Wind Energy Issues [RE-wrenches]

Matt Tritt solarone at charter.net
Sat Dec 30 22:00:30 PST 2006


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One glaring omission in this wind critique is the already commonly used 
method of "saving" excess generated juice as pumped water behind hydro 
generation dams. This is done all over the planet as sort of a huge 
capacitor or battery for energy that's got nowhere to go for use at a 
later time. Here in California, Hetch Hetchy reservoir is a famous 
example of this type of system, but in an ironic twist of some sort, the 
plan is to remove this dam and restore the submerged canyon to it's 
former pristine glory. Good luck.

At any rate, the construction of dams/reservoirs in good windy sites 
will, in many cases, not cause environmental havoc and provide more than 
adequate energy reserves for reliable "firm" power.
Another only too obvious thought is to go with more distributed 
generation capacity with wide-spread small wind system installations 
instead of giganto mega-wind farms in isolated areas.

Happy New Year!

Matt T

Joel Davidson wrote:

>
> 15% of Denmark's electricity comes from wind power generators. Germany 
> has more wind generated electricity than any other country. Both 
> countries integrate variable wind power smoothly into the electric 
> grid. Read the ongoing discussion about DG's variable grid input at 
> distributed-generation at yahoogroups.com
>
> The Audobon Society recently changed its position and is now in favor 
> of clean, renewable wind power because the wind generators kill less 
> birds than pollution from coal fueled power plants and the big wind 
> machines are becoming more bird friendly.
>
> For every engineer who sees variable input from wind and PV as a 
> problem, there are a lot more engineers who see distributed generation 
> as opportunities.
>
> Have a happy and innovative new year!
>
> Joel Davidson
> In 1960, Theodore Levitt wrote about short-sighted utilities in his 
> classic Harvard Business Review essay, "Marketing Myopia" 
> http://www.carreirasolo.org/archives/arquivos/MarketingMyopia.pdf "Who 
> says that the utilities have no competition? They may be natural 
> monopolies now, but tomorrow they may be natural deaths. To avoid this 
> prospect, they too will have to develop fuel cells, solar energy and 
> other power sources.To survive, they themselves will have to plot the 
> obsolescence of what now produces their livelihood."
>
>
>>
>> This was sent by a client. It is interesting collection of information.
>>
>>
>>
>> Dana Orzel
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> December 28, 2006
>> The Energy Challenge
>> It's Free, Plentiful and Fickle
>> By MATTHEW L. WALD
>> Wind, almost everybody's best hope for big supplies of clean, affordable
>> electricity, is turning out to have complications.
>> Engineers have cut the price of electricity derived from wind by 
>> about 80
>> percent in the last 20 years, setting up this renewable technology for a
>> major share of the electricity market. But for all its promise, wind 
>> also
>> generates a big problem: because it is unpredictable and often fails 
>> to blow
>> when electricity is most needed, wind is not reliable enough to assure
>> supplies for an electric grid that must be prepared to deliver power to
>> everybody who wants it - even when it is in greatest demand.
>> In Texas, as in many other parts of the country, power companies are
>> scrambling to build generating stations to meet growing peak demands,
>> generally driven by air-conditioning for new homes and businesses. 
>> But power
>> plants that run on coal or gas must "be built along with every 
>> megawatt of
>> wind capacity," said William Bojorquez, director of system planning 
>> at the
>> Electric Reliability Council of Texas.
>> The reason is that in Texas, and most of the United States, the 
>> hottest days
>> are the least windy. As a result, wind turns out to be a good way to 
>> save
>> fuel, but not a good way to avoid building plants that burn coal. A wind
>> machine is a bit like a bicycle that a commuter keeps in the garage for
>> sunny days. It saves gasoline, but the commuter has to own a car anyway.
>> Xcel Energy, which serves eight states from North Dakota to Texas and 
>> says
>> it is the nation's largest retailer of wind energy, is eager to have 
>> more.
>> Wind is "abundant and popular," said Richard C. Kelly, the chairman,
>> president and chief executive, speaking at a recent conference on 
>> renewable
>> energy.
>> But Frank P. Prager, managing director of environmental policy at the
>> company, said that the higher the reliance on wind, the more an 
>> electricity
>> transmission grid would need to keep conventional generators on 
>> standby -
>> generally low-efficiency plants that run on natural gas and can be 
>> started
>> and stopped quickly.
>> He said that in one of the states the company serves, Colorado, planners
>> calculate that if wind machines reach 20 percent of total generating
>> capacity, the cost of standby generators will reach $8 a 
>> megawatt-hour of
>> wind. That is on top of a generating cost of $50 or $60 a megawatt-hour,
>> after including a federal tax credit of $18 a megawatt-hour.
>> By contrast, electricity from a new coal plant currently costs in the 
>> range
>> of $33 to $41 a megawatt-hour, according to experts. That price, 
>> however,
>> would rise if the carbon dioxide produced in burning coal were taxed, a
>> distinct possibility over the life of a new coal plant. (A 
>> megawatt-hour is
>> the amount of power that a large hospital or a Super Wal-Mart would 
>> use in
>> an hour.)
>> Without major advances in ways to store large quantities of 
>> electricity or
>> big changes in the way regional power grids are organized, wind may 
>> run up
>> against its practical limits sooner than expected.
>> At a recent discussion of clean energy technologies held at General
>> Electric's research center in Niskayuna, N.Y, Dan W. Reicher, a former
>> assistant secretary of energy for conservation and renewable energy,
>> predicted that renewables, led by wind, could reach 20 percent of 
>> demand in
>> the next decade or two. President Bush has also said that wind could 
>> supply
>> 20 percent of the nation's electricity.
>> But Mr. Reicher drew a quick response from James E. Rogers, chief 
>> executive
>> of Cinergy, one of the nation's largest utilities, and chairman of the
>> Edison Electric Institute, the industry's trade association. "I love his
>> optimism," Mr. Rogers said. "But unfortunately, I have to deliver
>> electricity every day."
>> Mr. Rogers said that wind and another big renewable source that is 
>> available
>> only when nature cooperates, solar power, will be necessary because the
>> government would eventually regulate carbon emissions from coal-fired 
>> power
>> plants. He later said that his reply to Mr. Reicher had been a "cheap 
>> shot,"
>> but he and others are still wondering how much wind the nation can 
>> absorb.
>> General Electric, a major maker of wind machines, says that along with
>> lowering the price for a megawatt-hour, engineers have made other
>> improvements in wind machines. With better electronic controls, many 
>> of them
>> now help stabilize voltage on the grid, and have been cured of their
>> tendency to shut off when detecting a voltage fluctuation, a problem 
>> that
>> can escalate into a blackout.
>> Juan de Bedout, manager of the electric power and propulsion systems 
>> lab at
>> G.E., said this was more important now because wind machines had 
>> grown from
>> a few hundred kilowatts to 1.5 gigawatts, and his company was exploring
>> machines four times bigger than that. "That's ginormous," he said.
>> In many places, wind tends to blow best on winter nights, when demand is
>> low. When it is available, power from wind always displaces the most
>> expensive power plant in use at that moment. If wind blew in summer, it
>> would displace expensive natural gas. But in periods of low demand, 
>> it is
>> displacing cheap coal.
>> And in places where suppliers enter bids each day to supply power on the
>> next day, on an hour-by-hour basis, wind is at a disadvantage. Wider 
>> use of
>> wind requires the invention of a new kind of weather forecasting, 
>> according
>> to the Electric Power Research Institute, a nonprofit consortium 
>> based in
>> Palo Alto, Calif., sponsored by the utility industry and its suppliers.
>> Rather than forecasting from temperature or rainfall, what is needed 
>> is a
>> focus on almost minute-by-minute predictions of wind in small areas 
>> where
>> the turbines are.
>> The economics of wind would change radically if the carbon dioxide 
>> emitted
>> by coal were assigned a cash value, but in the United States it has 
>> none.
>> Coal plants produce about a ton of carbon dioxide each megawatt hour, on
>> average, so a price of $10 a ton would have a major impact on utility
>> economics.
>> Another possibility is energy storage, although this presents other
>> difficulties.
>>
>
>
>
>


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