Posted on 10/23/2015 4:56:04 AM PDT by theBuckwheat
Yet another study showing why the “renewables,” in this case wind are not a viable source of electricity. Here it is in raw numbers, the variability, low reliability and nondispactibility that are the hallmarks of renewable energy. what doesn’t appear on this report are the consequences, in lost business and higher electric rates.
So, if we only place giant wind trubines over a coal fueled power plant, all will be ok? Fine, so long as the wind power crony capitalists get their cut. :)
What is that supposed to mean?
Operators of aircraft in airline, air freight and charter use the term “dispatachable” to encapsulate the concept of how reliable a particular aircraft is to being fully usable at a particular moment in the future. An aircraft with an ongoing maintenance problem has low “dispatchability” because there is too much doubt that it could be counted on to be capable of departing on time.
Many large power plants take hours to warm up and be ready to produce the required amount of power. I am sure that others on this forum could give real-world numbers and examples. The power utility must have the capacity “dispatched” in time to meet all the need, or the grid must trip off. The ability of a particular plant to able to be ready is called its “dispatchability”.
Wind power is not dispatchable. The control center cannot order up 100 extra megawatts of wind power. There are all kinds of problems that come when the wind quickly increases and when it drops. Any drop must be very quickly made up by dispatching replacement power. I would imagine that implies firing up a nat gas peaking plant. That has got to mess with the cost planning of a utility.
There was a story about 2 years ago about Britain’s wind power provided less then 1% actual power in December because there was little wind.
(The other major problem, government interference via subsidy and a thousand regulations, is for another thread.)
Global Warming on Free Republic here, here and here
Green is definitely the new Red. It’s about power, control, and raping the masses to enrich the chosen few.
It means a plant can that produce more or less power on demand from the grid operators.
What many people do not understand is that there is no inventory of electricity... in essence, the grid has to produce the same amount of electricity that is demanded at any given moment. If not, the entire grid can collapse or operators have to do selective brownouts.
To keep the grid stable requires plants that can 'cycle', or change their output as demand changes, which it does every minute of the day.
Neither wind or solar are 'dispatchable.' For every MW of wind or solar power, there has to be a MW of fossil power sitting in idle mode to meet demand immediately if the wind stops blowing or the sun stops shining.
In a massive wide-spread blackout how would these plants get the power to 'warm up'?
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