Wind power
When you go up over the pristine Scottish highlands up past Paul McCartney's farms at the back of Tangy, your view of the spectacular scenery is blighted by these abominations.
YES I am vehemently opposedto wind power, which is in existence only because it is heavily subsidised, through flawed ideology. Practically and econmomically it doesn't work - mainly for the simple reason that the total conventional power generating capacity is hardly reduced (because there are times when the wind doesn't blow) so when the turbines are actually turning the conventional power stations are operating at sub optimum rates (they operate most efficiently at full design power)
posted by The Boemelaars @ 11:37 am
1 Comments:
[T]he total conventional power generating capacity is not reduced (because there are times when the wind doesn't blow) so when the turbines are actually turning the conventional power stations are operating at sub optimum rates (they operate most efficiently at full design power).
This is incorrect. A good resource on this topic is a major study performed for NYSERDA [the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority] in the U.S. The study did indeed find that wind's "capacity value" (ability to replace fossil-fired or other fueled capacity) was only 10% (that is, adding 100 megawatts of wind to the NY power system would only add as much reliability as adding 10 MW of fueled capacity). Other studies in the U.S. have found higher values--a major study of the Xcel North system, for example, gave wind a capacity value of 27% (the number varies from utility to utility based on the ebb and flow of the daily electricity demand pattern and how well it matches up with wind speed patterns). However, the NYSERDA report also says:
"Energy produced by wind generators will displace energy that would have been provided by other generators. Considering wind and load profiles for years 2001 and 2002, 65% of the energy displaced by wind generation would come from natural gas, 15% from coal, 10% from oil, and 10% from imports. As with the economic impacts discussed above, the unit commitment process affects the relative proportions of energy displaced, but the general trend is the same regardless of how wind generation is treated in the unit commitment process. By displacing energy from fossil-fired generators, wind generation causes reductions in emissions from those generators. Based on wind and load profiles for years 2001 and 2002, annual NOx emissions would be reduced by 6,400 tons and SOx emissions would be reduced by 12,000 tons." See The Effects of Integrating Wind Power on Transmission System Planning, Reliability, and Operations: Report on Phase 2: System Performance Evaluation: Executive Summary.
Regards,
Thomas O. Gray
American Wind Energy Association
www.awea.org
www.ifnotwind.org
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