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.
No two installations of wind, coal or nuclear power come out at precisely the same cost, but wind power is proving to be very competitive in cost to coal or nuclear.
Of course hydro is far cheaper than any of them. All of these sources and solar two help balance out the mix and each contribute their strong features to the overall grid reliablity.
One advantage of wind is that there are many breakthrus in technology that have been tested and proven and are being installed now. Todays windmills are responsive to much wider wind variations, at both higher and lower speeds than earlier generations of wind machines. The are also more dependable with fewer breakdowns.
All grid operators have to deal with rapidly changing loads and production, no matter what the source of their power. Coal and nuclear plants can take a long time to power up from an idle. Windmills are much more responsive to taking up the slack when you need power in a hurry.
By spreading windmills widely across your grid, you even out a lot of load and production variables.
A big new development is windmills mounted inside of those big four corner highline towers. The can be mounted inside existing towers and each will power several hundred homes. Being spread out over so many miles, at least some of them will be generating at any one time. Expect to see thousands of them installed all across America.
You can find fault with any energy source but that is self defeating. By using the stregths of all the energy generating sources, we end up with a very solid and reliable grid.
It is interesting that as a cool front was moving in and electrical demand was growing that the wind died out.
Coal and nuclear backup power will not respond well to unusual increased loads like that. It would have been at least as bad had a coal plant failed, and much worse had it been a nuclear plant failure.
You can find fault with any energy generating source. What we have here is cherry picking of the worst faults of wind and comparing them to the strong features of coal and nuclear power. That is the classical apples to oranges.
Grid operators use the best features of each generating source to offset the dissadvanteges of the others.
watch the local nuclear plant sit idle for months because of a cracked pipe and tell me just how reiable that is.
On any one day any power generating system could be down.
Wind power has proven to be a valuable portion of the generating mix.
You are comparing the absolute worst case scenario of wind power with best case and hoped for perfect operation of coal and nuclear plants.
Try matching the good points of wind with the good points of coal and nuclear and watch how well they work together on a grid and you will learn something.
You can take wind power down for maintenance of one or two windmills at a time. The other fifty or a hundred windmills can still be producing. Take a coal or nuclear plant down for 2 or 3 or 4 months for maintenance and re-certification and see how much electricity it is producing. just because they do not break down often does not mean they do not break down.
Any grid with a nuclear plant or any coal plants on line still needs one nuclear plant or an equivelent nunmber of coal plants on standby because catastrophic failures do happen.
Bottom line is windmills do work and have been proven over and over to work and work well as a portion of a grid power mix.
I have dealt with engineers before, that are working for the competition.
They can be the most blind and irritating people imaginable.
Total blind faith in the company that signs their paycheck and total lack of comprehension of what the competition is doing.
You sure I have not talked with you before?
You are missing the point here. A big reason we are in toruble now is that we have relied on too few power supply technologies for too many years.
The key is to mix a number of technologies and use the best features of each, all working together.
Wind is a viable and proven part of that mix.
This sort of contradicts some things I have previously read. IF there is new technology, great. As far as cost, how can the output of wind be as efficient/economical as the others especially nuclear? Do you have sources to share?
Hit don’t always blow in West Texas and sometimes, hit blows too darn hard for them windmills.
You have a good point, but when are we going to build those nuclear plants?
As one that has several years of grid operation under my belt including the use of wind generation, I know better. 20% is a realistic figure over the course of a year and that's from actual data, not speculation. Less in areas where wind isn't as suitable, more where wind is more suitable.
0.7%? big whoopi.
The 900 kw turbine in Waverly Iowa is average as is the site. It cranks out 2700 mwhr per year which is a cap factor of 34 percent. Today a 900 kw unit would be fitted with a 59 meter rotor and would produce more than 2700 mwhr. Your 20 percent is way off.
I'm guessing that particular operator is penalizing windfarms for not producing that 30-35 percent power at all times. We've seen days in iowa where a windfarm is producing over 75 percent all day and all night but in the summer there are days when they produce very little.
Windmills simply have a lot more moving parts per MW, which translates to a lot more maintenance needed.
And do not suggest that we can move power from the wind in Texas to the quiet spots. Shifting electricity long distances is costly due to loss. Some shifting can be done by wheeling power (A->B->C-D instead of just A->D), but it is a complex thing and not something easily automated. It also adds risk, as more network elements become single points of failure.
Windpower isn't economic because it is unpredictable.
And I have run the numbers, though some years ago. I worked on production cost models for an electric utility which used outage rates and efficiency numbers to decide which plants to run for best cost. While windmills have gotten some better over the years, the wind cycle hasn't changed much.
If windmills were so efficient, why in the world would subsidies be needed? Electric companies would be jumping at the chance to put them in if they actually were more economic and as reliable.
Did you mean 2700 Mwhr? M = mega 10^6. m = milli 10^-6
that should be milli = 10^-3
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