Wind farms in Pacific Northwest paid to not produce

FoxNews.com ^ | March 07, 2012 | Dan Springer

[Hunton Peck]

Wind farms in the Pacific Northwest -- built with government subsidies and maintained with tax credits for every megawatt produced -- are now getting paid to shut down as the federal agency charged with managing the region's electricity grid says there's an oversupply of renewable power at certain times of the year.

The problem arose during the late spring and early summer last year. Rapid snow melt filled the Columbia River Basin. The water rushed through the 31 dams run by the Bonneville Power Administration, a federal agency based in Portland, Ore., allowing for peak hydropower generation. At the very same time, the wind howled, leading to maximum wind power production.

Demand could not keep up with supply, so BPA shut down the wind farms for nearly 200 hours over 38 days.

"It's the one system in the world where in real time, moment to moment, you have to produce as much energy as is being consumed," BPA spokesman Doug Johnson said of the renewable energy.

Now, Bonneville is offering to compensate wind companies for half their lost revenue. The bill could reach up to $50 million a year.

The extra payout means energy users will eventually have to pay more.

"We require taxpayers to subsidize the production of renewable energy, and now we want ratepayers to pay renewable energy companies when they lose money?" asked Todd Myers, director of the Center for the Environment of the Washington Policy Center and author of "Eco-Fads: How the Rise of Trendy Environmentalism is Harming the Environment."

"That's a ridiculous system that keeps piling...

[Hunton Peck]

A tangled web do we devise
When first we start to subsidize

(I just made that up. Like it?)

[dayglored]

> "It's the one system in the world where in real time, moment to moment, you have to produce as much energy as is being consumed," BPA spokesman Doug Johnson said of the renewable energy.

What the hell does that mean? This guy is spouting crap, as near as I can tell.

Every power generating system has to have a way to "spill" excess power -- otherwise it could never be used at all, it would be unregulatable.

Any reasonable wind generator can feather or yaw to reduce its output when necessary.

There's bull$#!+ going on here.

[doc1019]

Welfare by another name.

[JRandomFreeper]

It's the one system in the world where in real time, moment to moment, you have to produce as much energy as is being consumed,

Medow muffins. In EVERY system, you have to produce what is required.

Liars, and bad ones, with bad hair, mind you.

/johnny

[org.whodat]

LOL. Has to turn a 60 cycle wave to fit the grid. But hell they turn damns off and on and take units off line in coal fired plants. Nothing new here.

[21twelve]

I think he may be correct because it is wind and hydro combined. Well, at least the part about not needing the wind power. And I suppose the contract has stuff in it that the wind folks have to provide such and such amount, and the power folks need to buy such and such amount. And then they (we!) have to pay the penalties. What a scam. Taxpayer money to help fund it, and then we (the users) get increased rates to use windpower.

And with the hydro - they need to manage the water for flood control, fish habitat, storage, etc. So it I guess it’s not like a coal-fired plant where they can take more wind energy and just shovel less coal.

[impimp]

He speaks the truth. The frequency of the system can deviate slightly from 60Hz to take care of small differences between power produced and consumed. Intertie connections can also be used to “socialize” the imbalance.

“Feathering” is limited in some cases as this technology has not been fully spread to all wind generation. Bottom line is wind and solar are poor forms of power relative to hydro and nat gas. Once a grid has too much wind and/or solar reliability goes. It is very much a case of diminishing returns as wind is added to a grid.

[gunsequalfreedom]

Easy solution to too much power. Lower the rates consumers pay.

[Viking2002]

And there is the rub. To my knowledge, and for all of the ballyhoo about 'renewable' energy, I haven't heard of one associated reliable technology that has the capability to bank all of the excess produced during peak periods, and store it for release into the grid when needed. And, as is apparent here, no way to reliably throttle or bleed it off during peak generation periods. Generating it is one thing - hell, middle school kids play with that sort of thing in science labs (or used to), but capacitance-capable storage? We ain't here yet. Correct me if I'm wrong, and cite sources, please. It's otherwise an idea that's nowhere nearly ready for prime time, but it makes for a great carnival side show to fleece non-existent billions out of the government coffers.

"As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

--H.L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920

[txhurl]

What I’ve never understood, is why not utilize the natural advantages of wind power? Let those killer blades spin charging batteries that whatever truck or bus or Prius needs on its quest to wherever can pull over and swap out the battery pack.

Exactly like a gas station, just with no jihadi oil involved.

[okie01]

...but it makes for a great carnival side show to fleece non-existent billions out of the government coffers.

And, interestingly, when the government subsidies run out, the wind farms are then abandoned.

[dayglored]

Something doesn’t line up here. Wind turbines don’t have to spin at constant rate to match the 60 hz line, at least not the modern ones. They have power freq converters to match the output of the generator to the line freq. That’s pretty fundamental.

If you can cite for me the electrical specs for a modern wind generator, that say it has to spin at exactly the right speed to match the 60 hz line freq, I’ll stand corrected. But that’s not my understanding.

BTW, I think large scale wind plants are foolish as hell. Small scale wind generation works fine. Say, household or farm size. Large scale is a boondoggle.

[Viking2002]

Yeah, I've read the stories and seen the pics of these failed wind farms, all sporting towers several hundred feet tall, in massive fields and along mountain ridges, sitting idle and rusting, and all because the theories behind them were half thought out, until they became a fiscal and political liability to those who forced them there.

Nobody is held accountable because nobody cares. Nobody has the answer. And deeper into the abyss we go.

"As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

--H.L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920

[dayglored]

Funny you should mention that. I’ve lived for 22 years off the grid, mostly relying on solar photovoltaic panels. But I’ve got a wind generator, a 2600 watt Jacobs from the 1940 farm era that supplements.

Both the PV and the wind generate DC to charge a big battery bank, and I run an inverter off that to get 120VAC standard voltage for my house.

Works great. Maintenance on the wind generator is good exercise, free climbing up an 80 foot tower. :)

[Netizen]

love it.

[dayglored]

You’re basically right. Like I wrote in a comment above, although wind power generation makes sense at small scale, at large scale it is not appropriate. I do my generation at home as DC so I can store it in a battery bank, but that is not practical for large scale.

Same thing is true of photovoltaic... Works great small scale, but makes no sense at large scale. Where is the storage for night time? Etc. etc.

[txhurl]

I’m hoping you use carabiners!

Seriously, our forefathers used windmills just fine until the rural electrification program forced them off.

Harvest ALL energy to its ability without projecting and hyping it to be a Superman savior for the grid.

[org.whodat]

Since day one all types of electrical power has been subsidized, get over it. The old toys that were nothing but a car alternator had inverters, there was no realiable way to control their speed. The larger modern ones can controle their spin speed because the blades rotate and just like a prop on a big plane. http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CEkQFjAE&url=https%3A%2F%2Fnetfiles.uiuc.edu%2Fmragheb%2Fwww%2FNPRE%2520475%2520Wind%2520Power%2520Systems%2FModern%2520Wind%2520Generators.pdf&ei=JllYT_LcI4-utweKy6zxDg&usg=AFQjCNE2A08EGr8zk9mwrRMJaVkj6H0uOw

[Viking2002]

Is there a method of unifying a storage/DC inverter/AC generator bank that would be reliable? I remember back in the day, I was an armed guard for the DOJ. Their main computer center had an old-style UPS that consisted of banks of lead-acid Exide batteries buffering the feed from the main grid, but it only held enough of a charge to take the mainframe down properly. Maybe 15 minutes, like an APC UPS wold do for a local server nowadays. I'd think that somehow, on a small scale at least, there would be a way to wire multiple parallel banks so that they maintain the same voltage feed over a longer period of time......

"As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

--H.L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920

[HiTech RedNeck]

A classic energy storage system is water towers, high tanks into which water is pumped that can later release the water to drive generator turbines. But only as much energy can be stored as it takes to fill all the high tanks.