Disaster looming in UK offshore wind power

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

On 2/17/2021 at 2:40 PM, Rasmus Jorgensen said:

Actually maintenance costs on a pr MW basis is decreasing. 

Actually, maintenance costs on a per MW basis is increasing. 

(I'll leave my comment without references, evidence, criteria, location(s) or any other substantiation, the same as you.)

[NickW + 2,714]

21 hours ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

How did they raise capacity factor?

In the newer farms compared to older ones?

• Much higher hub heights
• Massively increased swept area
• Improved reliability in newer models
• Better understanding of how farms operate. A lot of experience built over previous decade. 
• Further offshore - more consistent stronger winds. 

 

 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

On 2/17/2021 at 5:13 PM, markslawson said:

Never heard of that one. The baseload capacity is very small so it would not surprise me - the old story about wind being made reliable by spreading out the wind farms has long been show to be wrong but there might well b e a residual effect .. so do you have a source on that. I'd be quite interest to look at it.. 

What about the battery storage, hydrogen storage, etc? I think it is a long ways off, mostly, but what if it went forward? Will it? Why and why not?

[NickW + 2,714]

3 minutes ago, ronwagn said:

What about the battery storage, hydrogen storage, etc? I think it is a long ways off, mostly, but what if it went forward? Will it? Why and why not?

No need currently. Hydro , pump storage and gas do a great of flexing up and down to accommodate variations in supply. 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

37 minutes ago, NickW said:

No need currently. Hydro , pump storage and gas do a great of flexing up and down to accommodate variations in supply. 

It definitely was not in Texas, according to the articles I have read. You could blame it on the lack of grid interconnections, but distributed power with localization and redundancy is needed. The redundancy was not adequate. 

[surrept33 + 609]

On 2/16/2021 at 7:42 PM, hemanthaa@mail.com said:

It's a known fact; there are days with no significant winds. Then what?

I bet you'll see a lot of HVDC links like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_Link

Along with things like pumped hydro and other hydroelectric of course.

HVDC has been in vogue in both Europe and Asia recently. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HVDC_projects

also as electrolyser prices go down:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas

Edited February 21, 2021 by surrept33

[bloodman33 + 22]

https://medium.abundanceinvestment.com/another-nail-in-the-coffin-of-econometrics-gordon-hughes-and-the-abuse-of-statistics-526e46558f13

https://michaellong.medium.com/oh-dear-352f7907d377

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/wind-idiot-power/

Professor Hughes is a former Professor of Economics at the University of Edinburgh, and was a senior adviser on energy and environmental policy at the World Bank until 2001.

Financial Times does not think much of him.  Is the Financial Time a liberal green newspaper?

It is odd how this blog always hangs their hat on the green haters and climate deniers: The fringe, sponsored by the oil industry more often than not.

The fact is that electric cars and wind turbines and many other modern devices will be stopped dead in their tracks if China stops the flow of rare earth metals.  There is not a dam thing the US or the world can do about it.  Likewise they are developing their own EV and Wind power at lightning speed.

The tread blaming the wind turbines in texas was also laughable. 4% of the lost power was turbines.  Bottom line is the closed power grid and the mindless deregulation caused the problem.  How come turbines in Minnesota and Canada work, or for that matter the oil and gas industry works?   Maybe they spent the money to make sure the technology works in cold weather.  Texas was warned years ago.  Pathetic.

That is the reality folks. 

 

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

53 minutes ago, bloodman33 said:

https://medium.abundanceinvestment.com/another-nail-in-the-coffin-of-econometrics-gordon-hughes-and-the-abuse-of-statistics-526e46558f13

https://michaellong.medium.com/oh-dear-352f7907d377

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/wind-idiot-power/

Professor Hughes is a former Professor of Economics at the University of Edinburgh, and was a senior adviser on energy and environmental policy at the World Bank until 2001.

Financial Times does not think much of him.  Is the Financial Time a liberal green newspaper?

It is odd how this blog always hangs their hat on the green haters and climate deniers: The fringe, sponsored by the oil industry more often than not.

The fact is that electric cars and wind turbines and many other modern devices will be stopped dead in their tracks if China stops the flow of rare earth metals.  There is not a dam thing the US or the world can do about it.  Likewise they are developing their own EV and Wind power at lightning speed.

The tread blaming the wind turbines in texas was also laughable. 4% of the lost power was turbines.  Bottom line is the closed power grid and the mindless deregulation caused the problem.  How come turbines in Minnesota and Canada work, or for that matter the oil and gas industry works?   Maybe they spent the money to make sure the technology works in cold weather.  Texas was warned years ago.  Pathetic.

That is the reality folks.

How did you manage to type not one correct thing?

PS: Big hint: rare earths are not rare.  Willingness to destroy the environment in pursuit of them is rare and here China does not give a damn.  Many places have just as high of concentration, but refuse to pony up the environmental hazard dump left over which most countries demand be cleaned up as part of their cost. 

PPS: No, wind turbines do not work in freezing fog which was the problem in TX and Wind turbines were producing 40% of TX power at time freezing fog moved in which nearly instantly cut that 40% by 50%, not 4%, you uh, missed an order of magnitude.  Now once they shut down it is true that the rest of the grid had to try and make up for this lost power and it ALSO overperformed, but ultimately came up short and started to fail as well. They shut them down everywhere in the world in those conditions.   Far worse than snow.  Snow sluffs off, freezing fog... does not.  No one currently is willing to install the leading edge embedded heaters.  The reason they shut down is you can throw ~1ton blocks of ice/snow a half mile which then unbalances the blades and destroys the main bearing/gearbox which results in a complete tear down. 

PPPS: Financial Times is all about "growth" industries irregardless if they make sense or not and the billionaires have figured out how to game the system for massive gargantuan Billions in subsidies in the "green industry".  That being said, large scale wind is still effectively in its infancy based on length of life studies etc.  So, one should expect things to massively get better over the 20 year old farms. 

Edited February 21, 2021 by footeab@yahoo.com

[NickW + 2,714]

2 hours ago, bloodman33 said:

https://medium.abundanceinvestment.com/another-nail-in-the-coffin-of-econometrics-gordon-hughes-and-the-abuse-of-statistics-526e46558f13

https://michaellong.medium.com/oh-dear-352f7907d377

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/wind-idiot-power/

Professor Hughes is a former Professor of Economics at the University of Edinburgh, and was a senior adviser on energy and environmental policy at the World Bank until 2001.

Financial Times does not think much of him.  Is the Financial Time a liberal green newspaper?

It is odd how this blog always hangs their hat on the green haters and climate deniers: The fringe, sponsored by the oil industry more often than not.

The fact is that electric cars and wind turbines and many other modern devices will be stopped dead in their tracks if China stops the flow of rare earth metals.  There is not a dam thing the US or the world can do about it.  Likewise they are developing their own EV and Wind power at lightning speed.

The tread blaming the wind turbines in texas was also laughable. 4% of the lost power was turbines.  Bottom line is the closed power grid and the mindless deregulation caused the problem.  How come turbines in Minnesota and Canada work, or for that matter the oil and gas industry works?   Maybe they spent the money to make sure the technology works in cold weather.  Texas was warned years ago.  Pathetic.

That is the reality folks. 

 

As Footeab says rare earths aren't rare. Its rare earth mining that is rare and that can change with investment funds. In the UK Cornwall is of particular interest. Not as a global industry but certainly in terms of local demand. 

[NickW + 2,714]

13 hours ago, ronwagn said:

It definitely was not in Texas, according to the articles I have read. You could blame it on the lack of grid interconnections, but distributed power with localization and redundancy is needed. The redundancy was not adequate. 

texas could have access to plenty of Hydro / pump storage in the rockies if it invested in the interconnects. Probably also mean it could sell more that wind power to western states. 

I will keep saying it but the redundancy is already there- they just need to tie in emergency gen sets at hospitals / industrial sites to come on before the cascade. 

[NickW + 2,714]

2 hours ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

How did you manage to type not one correct thing?

PS: Big hint: rare earths are not rare.  Willingness to destroy the environment in pursuit of them is rare and here China does not give a damn.  Many places have just as high of concentration, but refuse to pony up the environmental hazard dump left over which most countries demand be cleaned up as part of their cost. 

PPS: No, wind turbines do not work in freezing fog which was the problem in TX and Wind turbines were producing 40% of TX power at time freezing fog moved in which nearly instantly cut that 40% by 50%, not 4%, you uh, missed an order of magnitude.  Now once they shut down it is true that the rest of the grid had to try and make up for this lost power and it ALSO overperformed, but ultimately came up short and started to fail as well. They shut them down everywhere in the world in those conditions.   Far worse than snow.  Snow sluffs off, freezing fog... does not.  No one currently is willing to install the leading edge embedded heaters.  The reason they shut down is you can throw ~1ton blocks of ice/snow a half mile which then unbalances the blades and destroys the main bearing/gearbox which results in a complete tear down. 

PPPS: Financial Times is all about "growth" industries irregardless if they make sense or not and the billionaires have figured out how to game the system for massive gargantuan Billions in subsidies in the "green industry".  That being said, large scale wind is still effectively in its infancy based on length of life studies etc.  So, one should expect things to massively get better over the 20 year old farms. 

The outturn forecast for wind was 6GW - the outturn was 4GW - a 33% reduction

The outturn forecast for FF/ Nuc was 60GW - the outturn was 25-30GW a 50-58% reduction

 

[markslawson + 1,058]

22 hours ago, ronwagn said:

What about the battery storage, hydrogen storage, etc? I think it is a long ways off, mostly, but what if it went forward? Will it? Why and why not?

The post was just looking at that old story about spreading out wind farms will make wind more reliable.. another poster claimed that there was an effect.. as for the other technologies, batteries are a non-starter for grid-level storage, hydrogen needs a few research breakthroughs to be usable, and building enough pumped storage to make a difference will be horribly expensive and difficult. What can happen, however, is for individual wind farms to have an associated battery large enough to maintain output for a specified period, after the wind goes down. Then there will be enough time for grid operators to fire up the conventional back up plants (mostly gas). Using that system, high levels of renewables are achievable on grids without any of the penalties of blackouts and so on.. its expensive but I can't see any other way..  

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

9 hours ago, NickW said:

The outturn forecast for wind was 6GW - the outturn was 4GW - a 33% reduction

The outturn forecast for FF/ Nuc was 60GW - the outturn was 25-30GW a 50-58% reduction

 

Forecasts do not mean anything other than being pedantic. No, it was not 6GW.  That was the floor, not that it matters. 

What matters: Had 40% of entire load as WTG, instantly shut off to 10% and had to be made up.  There was plenty of wind available to generate power.  They could not do so.  Why?  Ice.  Same thing I have talked about repeatedly and no way around it other than to shut down and turn on the de icers for the 1% or 2% of blades around the world which actually have them... but then this does not help for freezing fog, as the ENTIRE blades get covered in ice which normally only effects the leading edges where the "winterized" WTG have their heating systems assuming they do at all.  Bottom line:  Demand for power was massively increasing, WTG's could not do so even though there was plenty of wind. And they were down for  days.

A separate issue is the backup power to the WTG's.  Obviously it partially failed. 

I find it hilarious as someone from W. Washington about the news media whining and forum posters whining about a partial rolling blackout in Texas, when here it is not a partially blackout, it is a FULL blackout and happens at least once every 5 years. 

Edited February 22, 2021 by footeab@yahoo.com

[ronwagn + 6,290]

10 hours ago, NickW said:

The outturn forecast for wind was 6GW - the outturn was 4GW - a 33% reduction

The outturn forecast for FF/ Nuc was 60GW - the outturn was 25-30GW a 50-58% reduction

 

But WTG was almost negligible Natural gas was still a big supplier of energy. Too much reliance on WTG, it couldn't do the job needed. 

[NickW + 2,714]

11 hours ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Forecasts do not mean anything other than being pedantic. No, it was not 6GW.  That was the floor, not that it matters. 

What matters: Had 40% of entire load as WTG, instantly shut off to 10% and had to be made up.  There was plenty of wind available to generate power.  They could not do so.  Why?  Ice.  Same thing I have talked about repeatedly and no way around it other than to shut down and turn on the de icers for the 1% or 2% of blades around the world which actually have them... but then this does not help for freezing fog, as the ENTIRE blades get covered in ice which normally only effects the leading edges where the "winterized" WTG have their heating systems assuming they do at all.  Bottom line:  Demand for power was massively increasing, WTG's could not do so even though there was plenty of wind. And they were down for  days.

A separate issue is the backup power to the WTG's.  Obviously it partially failed. 

I find it hilarious as someone from W. Washington about the news media whining and forum posters whining about a partial rolling blackout in Texas, when here it is not a partially blackout, it is a FULL blackout and happens at least once every 5 years. 

Forecasts mean everything if they are reasonably accurate*. The point is no one forecast 30GW of wind availability.  They forecast 6 and got 4. 

They also forecast 60GW of Gas / Coal and got 30 GW

 

*Forecasts for wind availability in the UK are >90% at outturn -5 hours and >97% at outturn -1 hours

[NickW + 2,714]

9 hours ago, ronwagn said:

But WTG was almost negligible Natural gas was still a big supplier of energy. Too much reliance on WTG, it couldn't do the job needed. 

BTW - falling output from gas wells was a major feature in this

The crux of this  lies with ERCOT / inadequacy of provisions to meet peak demand and relying on market mechanisms which work most the time but don't address crisis situations. 

There are a collation of measures which would have met that need but which seems to be lost on many on this 'energy' website. 

[NickW + 2,714]

9 hours ago, ronwagn said:

But WTG was almost negligible Natural gas was still a big supplier of energy. Too much reliance on WTG, it couldn't do the job needed. 

33% reduction on forecast

Gas and coal >50% reduction of forecast. 

You don't have to be Harvard maths graduate to work out were the deep loss was in both percentage terms and scale. 

Remember Texas wind alone frees up approx 20% of the feed gas for the USA LNG export industry. Freedom fuel as Ex preso Donnie calls it. 

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

49 minutes ago, NickW said:

Forecasts mean everything if they are reasonably accurate*. The point is no one forecast 30GW of wind availability.  They forecast 6 and got 4. 

They also forecast 60GW of Gas / Coal and got 30 GW

 

*Forecasts for wind availability in the UK are >90% at outturn -5 hours and >97% at outturn -1 hours

Not that this matters.  Why?  All this does is MASSIVELY highlight how fallible wind is(even worse than solar).  Solar is at least partially reliable. 

PS: Gotta love UK wind... right there on the ocean, 100% wind prediction guaranteed.  👍

As for your nice bolded... I realize overstatement by 50% is fun and interesting, but....

[NickW + 2,714]

8 minutes ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Not that this matters.  Why?  All this does is MASSIVELY highlight how fallible wind is(even worse than solar).  Solar is at least partially reliable. 

PS: Gotta love UK wind... right there on the ocean, 100% wind prediction guaranteed.  👍

As for your nice bolded... I realize overstatement by 50% is fun and interesting, but....

Makind for several thousand years has generally considered solar and wind to be intermittent however this feature of an otherwise readily available resource seems to be lost on this forum. 😁

[NickW + 2,714]

10 minutes ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Not that this matters.  Why?  All this does is MASSIVELY highlight how fallible wind is(even worse than solar).  Solar is at least partially reliable. 

PS: Gotta love UK wind... right there on the ocean, 100% wind prediction guaranteed.  👍

As for your nice bolded... I realize overstatement by 50% is fun and interesting, but....

Thats why offshore wind will work very well for NE USA. 

[KeyboardWarrior + 527]

On 2/20/2021 at 2:12 PM, NickW said:

In the newer farms compared to older ones?

• Much higher hub heights
• Massively increased swept area
• Improved reliability in newer models
• Better understanding of how farms operate. A lot of experience built over previous decade. 
• Further offshore - more consistent stronger winds. 

 

 

This is good. I had a suspicion that they simply built a larger turbine, gave it the same power rating as a smaller one, and then claimed that capacity factor was improved. 

[Gareth Gill + 2]

Really interesting but if you follow the links and watch the webinair on youtube it really gets more interesting, like Electric bill in UK could go from GBP 1,200 PA to 5,000!!!!, if Scotland goes independent they will be competing for electric South of the border so price wars. Reliability issues more specific to offshore wind which defaults to high OPEX and justfication to continue operation is breached, more in England then Scotland, politicians dont like to admit they got it wrong (how true is that!! Hahaha). Pension funds who think placing there good money on green is a safe bet, wind will crash and the consumers take the hit (no change there), hence the purpose of an SPV. That professer is a switched on cookie. 

[NickW + 2,714]

1 hour ago, KeyboardWarrior said:

This is good. I had a suspicion that they simply built a larger turbine, gave it the same power rating as a smaller one, and then claimed that capacity factor was improved. 

The capacity factor is measured by taking the averaged output for a given period and dividing by the wind farms rating in MW. 

On the chart I posted it gives lifetime capacity factor and annual (that being the last year) 

[NickW + 2,714]

1 hour ago, Gareth Gill said:

Really interesting but if you follow the links and watch the webinair on youtube it really gets more interesting, like Electric bill in UK could go from GBP 1,200 PA to 5,000!!!!, if Scotland goes independent they will be competing for electric South of the border so price wars. Reliability issues more specific to offshore wind which defaults to high OPEX and justfication to continue operation is breached, more in England then Scotland, politicians dont like to admit they got it wrong (how true is that!! Hahaha). Pension funds who think placing there good money on green is a safe bet, wind will crash and the consumers take the hit (no change there), hence the purpose of an SPV. That professer is a switched on cookie. 

Whose paying £1200 for electric unless using it for heating?

We are both working from home and using about 10kwh a day in winter and that includes cooking. 

[NickW + 2,714]

1 hour ago, Gareth Gill said:

Really interesting but if you follow the links and watch the webinair on youtube it really gets more interesting, like Electric bill in UK could go from GBP 1,200 PA to 5,000!!!!, if Scotland goes independent they will be competing for electric South of the border so price wars. Reliability issues more specific to offshore wind which defaults to high OPEX and justfication to continue operation is breached, more in England then Scotland, politicians dont like to admit they got it wrong (how true is that!! Hahaha). Pension funds who think placing there good money on green is a safe bet, wind will crash and the consumers take the hit (no change there), hence the purpose of an SPV. That professer is a switched on cookie. 

Hughes is a renowned peddlar of misinformation on this matter. 

There are 100's of turbines in the UK running profitably beyond their CFD lifetimes. If the OPEX costs exceeded their output they would be on the scrap heap. 

I know someone with two late1990's turbines sited on their land - the operator (not the land owner) anticipates running them for another 10 years or more. Feed back being they are moderately profitable and reliable and that includes paying the land owner the rental for the space. So these 2 Vestas  660KW turbines will be operating for another 10-15 years.