Formula One comes to Wind Turbines

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

18 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

You realize of course that unlike a wind turbine, the nameplate capacity of a coal plant ACTUALLY equals its output. A one gigawatt coal plant can easily produce 1GW day in, day out, 24 hours a day. Conversely, a 1.5 MW wind turbine might NEVER produce 1.5 MW, in its entire lifetime! Well, it might for 15 minutes of about one 24 hour period. I used to post a link directly into the Bonneville Power website, which had direct data of their windmill production figures. They had it on an hourly basis, and you could graph the output in watts. Unfortunately, I suppose I directed too many people there so they took it offline. The reason I sent folks there was because they never touched nameplate capacity. Real wind turbines, real world along an excellent wind corridor. 

In fairness I don't think coal plants are run on full blast very often, if ever. In fact their biggest advantage is near instantaneous load-matching, which essentially means the plant never runs at it's rated full power (short of suffering brownouts).

I believe they actually purposely stop windmills when they don't want the power as it destabilizes the grid.  If its "15 minutes" of full power is right around around dinner time (peak load) then that is most of the value of having the bloody thing.

As you know we need better energy storage solutions to smooth out the supply / demand.

 

Edited December 29, 2019 by Enthalpic

[remake it + 288]

4 minutes ago, Enthalpic said:

As you know we need better energy storage solutions to smooth out the supply / demand.

"The electric-generating industry is well into a fundamental transition that is gaining momentum and will probably accelerate as technology disruptions occur, most notably around advances in energy storage."

[NickW + 2,714]

In the UK with extensive offshore farms and onshore farms across the country the profile of wind is increasingly looking like base load. 

Graph below of the last 48 hours. 

July to September combined Renewable's edged past gas for electricity generation. 

 

 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

1 hour ago, NickW said:

1. of course - thats why on the worked example I put a capacity factor of 33% (vary accordingly to the site in question). The annual electricity production is calculated based on a 33% capacity factor. 

2. One of the key points here to add is that while wind is free your 24/7 coal plant will burn a lot of coal that has to be paid for - something in the region of $75-80 a tonne for thermal bituminous coal. 

I'm not convinced about the 33% either. I think the reality is more like: IF the wind is blowing, and IF they can sell the power, THEN given that the wind is probably too weak to spin the turbine at full power, ELSE the wind isn't blowing 24 hours, THEN the power factor was 33% for 33% of the 24 hour day, at most. 

I've seen coal much cheaper than that, or since you're in Canada you might know they'll actually PAY you to take away the Petcoke from the refinery. Syncrude can't find buyers paying them $20/ton so they're just burying it at the mine. 

Edit: Didn't realize Nick is in the UK or are you? 

Edited December 29, 2019 by Ward Smith
Finally read the other posts

[NickW + 2,714]

3 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

I'm not convinced about the 33% either. I think the reality is more like: IF the wind is blowing, and IF they can sell the power, THEN given that the wind is probably too weak to spin the turbine at full power, ELSE the wind isn't blowing 24 hours, THEN the power factor was 33% for 33% of the 24 hour day, at most. 

I've seen coal much cheaper than that, or since you're in Canada you might know they'll actually PAY you to take away the Petcoke from the refinery. Syncrude can't find buyers paying them $20/ton so they're just burying it at the mine. 

Capacity factor is the average output of the turbine over the year divided by the rated capacity. If the 1.5MW turbines output for this year is 3.83 Gwh then the capacity factor would be 29.17%

Don't know about the US grid but in the UK the wind can be sold 99.9% of the time and when it cant it is down to transmission constraints. 

As for that Petcoke - look at the heavy metal and sulphur content. That may explain why they pay out to take it away. Actually burying that sh1t is a practical way of sequestering away the Carbon and heavy metal content. 

 

 

[NickW + 2,714]

12 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

I'm not convinced about the 33% either. I think the reality is more like: IF the wind is blowing, and IF they can sell the power, THEN given that the wind is probably too weak to spin the turbine at full power, ELSE the wind isn't blowing 24 hours, THEN the power factor was 33% for 33% of the 24 hour day, at most. 

I've seen coal much cheaper than that, or since you're in Canada you might know they'll actually PAY you to take away the Petcoke from the refinery. Syncrude can't find buyers paying them $20/ton so they're just burying it at the mine. 

Edit: Didn't realize Nick is in the UK or are you? 

Yes

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,187]

On 12/28/2019 at 7:47 PM, Ward Smith said:

You realize of course that unlike a wind turbine, the nameplate capacity of a coal plant ACTUALLY equals its output. A one gigawatt coal plant can easily produce 1GW day in, day out, 24 hours a day. Conversely, a 1.5 MW wind turbine might NEVER produce 1.5 MW, in its entire lifetime! Well, it might for 15 minutes of about one 24 hour period. I used to post a link directly into the Bonneville Power website, which had direct data of their windmill production figures. They had it on an hourly basis, and you could graph the output in watts. Unfortunately, I suppose I directed too many people there so they took it offline. The reason I sent folks there was because they never touched nameplate capacity. Real wind turbines, real world along an excellent wind corridor. 

Here ya go: https://transmission.bpa.gov/Business/Operations/Wind/baltwg.aspx

During last week... exactly 1 day with a tiny amount of wind and it barely registered for a couple of hours at minimum ~25% of rated capacity........  Why Wind sucks.  Can have nothing for 2 weeks or months at a time.  Must have gigantic pumped hydro storage and it should be required or some other form of energy storage equal to capacity of wind farm for at least a week. 

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,187]

17 hours ago, NickW said:

Don't know about the US grid but in the UK the wind can be sold 99.9% of the time and when it cant it is down to transmission constraints.

Not true at all Nick.  Just means the coal fired stations are sitting their burning coal and NOT selling their power, meaning their CF goes down, even though they are burning same amount of coal, and therefore your electricity costs go UP, as they aren't the subsidy queens like wind.  When you flip a switch you like your lights to come on......

Must have massive energy storage good for a week minimum when talking wind if you actually compare apples to apples with coal/nuclear.  Gas.... partially true.  Are we comparing inefficient high cost gas Electricity, or low cost highest efficiency of any form of hydrocarbon electricity generation?

[NickW + 2,714]

3 hours ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Not true at all Nick.  Just means the coal fired stations are sitting their burning coal and NOT selling their power, meaning their CF goes down, even though they are burning same amount of coal, and therefore your electricity costs go UP, as they aren't the subsidy queens like wind.  When you flip a switch you like your lights to come on......

Must have massive energy storage good for a week minimum when talking wind if you actually compare apples to apples with coal/nuclear.  Gas.... partially true.  Are we comparing inefficient high cost gas Electricity, or low cost highest efficiency of any form of hydrocarbon electricity generation?

Nope - this is sounding like an anti wind fantasy post. 

The above suggests that coal plant operates like a Nuclear power station at either 100% or 0% output. 

Uk coal plant which is of 1960's and early 70's vintage have ramp rates of 17-18% of total capacity per hour (im sure modern plants have higher ramp rates) which means that even coal plant can broadly track wind out put which is quite predictable with 12 hours notice - in fact predicted outputs for several days are getting quite accurate. No coal is burnt so a power station can idle in favour of wind as the turbines are effectively slowed down or speeded up according to demand on the grid. 

However the plant which is best suited to varying output are pump storage (0-100% in about 2 minutes) , Hydro, and gas (CCGT single turbines can typically ramp at 50MW / Min)  which easily adjust output to accommodate intermittent sources. The deployment of 2nd life EV batteries and new ones will further add to the available resources to cushion intermittent sources of electricity. 

New onshore wind is now subsidy free in the UK and will be in the USA from 2020. 

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,187]

8 hours ago, NickW said:

Nope - this is sounding like an anti wind fantasy post.

When you decide to have an honest discussion regarding 100% of the energy requirements instead a tiny technical exception, let us know.  Until then, enjoy your fantasies. 

[remake it + 288]

46 minutes ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

When you decide to have an honest discussion regarding 100% of the energy requirements instead a tiny technical exception, let us know.  Until then, enjoy your fantasies. 

Your points on blade technology were very good but now you have blotted your copybook by not understanding the complexity of electricity generation in Europe which has been well bedded down and in the case of wind power able to be forecast with great accuracy. 

Edited December 31, 2019 by remake it
did he really shoot himself in the foot?

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

On 12/29/2019 at 4:05 PM, Ward Smith said:

I'm not convinced about the 33% either. I think the reality is more like: IF the wind is blowing, and IF they can sell the power, THEN given that the wind is probably too weak to spin the turbine at full power, ELSE the wind isn't blowing 24 hours, THEN the power factor was 33% for 33% of the 24 hour day, at most. 

I've seen coal much cheaper than that, or since you're in Canada you might know they'll actually PAY you to take away the Petcoke from the refinery. Syncrude can't find buyers paying them $20/ton so they're just burying it at the mine. 

Edit: Didn't realize Nick is in the UK or are you? 

Mountains of waste Syncrude sulfur. The way they layer and pack it down is interesting.

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

Anyone want free sulphur?

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,187]

14 minutes ago, Enthalpic said:

Anyone want free sulphur?

Everyone making sheet rock loves free sulfur.  So does the chemical industry.  Currently their source is mostly coal... If coal disappears as an energy source, oh yea, those mountains of sulfur will become worth a lot of $$$ and everyone will start begging for sulfur. 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

11 hours ago, Enthalpic said:

Interesting fact. There used to be sulfur mines. Once refineries were forced to essentially remove all the sulfur from oil, those mines were gone. Now All sulfur is provided by the same fossil fuel industry the tree hugger Industry wants to destroy. Other than the obvious uses for sulfur, did you know it is the fourth fertilizer? Plants need sulfur to give them those nice green leaves. There's a reason all that sulfur ended up in the oil, it was in the plants to begin with. 

[NickW + 2,714]

On 12/31/2019 at 4:35 AM, footeab@yahoo.com said:

When you decide to have an honest discussion regarding 100% of the energy requirements instead a tiny technical exception, let us know.  Until then, enjoy your fantasies. 

Well I do which is why I posted links to BM reports which gives a full break down of UK power generation and interconnections with mainland Europe and Ireland. 

https://www.bmreports.com/bmrs/?q=eds/main

Below is a full picture of generation sources in the UK  today. 

Nuclear, Biomass and Coal (1-2GW) provide baseload with CCGT, Pump Storage, Hydro and OCGT providing the flexible response to deal with variations in demand and output from intermittent sources which also includes interconnectors. 

Wind and solar need very little spinning reserve. They primarily need operating reserve. The key difference is operating reserve is not sitting there idling as you suggested in a previous post. 

 

[NickW + 2,714]

20 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

Interesting fact. There used to be sulfur mines. Once refineries were forced to essentially remove all the sulfur from oil, those mines were gone. Now All sulfur is provided by the same fossil fuel industry the tree hugger Industry wants to destroy. Other than the obvious uses for sulfur, did you know it is the fourth fertilizer? Plants need sulfur to give them those nice green leaves. There's a reason all that sulfur ended up in the oil, it was in the plants to begin with. 

A significant proportion of the Gypsum used to produce Sheet rock (plasterboard) comes directly from Gypsum mines. The fortunes of Gypsum mining obviously wax and wane with the outputs from flue gas desulphurisation kit on coal plants which produces gypsum as a byproduct. 

If this Polyhalite project ever gets off the ground it will provide a high proportion of the Worlds Sulphur needs for a couple of decades and is in a very nice bioavailable format (elemental sulphur isn't so needs more processing) 

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

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,187]

7 hours ago, NickW said:

Well I do which is why I posted links to BM reports which gives a full break down of UK power generation and interconnections with mainland Europe and Ireland. 

https://www.bmreports.com/bmrs/?q=eds/main

Below is a full picture of generation sources in the UK  today. 

Nuclear, Biomass and Coal (1-2GW) provide baseload with CCGT, Pump Storage, Hydro and OCGT providing the flexible response to deal with variations in demand and output from intermittent sources which also includes interconnectors. 

Wind and solar need very little spinning reserve. They primarily need operating reserve. The key difference is operating reserve is not sitting there idling as you suggested in a previous post. 

 

Still waiting for the honest part....

1) If you were honest, you would admit that you showed 1 day and this is meaningless for intermittent wind power discussion.  Why I showed a week in my link where ZERO wind happened and one day "peaked" at 20%.

2) If you were honest, you would point out that in that 1 day, wind dropped over 75% even though it has the lead subsidy position which means every single kWh produced gets tabbed as "used" whereas the other energy producers do not get this option. 

3) I do not know about you, but I want my lights to turn on not 25% of the time, but 100% of the time, with a nice safety factor for failure modes which we all know will happen whenever Murphy decides to screw with us. 

4) All the above graph shows, that for the best wind condition quality on the planet(UK), assuming there are no ZERO days(there are), then at minimum you need 4X capacity load factor.  Just means everyone needs a massive ENERGY storage solution.  Without this solution, wind will ever only be a side show.  I would love my work to be more valuable than it is, but this is the reality of wind turbines.  Also, the wind turbines need to quadruple in size(double swept area) to make them more profitable in terms of maintenance, bulk current supplied for large industrial loads etc.  Right now, with the size of wind turbines, if a giant load is applied, it will pop the breakers.  At minimum this also means need a bulk storage for quick GIANT loads, capacitive or induced via spinning mass.  This increases cost of wind further, but naturally wind sycophants will never be honest and admit this must be part of the $$$ equation.

PS: Note that tiny amount of pumped hydro storage.... Yea, that needs to be as large as the entire energy produced if you go with wind. That is assuming of course, you are going to have an HONEST discussion. 

Edited January 1, 2020 by footeab@yahoo.com
Spelling and clarification

[remake it + 288]

3 minutes ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Still waiting for the honest part....

1) If you were honest, you would admit that you showed 1 day and this is meaningless for intermittent wind power discussion.

2) If you were honest, you would point out that in that 1 day, wind dropped over 75% even though it has the lead subsidy position which means every single kWh produced gets tabbed as "used" whereas the other energy producers do not get this option. 

3) I do not know about you, but I want my lights to turn on not 25% of the time, but 100% of the time, with a nice safety factor for failure modes which we all know will happen whenever Murphy decides to screw with us. 

4) All the above graph shows, that for the best wind condition quality on the planet(UK), assuming there are no ZERO days(there are), then at minimum you need 4X capacity load factor.  Just means everyone needs a massive ENERGY storage solution.  Without this solution, wind will ever only be a side show. 

PS: Note that tiny amount of pumped hydro storage.... Yea, that needs to be as large as the entire energy produced if you go with wind. 

@footeab@yahoo.com seems not to understand what "transition" means in the energy sector and the reason his lights might go out would be more as a result of a single large generator outage than the myriad of renewable options scattered widely across Europe that contribute to its reliability. 

[NickW + 2,714]

1 hour ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Still waiting for the honest part....

1) If you were honest, you would admit that you showed 1 day and this is meaningless for intermittent wind power discussion.  Why I showed a week in my link where ZERO wind happened and one day "peaked" at 20%.

2) If you were honest, you would point out that in that 1 day, wind dropped over 75% even though it has the lead subsidy position which means every single kWh produced gets tabbed as "used" whereas the other energy producers do not get this option. 

3) I do not know about you, but I want my lights to turn on not 25% of the time, but 100% of the time, with a nice safety factor for failure modes which we all know will happen whenever Murphy decides to screw with us. 

4) All the above graph shows, that for the best wind condition quality on the planet(UK), assuming there are no ZERO days(there are), then at minimum you need 4X capacity load factor.  Just means everyone needs a massive ENERGY storage solution.  Without this solution, wind will ever only be a side show.  I would love my work to be more valuable than it is, but this is the reality of wind turbines.  Also, the wind turbines need to quadruple in size(double swept area) to make them more profitable in terms of maintenance, bulk current supplied for large industrial loads etc.  Right now, with the size of wind turbines, if a giant load is applied, it will pop the breakers.  At minimum this also means need a bulk storage for quick GIANT loads, capacitive or induced via spinning mass.  This increases cost of wind further, but naturally wind sycophants will never be honest and admit this must be part of the $$$ equation.

PS: Note that tiny amount of pumped hydro storage.... Yea, that needs to be as large as the entire energy produced if you go with wind. That is assuming of course, you are going to have an HONEST discussion. 

1. That graph is actually for a two day period but could be posted  indefinitely over weeks, months, years. Clearly Bonneville Power distribution network is somewhat more limited and specific than the entire United Kingdom which is also interconnected to the European grid via Ireland, French, Belgium and the Netherlands. In a few years add Denmark and Norway). 

Looking at this I would guess BPA is not exactly good wind country.

https://globalwindatlas.info/

2. Yes renewables have priority onto the grid in the Uk - that decision was made democratically by the government as part of their environmental & energy policies. Businesses work within that framework, or not if they so wish. 

3. You appear to be posting the same Mantra as Trump in respect to your claim of only having the lights on 25% of the time. Can you point to any examples in  Europe where blackouts have been caused by virtue of wind (or in the USA). . Of course in the real world a sensible integration of wind into a wider network of different sources is quite manageable. 

No where have I proposed a wind only model and have fully acknowledged a mix of CCGT, Hydro, pump storage, and possibly other storage methods are needed to work in tandem with wind and solar 

4. None of your perceived issues appear to be stopping widespread development of wind in Europe, the USA and indeed across the planet. My Dads cousin, until recently managed a large part of the uK National Grid and said that 20% generation by wind could be adopted with minimal work to the network and to take that to 30% would require a moderate but not unrealistic investment. 

You say turbines need to be bigger, well yes and the industry have been developing bigger turbines For onshore - commerical models - Vestas (4.2 MW), Siemens (5MW), GE (5 MW), Nordex (4.8MW), Suzlon (2.6MW), Goldwind (3MW).

For offshore you can double / triple those figures. 

 

[NickW + 2,714]

2 hours ago, remake it said:

@footeab@yahoo.com seems not to understand what "transition" means in the energy sector and the reason his lights might go out would be more as a result of a single large generator outage than the myriad of renewable options scattered widely across Europe that contribute to its reliability. 

Quite. The risk of blackout  is and always will be from the largest generator on the grid tripping unexpectedly.

In the UK the largest single  sources are the French Interconnector (2GW), Dinorwic (1.9GW), Sizewell B (1.15GW). When Hinkley C is commissioned it will be 3.3GW but from two reactors and I assume will have mutliple transmission lines from the site.

Hence the reason for spinning reserve margins to cover such an event. 

In contrast wind with thousands of generators across the country simple can't do this. As weather systems change the output will crank up or down in a fairly gradual process (not the one turbine analogy invariably used by the anti wind 'experts').

When wind resources are known to be low tomorrow (NG can normally estimate to within a couple of percent) then they put out the call to generators to meet the extra demand requirement. The bulk of that work is done by CCGT with additional input from pump storage and Hydro and whats left of the UK's coal plants. 

[NickW + 2,714]

2 hours ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Still waiting for the honest part....

1) If you were honest, you would admit that you showed 1 day and this is meaningless for intermittent wind power discussion.  Why I showed a week in my link where ZERO wind happened and one day "peaked" at 20%.

2) If you were honest, you would point out that in that 1 day, wind dropped over 75% even though it has the lead subsidy position which means every single kWh produced gets tabbed as "used" whereas the other energy producers do not get this option. 

3) I do not know about you, but I want my lights to turn on not 25% of the time, but 100% of the time, with a nice safety factor for failure modes which we all know will happen whenever Murphy decides to screw with us. 

4) All the above graph shows, that for the best wind condition quality on the planet(UK), assuming there are no ZERO days(there are), then at minimum you need 4X capacity load factor.  Just means everyone needs a massive ENERGY storage solution.  Without this solution, wind will ever only be a side show.  I would love my work to be more valuable than it is, but this is the reality of wind turbines.  Also, the wind turbines need to quadruple in size(double swept area) to make them more profitable in terms of maintenance, bulk current supplied for large industrial loads etc.  Right now, with the size of wind turbines, if a giant load is applied, it will pop the breakers.  At minimum this also means need a bulk storage for quick GIANT loads, capacitive or induced via spinning mass.  This increases cost of wind further, but naturally wind sycophants will never be honest and admit this must be part of the $$$ equation.

PS: Note that tiny amount of pumped hydro storage.... Yea, that needs to be as large as the entire energy produced if you go with wind. That is assuming of course, you are going to have an HONEST discussion. 

Frequency response is primarily met by system inertia & pump storage / Hydro . The National Grid also has arrangements with large users that can switch off within a second or two for short periods of time to cut supply. This includes large refrigeration plants, Smelters and large buildings with centralised air con. 

There is about a GW of OCGT plant, most of which fires up automatically  in response to falling frequency which is a useful cushion. 

That all buys enough time to bring operational reserve into play especially given that the UK has about 30 GW of CCGT and can usually pull more power in from its continental & Irish neighbours. 

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,187]

1 hour ago, NickW said:

No where have I proposed a wind only model and have fully acknowledged a mix of CCGT, Hydro, pump storage, and possibly other storage methods are needed to work in tandem with wind and solar

Your side of argument is not doing this for cheaper power, but for climate boogey monsters under the bed.  Not 20% of demand, Not balanced by CCGT, but 100%.  Oopsie, I said something .... honest.