Posted on 11/25/2008 9:55:16 AM PST by Uncledave
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).
SOURCE: La Asociacion Empresarial Eolica
Denmark produces about 20% of their power with wind.
Don’t have anything against wind or any other type of viable energy source, but to get a better picture I’d like to know:
1. What is the total installed wind energy capacity for Spain?
2. Per KW of wind energy installed, how much conventional capacity do they have (or should have) on standby to back this up for when the wind don’t blow?
3. How much conventional fuel are they burning to keep the conventional generators spinning while on standby?
“Millions of vehicles plugging in at night will be a robust and decentralized storage system and will greatly improve the economics of wind energy.”
How do you come to that conclusion? What if the wind isn’t blowing tonight?
For a storage system to be reliable it has to be there and have enough capacity when the wind blows. Cars recharging at night is just another usage and to think of it as storage is invalid.
Rapid cycling up and down isn’t possible or desirable with a nuclear plant. Too much stress in expansion and contraction with changing temperatures, changing pressure. Doing this will dramatically shorten the lifespan of a nuclear plant. They usually take quite some time to shut them down for refueling. Several days I think.
I am not a nuclear expert by any means, but I’m sticking with my theory.
I agree about nuclear power, but do not agree about wind power crashing the grid. It does call for more backup, but that would be with existing plants that would operate at reduced power and it would still result in a savings of fossil fuel.
I am at a loss why folks here want to trash wind power. It's not good everywhere in the country, but in the midwest it can generate a lot of power and save fossil fuel for the country.
Let’s not forget that it MUST be dual infrastructure. Wind and whatever else they will use when the wind does not blow.
I thought the earlier thread said 55% was made up of Wave Energy?
Perhaps, but the grid has other problems from time to time also and designs changes can be made to compensate.
Wind can and should have a prominent place in our power future.
Make all the changes to the grid you want but but someone must be on the other end using it or you have a overload...
Who? Al Gore?
Sounds like BS to me!
thanks!
Spain is less developed than Tennessee...... and if we could just send them Algore for keeps they could be happy that way.
yes but the main dependance on imports is for transportation fuels - electricity in the USA is produced almost entirely by coal (#1), nuclear (20%), and natural gas (largely from US and Canada).....
so the real “dependency” issue comes down to when/if we can move away from imported oil sources for transportation fuels..... which depends upon whether economic and technical issues can be resolved for electric or hydrogen cars, etc.
Definitely I think we should use FAR more nuclear power to generate electricity, but that doesn’t really get at the OPEC issues, it’s more to the question of whether we can/should use less coal (which we have in great abundance).
Of course a trillion dollar question is how much more transportation can/should/will be electrified in the next 5, 10, 20 years, etc. I really don’t know, but I do believe that the Democrats should not be controlling such decisions and economic processes.
Overloads can be handled in short order. Units can be powered up and down, I am sure that windmills either can have their blades feathered to not generate as much load or at some point in time that can be designed.
No matter the barriers they can be handled and still save fossil fuel.
Which in the long run is a benefit to all of us.
As you said, a nuclear plant does not cycle well. If we were forced to try this, we would see a lot of scrams and blackouts.
Unfortunately, large baseload coal plants can rival the size of nuclear plants and don't fare well with this either. Such coal plants operate at 1000F or hotter. Rapid load changes on a frequent and recurring basis will cause rapid thermal swings with cracking and damage to the boiler and turbine. Fossil plants are intended to run at stable loads with any load changes taken gradually under controlled circumstances.
The best bet to serve as backups to wind turbines are natural gas turbines. They are designed for rapid starting and loading.
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.
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