Wind Energy Reaches 43 Percent Of Spain's Electrical Demand

Wind Energy Reaches 43 Percent Of Spain's Electrical Demand by NAW staff on Tuesday 25 November 2008

At 5 a.m. Central European Time (CET) on Nov. 24, wind power reached a new record of meeting 43% of Spain's electricity demand - with 9,253 MW of wind energy in operation - of the 21,264 MW total demand.

The previous record was broken March 22 at 6 p.m. CET, with 40.8% of the demand, or 9,862 MW. At 12:30 p.m. CET on Nov. 24, 10,263 MW were being produced simultaneously. The previous record of 10,880 MW of wind production was reached on April 18 at 4:50 p.m. CET, representing 30% of the peninsula's demand.

According to La Asociacion Empresarial Eolica, wind energy prices could drop to 6 euros per MWh. Wind energy has experienced a savings of 2.077 billion euros for the electrical system (4.50 euros of savings per citizen).

Why should it have a prominent place? The real answer is, it should have an appropriate place in our power future.
The level to which wind or solar power plays a role should NOT be in the hands of politicians or enviro-mental nut cases. It should be in the hands of people who understand the grid, and the issues surrounding load and power generation.

As far as I am concerned, engineers need to take back the energy issue from the crazies before it is too late.

An appropriate place would also make it prominent, in my humble opinion.

Seems to me that engineers are heavily involved with the design of wind turbines or they would not have made the big advances is output potential over the years.

It's not crazy to use a renewable source for our poser. It's not only not crazy it makes sense.

Seems to me that engineers are heavily involved with the design of wind turbines

You can hire engineers to design anything and they will do it. That doesn't mean what they designed at your urging makes sense in all situations.

There is also a difference between engineers who design products and engineers who design and operate systems made up of individual products. The people who make the individual products (wind turbines in this case) will want to sell you that product to the largest extent possible. The people who build and operate the system understand what products they actually need in the correct balance to make the system work.

The bottom line is, too many wind turbines and not enough fast start backup will be a disaster. A properly balanced system will not include a "prominent" wind turbine fleet but will include wind turbines where they make sense.

With the political winds as they are, you are probably correct. We will have wind turbines as a prominent part of new generation despite the economics, aesthetics, and logistical problems they entail. We will have problems as a result.

You can hire engineers to design anything and they will do it. That doesn't mean what they designed at your urging makes sense in all situations.
There is also a difference between engineers who design products and engineers who design and operate systems made up of individual products. The people who make the individual products (wind turbines in this case) will want to sell you that product to the largest extent possible. The people who build and operate the system understand what products they actually need in the correct balance to make the system work.
The bottom line is, too many wind turbines and not enough fast start backup will be a disaster. A properly balanced system will not include a "prominent" wind turbine fleet but will include wind turbines where they make sense.

I think that we are using the word prominent a bit differently and you are putting much more into the word than I am meaning.

So while I believe I used the word correctly, in an effort to get on the same page I will use the word significant. I don't mean 75% of the system, 50% of the system or any particular number. I mean enough that it makes a difference.

I believe that T. Boone Pickens used 23%?

Regardless I don't think you are saying anything significantly different than what I am saying. And I know that wind requires more backup spinning reserve than normal plants. But I don't see that as a problem since Wind Power would be replacing existing plants and they can be the spinning reserve.

> 43% of Spain’s electricity demand — with 9,253 MW of wind energy in operation — of the 21,264 MW total demand.

http://www.physics.uci.edu/~silverma/units.html

1 Quad = 10^15 BTU (World energy usage is about 300 Quads/year, US is about 100 Quads/year in 1996.)
1,000 kWh = 3.41 million BTU

[comment: hmm, some calculations, pardon my math, and maybe my source]

1 Quad=1,000,000,000,000,000 BTU

3.41*1000000*21264*24*365=6.351897024e+14 BTU

0.6351897024 of 1 Quad per year (that’s all Spanish use, I think)

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