Posted on 08/05/2009 2:19:10 PM PDT by neverdem
Texas has repeatedly been lauded as a leader in wind power development. Some of that attention is deserved. In 2008, the state installed nearly 2,700 megawatts of new wind capacity. If Texas were an independent country, it would rank 6th in the world in terms of total wind power production capacity.
The state's Republican governor, Rick Perry, has been among the state's most ardent wind power boosters, declaring a few years ago that "No state is more committed to developing renewable sources of energy." He went on, saying that by "harnessing the energy potential of wind, we can provide Texans a form of energy that is green, clean and easily renewable." The Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club has repeatedly trumpeted wind power development saying that it "means more jobs for Texas, less global warming from coal plants and less radioactivity from nuclear plants." The group says (PDF) that wind power in the state "has exceeded all expectations" and has created "an estimated $6 billion investments and 15,000 new jobs" for the state.
Graphic by Seth Myers
In June, shortly before the US House voted on the cap and trade bill, President Obama reminded reporters that Texas has one of the "strongest renewable energy standards in the country....And its wind energy has just taken off and been a huge economic boon to the state."
Alas, the hype exceeds the reality. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the operator of the state's huge electric grid, has considered the "capacity factor" of wind – the ability of the generators to produce power at 100% of their maximum rated output – and placed wind's reliability at less than 9%. In a 2007 report, the grid operator, known as ERCOT, determined that just "8.7% of the installed wind capability can be counted on as dependable capacity during the peak demand period for the next year." It went on to say "Conventional generation must be available to provide the remaining capacity needed to meet forecast load and reserve requirements." Earlier this year, the grid operator re-affirmed its decision to use the 8.7% capacity factor.
Thus, Texas now has about 8,200 megawatts of installed wind power capacity. But ERCOT, in its forecasts for that summer's demand periods, when electricity use is the highest, was estimating that just 708 megawatts of the state's wind power capacity could actually be counted on as reliable. With total summer generation needs of 72,648 megawatts, that means that wind power was providing just 1% of Texas's total reliable generation portfolio. And ERCOT's projections show that wind will remain a nearly insignificant player in terms of reliable capacity through at least 2014, when the grid operator expects(PDF) wind to provide about 1.2% of its needed generation.
The punchline for the wind power business in Texas is that despite all the hype, the reality is that the Lone Star State will continue to rely on the same fuels that it has relied upon for decades: natural gas, coal, and nuclear.
Maybe Texas needs to have their state legislature in session more than 140 every two years. That may create a little more wind to spin the blades...
Secondly, when the wind dies down, there is a great power reduction. Then the dams have to generate more power.
It requires a lot of monitoring and a very expensive and powerful computer complex to regulate it.
I wish someone would put a $ amount to the equation such as cost per kilowatt compared to other means of energy production. I know the cost of infrastructure spreads money around like no tomorrow. A friend that works on the construction end once said that the money would be there as long as tax payers are footing the bill. So it seems to me that they may not pay AT ALL were it not for tax incentives and tax money flowing their way. This article seems to confirm my thoughts. But I don’t know the whole picture. If anyone knows, will they tell?
On February 28, 2008 a sudden drop in West Texas wind threatened to cause rolling blackouts. Grid operators narrowly avoided rolling blackouts and ordered a shutoff of power to so-called interruptible customers, which are industrial electric users who have agreed previously to forgo power in times of crisis. Imagine the crisis if Texas depended on windmills for 20% of their electricity as Obama wants.
The wind gives dubious results at best.
The increased methane emissions would offset any of the benefits of the extra wind...
The increased methane emissions would offset any of the benefits of the extra wind...
LOL..... Yep every positive seems to have a negative doesn’t it? ...
We power engineers know that the only way you can make money off of wind is to sell the stupid schemes to stupid liberals.
Wind is not reliable!!
Boone Pickens' Pampa Wind Project is just one wind farm located within one CREZ, and the CREZs are all over west Texas.
In Jan, Texas PUC awarded contracts to a number of transmission lines companys to build 2900 miles of lines to circulate among the CREZs and deliver the power to both DFW and San Antonio. And this doesn't include those CREZs in southwest Texas.
Wind power may make some feel good but it is a crock of crap. I just got back from NW Texas / SW Oklahoma this weekend. In a flight around Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge and Ft. Sill I saw a long ridge just north of the base and refuge with a bunch of new windmills on it. Big eyesore. Hotter than he— that day so the air conditioners were spinning like dervishes but guess what ....no wind. Every now and again one or two of the mills would pitifully move but not spin ... so much for base load capacity.
We need to quit doing what is not working and focus somewhere else.
Bravo Sierra
If you have an interest you can find info and maps on the CREZs on the internet.
Thanks but I’ll tell you what ... you keep the wind and I’ll hold on to the other until something better comes along like more nuclear.
Oklahoma has plans also. Kansas awarded contracts last year to build a new transmission line and are now planning a second one. Iowa has surpassed California in windpower and taking bids right now on a new transmission lines.
You can twist figures to prove anything. This is the case in this article. In fact the people that actualy run the elecxtrical grid know that wind is very reliable and predictable. If one of a hundred windmills breaks down, you only lose one percent of the wind power which may in turn only be 5 or 10 percent in total of the current in the line.
The national weather service keeps up on high and low pressures and wind patterns and knows if the wind is going to die down in so many hours and they inform the grid operator well in advance.
Blow a coal plant critical component and you have a catastrophic emergency shutdown, with no warning. that can easily cause a 2 or 3 month shutdown of the whole plant, which does happen. Only thing worse is cracking a pipe in a nuclear plant. That brings a much larger catastrophic shutdown and it might take 6 months to fix, re-inspect and re-certify the plant.
Coal and nuclear plants also have scheduled periodic months long shutdowns for inspection and maintenance and re-certification.
Here is a source for more info. www dot awea dot org/utility/reliability dot html.
excerpt;
Is wind less “reliable” than conventional generation?
No. Conventional resources occasionally shut down with no notice, and these “forced outages” require operating reserves. For example, a power system that has 1000 Megawatt nuclear or coal plants will typically keep 1000 Megawatts of other generation available, to be ready to quickly supply electricity if a plant unexpectedly shuts down. The power system can still be operated perfectly reliably in this fashion. Thus, “reliability” is not specific to any single generation facility, rather it is measured on a system-wide basis.
As noted by Jon Brekke, Vice President of Member Services for Great River Energy, a utility that operates in Minnesota and Wisconsin:
“Wind energy is a valuable part of our diverse and growing energy portfolio. When partnered with other traditional generation resources, wind energy is an effective way to provide reliable, clean and affordable power to our member cooperatives. Geographic diversity of wind energy helps even out the variability of wind energy in the regional market. In addition, wind farms are typically made up of many individual turbines which reduce the impact of outages. For instance, there are 67 1.5 -MW turbines at our Trimont Wind Farm, so if one is down for maintenance only 1.5% of the total wind farm’s generating capacity is lost.”
Yer not from West Texas are ya?
Every 10MW windmill needs 10MW of backup, as they all fail to generate power at the same time when the wind dies (or gets too strong). It's extremely unlikely that all coal and nukes fail at once, so you only need to have a 1-5 ratio or so of backup to frontline power.
You cannot honestly compare infrequent major outages of coal/nuke with the frequent no-wind outages of windmills. The honest comparison to a pipe break at a nuke plant, would be a tornado blowing down the windmills. And that's likely to become a common occurrence since the windmills are being built in the tornado region from Texas to the Dakotas.
There simply is nothing in the operation of coal and nuke plants that matches the vagaries of the windmill. Coal and nuke plants run at high use levels (e.g. 90%), not the 9% of windmills.
What % of west Texas power comes from wind? A good bet is that even if they had the capability to supply 100% 24/7 of their load demand with wind they would still need 100% conventional backup.
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