with wind generators (9:30 until 7pm) and less than a third were turning at any one time Not a scientific study, but noticeable by a lay person.

[John D]

Originally Posted by nightshade

I was in Cornwall (King Arthurs neck of the woods) we had been there all day in the area studded with wind generators (9:30 until 7pm) and less than a third were turning at any one time Not a scientific study, but noticeable by a lay person.

Yes, and in some situations it can be a lot worse due the lack of wind at times.

John D

[ForestPaul]

Originally Posted by nightshade

I was in Cornwall (King Arthurs neck of the woods) we had been there all day in the area studded with wind generators (9:30 until 7pm) and less than a third were turning at any one time Not a scientific study, but noticeable by a lay person.

That some were turning, but not others, suggest that the cause might be lack of demand, not lack of wind.
As reported by the Daily Telegraph Firms paid to shut down wind farms when the wind is blowing

[Lancashire Lad]

Originally Posted by John D

BBC News - Wind farm efficiency queried by John Muir Trust study

Originally Posted by ForestPaul

Firms paid to shut down wind farms when the wind is blowing

Just two amongst many articles exposing the lunacy of having a large percentage of our nation's electrical generating capacity entirely dependent upon the vagueries of wind.

I've said it many times before and will say it many times again - with the National Grid infrastructure as we know it, with the known base load requirement, and daily reserve margin averaging only 8-10% max., to implement a regime of almost 22% of total capacity via wind, as successive government policy has committed, is sheer folly.

The only losers in this crackpot venture will be the humble consumer, who will not only lose the security of supply, but will have to pay massively increased electricity bills both for direct home consumption, and indirectly as increased costs for manufactured goods.

The large scale wind farm entrepreneurs, (via Renewables Obligation Certificate subsidies), and those smaller scale operations who are jumping on the bandwaggon of the Feed-In-Tariff payouts are laughing all the way to the bank.

Governments in several other countries have already substantially scaled down windfarm & feed-in-tariff subsidies, as they realised the eventual consequences. Yet our government ploughs on regardless.

Anyone who has a modicum of knowledge about this subject will be aware of the impending closures of several of our coal/gas/nuclear power stations - all before the 2020 deadline whereby we are comitted to the European Union to supply 15.4% of our total energy requirement, (and that includes 30% of our total electrical generating capacity), by renewables.

Of that 30% of our electrical capacity, the government has committed us to almost 22% being generated by wind, when we only have a daily reserve margin of 8-10%

It doesn't take a genius to realise that if the wind isn't blowing, we will have a shortfall of 12-14% of our daily requirement.

Of course, if you speak to politicians about this, they blithly state that backup systems will be in place.

Oh yes, and as it happens, these back up systems will be costing several more billions of pounds - also to be paid for by the poor consumer. They will be powered by gas and oil, (so much for the green credentials), and they will have to be spinning, (i.e. running but not producing any power), 24hrs a day, as when the wind drops, they will be needed at short notice. This of course, means that they are massiveley uneconomical and risibly inefficient when compared to full time generating plant.

Wind farms, within parameters which can be accommodated by our grid infrastructure, demand, and reserve margin, are commendable as the first real step on the renewables ladder. But committing to more windfarms than our system can take is wholly beyond reason.

It's about time the policy makers woke up to reality - 2020 is less than 10 years away!!

Regards,
Mike.

[Dorts]

The truth about 'wind' is now plain for all to see, except it would seem for those that have the power to make the decisions.

I have used this quote from Leo Tolstoy before and I make no apologies for using it again.

"I know that most men, ............., can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives."

Dorts.

[wanlock dod]

I've not seen the report itself, so will reserve my views on its quality and value until I have (John D have you read the report, is it publicly available?, or just the news article?). A quick look aroudn the internet for it did reveal that the author seems to be coming from a starting position of opposing wind power, so I don't expect it to be a fully ballanced view of things. I doubt that this report will get anywhere nearer the real truth, but it will be another opinion to add to those already there.

It is interesting that the only statistic picked up from the report rlates to the proportion of the peak demands during the study period, form a source of power that surely even Dorts and Mike would agree was never intended to meet peak power demands. Although I feel quite reassured that something as apparently futile (if you read some of the posts above) is able to satisfy over 5% of our peak power consumption on some occasions. The use of this measure (% of peak demand) seesm to confirm to me that the report has been written by somebody who has a predetermined opinion to get across. Far more useful in terms of understanding how useful windpower is to us would be the cumulative probability that wind farms are generating more power than a certain value.

Limiting the study just to Scotland also means that if it is windy in sunny Englandshire, but windless in Scotland no generation would be recorded. One of the ways forward for better integration of wind power is collection over a larger area.

Much of what Mike says seems perfectly reasonable, but I think that it is only considering the situation as regards the current power generation infrastructure. I have no doubt that with a little imagination and clever engineering the situation could be improved. For example, if all of the power generated by wind farms was used to raise water for pumped storage schemes then I doubt that any of the problems noted thus far would be valid. I do appreciate that it's a shame that there has not been (thus far at least) an increase in pumped storage to parallel the increase in wind farms, but this example just demonstrates that these problems could be addressed, but probably only if we wanted to.

Wouldn't it be nice if the power generation engineers saw usefully integrating more of this energy as a challenge to be addressed , rather than an irritation to grumble about. Perhaps of they did we would have overcome these challenges by now and be on to the next ones.

Dod

[Lancashire Lad]

Hi Dod,

Your post suggests that you have given the matter some logical consideration, so I trust that you will not be averse to further research to find out where the truth does lie. (No pun intended!!).

The mention of peak demand in the article is very valid, in the context of the quantity of wind power already sanctioned / under construction in the Crown Estate’s “Round 3 Offshore Wind Tender” – some 30+ Gigawatts of installed capacity.

30GW installed capacity, will, (if the figures are to be believed – which I certainly do not), with a capacity/load factor of 33%, produce 10GW of electricity. With our peak demand of roughly 60GW, (which has been constant for some years now), that 10GW amounts to 16.666% of the total.

As you can see from that figure alone, it is more than the daily reserve margin. Thus (without sufficient back-up generation on tap), the stability of the grid becomes dependent upon wind to be able to match peak demand.

If peak demand weren’t emphasised in such discussion, then the suggestion would be that wind’s contribution would be all to the good, and certainly wouldn’t cause any problems – which, with the amount being implemented, is patently not correct.

It is an irrefutable fact that if the intended decommissioning of existing plant goes ahead, then without sufficient (new construct) back up generation being in place, the amount of wind power being installed will cause the grid to become unstable whenever low wind or windless days prevail.

I fully agree that what we read and hear shouldn’t be taken at face value, and that we always need to sort out the wheat from the chaff – especially where newspaper articles are concerned, but if you have a genuine interest in discovering the pro’s and con’s, then I would urge you to search for, and read up on the many factual reports which are to be found from reputable sources. – I have made reference to some of these sources in previous threads.

It is interesting to see that the Scottish Renewables Trade Association are already disputing what the Stuart Young report says: - (Row over Scottish wind farm power output ) But quite frankly their argument, (if what is written has been quoted verbatim), is weak to say the least.
They include: -

QUOTE

“He claimed the load factor for wind for the period of November 2009 to November 2010 was 22 per cent, however GL Garrad Hassan, an independent consultancy firm, found on average it was in fact 24.8 per cent.
"We recognise this is lower than the 30 per cent average load factor, however this was anticipated as it had been an exceptionally calm year. No form of electricity works at 100 per cent capacity 100 per cent of the time".

UNQUOTE

So, they suggest that a discrepency of 2.8% load factor is a major sin, but in the next breath, say that they themselves had quoted that same load factor more than twice as far out. and then have the temerity to say in as many words, "it had been an exceptionally calm year" - well then everything's alright isn't it - the fact that hardly any electricity was produced seems to be the last thing they are concerned with.

On a second point, you say - “if all of the power generated by wind farms was used to raise water for pumped storage schemes then I doubt that any of the problems noted thus far would be valid”. At first glance, a fair point, but the topography of Britain is not like Sweden. (Which has roughly 50% of Europe’s freshwater reservoir capacity, and gets something like 99% of its electricity from hydropower).

Britain has few large water bodies that would have the right topography to facilitate hydroelectric generation in any commercially economical form. Many studies have been done over the years, and probably continue to be done in case commercial viability gets closer.

EDIT - For completeness, the Stuart Young/John Muir report can be found here in pdf format: -
http://www.jmt.org/assets/pdf/wind-report.pdf

Regards,
Mike.

[wanlock dod]

Having now read the report I have to say that it is actually rather better than I had expected, although the fellows presentational skills are a little lacking in terms of getting the information across. I think that generally the point that wind power is not quite as productive as people might like us to believe is a fair one, but only when it is considered within the current system.

I was pleased to see that pumped storage was mentioned, although I wouldn't stretch to saying that it got any discussion becasue the report seemed to be very dismissive of the potential for this type of technology to improve the situation. I was left feeling that it served the authors purpose to take such a dismissive approach, but was also left feeling that (on the basis of the figures quoted) our current pumped storage capacity woudl generally be sufficient to see us through these highs and lows of wind power output. Obviously this ignores the fact that there might be other demands that the current pumped storage was intended to address (although the report does not make this point), and so additional pumped storage capacity would likley be required.

Clearly the power generators in Scotland have recognised this issue and plan to address it. The report dismissed additional pumped storage capacity becasue of the capacity that would be required to cover extended periods without wind generation, but also reports that the usual duration of such an event is somewhere in the order of one 5 hour period per week.

Thus I stand by my assertion that with the current power generation and distribution system wind power is difficult to integrate, but with a relatively limited degree of modification this power could be put to rather better use rather more easily. So, if we continue to ignore the fact that actually the power companies recognise the problem, and have identfied potentially workable solutions, then I woudl agree that wind power is a bit of a farce. But if we can open our eyes to a slightly bigger picture then I think that we can see that these are largely short term problems with likely future solutions. The power generators also have a fair point when they say that the author (or his sponsors) have yet to put forward a suitable alternative.

Dod

[Lancashire Lad]

Originally Posted by wanlock dod

.....I stand by my assertion that with the current power generation and distribution system wind power is difficult to integrate, but with a relatively limited degree of modification this power could be put to rather better use rather more easily.....

Hi Dod,

I hear what you are saying but fail to see any "relatively limited degree of modification" which will surmount the problem of the road we are going down.

Clearly, if we rely on more wind than we have reserve margin, (and that reserve includes hydropower via pumped storage), the system is at risk every time a low wind / no wind incident happens.

The only guaranteed way to overcome that risk, will be to have enough back-up capacity spinning and ready to take up the power loss which would have been supplied had the wind been blowing.

Which kind of defeats much of the advantage of having large percentages of wind in the first place. (Cost/Efficiency/Environmental Effects etc. etc.).

Having to build such major back-up plant cannot, in any reasonable sense, be classed as a limited degree of modification. - Yes it will make the system work, but to what advantage? - Surely it makes more sense to keep the amount of wind within the bounds of what the system can accept without destabilization in the first place.

Sorting out the consequences of the intended wind power percentage of supply will not be just a simple matter of building a few pumped storage facilities. If that were the case, would you not think that such facilities would already be in the pipeline?

You state that pumped storage was dismissed by the report, but comment that the report further states that the durations of low wind events were in the order of one 5hr period per week.

I think you are missing the point here. - The report states that throughout the whole period, (November 2008 - December 2010), wind generation was producing less than 20% of its capacity, for more than 50% of the time.

That isn't too much of a problem at present. since we currently have only 5-6GW of installed wind capacity. But in 2020 when we will supposedly have well over 30GW of installed wind capacity, then generation of less than 20% of that capacity for more than 50% of the time will be a whole different ball game.

You suggest that the power companies have recognised the problem and have identified potentially workable solutions, but that this is being ignored by those of us who do not accept the status quo.

The only potential solution that I have heard power companies talking about, is the need for substantial back-up build to counter low wind events. So yes, they are obviously aware of the situation, but are still intent on going down the same road, even though output efficiency and cost effectiveness are greatly compromised.

The subsidies involved amount to £billions, and the power companies want subsidies for the back-up plant as well - As I've said before, they aren't going down this road through altruism, they are doing it because vast amounts of profit can be had, with government approval, and at cost to the consumer.

My point of view remains unchanged. - We are trying to run before we can walk. We have already lost several years where far more efficient alternatives could have been constructed or had construction begun.

Renewables (whatever the source) need to be integrated into the overall system at a pace which will not affect the stability (or to any great degree the efficiency and cost effectiveness), of the system as a whole.

Presently they are being introduced with little thought to those parameters and far more thought being given to the arbitrary 2020 deadline to which we have signed up with the EU.

In my book, it would be far more sensible to work within the bounds of what can be integrated into the system with, to paraphrase yourself, "a relatively limited degree of modification" - even if that took until 2050 or beyond.

Regards,
Mike.