1500 Megawatt Wind Project Planned for California
by EcoGeek.org on 12.28.06
A while back we reported that Texas had surpassed California in total wind power. Each state is in the 2300 megawatt range, but Texas is currently reigning surpreme. California, however, wants its championship title back, and they're not going small. The project, which will cover around fifty square miles in and around the Tehachapi mountains, will produce more energy than a large nuclear power plant.
The project is a joint venture between Southern California Edison (already the leading renewable electricity utility in America) and Allco Finance Group, an Australian financing firm. This massive project will, however, take a while to jumpstart. The first turbines should be producing electricity by 2011. So watch out Texas, by 2012 or so, you're going to have a lot of ground to make up. ::Hugg ::Maria Energia and ::Southern California Edison
I hope they use the Terra Moya Aqua vertical turbines I heard about here on TH. They're the highest efficiency (over 40%, and remaining so for the largest range of wind speeds), and as an added bonus, they don't kill birds. Why haven't I heard anything more from them? With credentials like that, I'm surprised they're not much more widely deployed.
Their web page: http://www.tmawind.com/
I hope they use the Terra Moya Aqua vertical turbines I heard about here on TH. They're the highest efficiency (over 40%, and remaining so for the largest range of wind speeds), and as an added bonus, they don't kill birds. Why haven't I heard anything more from them? With credentials like that, I'm surprised they're not much more widely deployed.
Their web page: http://www.tmawind.com/
I'm not necessarily a fan of Nuclear, and I also applaud this project, but I think you are pretty far off when you say this project will produce more power than a large nuke. A small nuke is probably around 500 MW and has a very high capacity factor (downtime for refueling and maintenance has been declining for a long time). I'm guessing the CF will be in the 90%. Wind farms will probably have a CF in the 30-40% range. CF is the total megawatt hours produced divided by the total potential megawatt hours (capacity times number of hours in the year)
That said, I would guess the power output would be similar to a small nuclear power plant. For benchmarking, I would guess there are a bunch of nuclear power plants in the 500 MW range, a bunch in the 1500 MW range, then a few really large ones like the three unit Palo Verde plant in Arizona with a 3,825 MW capacity, a couple of roughly 2,100 MW plants in California, and a couple of 2,300 MW plants in Illinois. There may be more large ones, I just skimmed through the EIA website and found those.
Anyway - no doubt that a 1500 MW wind plant is fantastic.
But where will it be? Would be nice to see some details, can you add them?
Wind plants are nice and all, but it is ridiculous to compare them to nukes.
Wind farms typically provide much more power in the off peak hours, and only as the wind blows, whereas nukes will provide steady constant power.
Granted, they are nice, and don't pollute (aside from visually). But we do ourselves a disservice by not being honest with ourselves about such things.
A quote from the Edison link.
"It secures for SCE customers 1,500 megawatts* (MW) or more of power generated by new projects to be built in the Tehachapi area of California. The contract, which more than doubles SCE’s wind energy portfolio, envisions more than 50 square miles of wind parks in the Tehachapi region – triple the size of any existing U.S. wind farm."
Stirling Energy's 4,500-acre desert farm of mirrors focused on Sterling engines is supposed to produce 500 MW. 4,500 acres is about 7 square miles. 49 square miles of Sterlings would produce 3500 MW (7 x 500). Obviously Sterlings are more efficient than wind turbines.
The area where they're going to put this wind farm is in the desert. Maybe they could put Sterling engines between the wind turbines. Now that would be efficient.
For reference, the one working reactor remaining on Three Mile Island produces about 800 megawatts.
Wind power is the best thing for our future. I read one article that proposed the installation of 1.3 million turbines within the United States. Some of the best locations are offshore according to wind studies. I would rather have offshore wind farms then offshore oil rigs.
That plan also proposed that we could manufacture these turbines here. It would be similar to our auto production facilities which would put Americans to work.
Another aspect of that article was that these turbines could also be used to produce hydrogen through electrolisis and we could convert virtually all internal combustion engines to run off the hydrogen.
The name of the article was "From Oil to Hydrogen at a Wartime Pace".
I don't like nuclear because the oversight is questionable. Maine Yankee was taken off line basically because the maintenance wasn't sufficiently handled and the pu8blic refused to relicense the facility.
Generally, when I talk about nuclear power plants, I'm referring to a single unit, with a reactor, two or more steam generators, and a turbine generator, with all of the necessary support systems and equipment, 1500 MW would be a large power plant. Palo Verde does have a large overall power production, but the individual power plants at that site are in the range of 1200 - 1300 MW, which are relatively large power plant. Multi-unit sites have the benefit of sharing some systems and equipment, but when looking at power output ratings by plant, you still have to look at the individual plants.
Fifty square miles for 1500 MW of power... what kind of impact will the construction have on the local ecology?
This is fantastic news! We need many more large scale wind farms and solar arrays ... as well as more nuclear plants. Folks, if we don't get our a**es in gear, energy scarcity is going to cause lots of discomfort in this country.
Isn't this an enviromental disaster in the making, what is the effect of intercepting wind from nature and converting it into our own power. wont this have dramatic effects on our already fragile eco-system. The only problem is that it will be many years before we can analyse the data to see if any harm is being caused.
Not to be to negative about this--its a great project--but these size wind farms will have to become so common that they aren't noteable if we are going to make a transition to low-carbon energy systems.
I would encourage you to look at these projects in terms of MWhrs per year rather than 'nameplate' figuers, this would void some of the confusion above and make like for like comparisons easier.
It is also a facinating exersice to look into the energy needs of a nation and sector and do the conversion to KWHr's per turbine per year. You get a true sense of the scale of challenge that we are facing--and must overcome.
"Isn't this an enviromental disaster in the making, what is the effect of intercepting wind from nature and converting it into our own power. wont this have dramatic effects on our already fragile eco-system."
I'm not sure if this is a joke or not, but for the record: "Intercepting" wind and slowing it down is something that hills, mountains, trees, buildings, etc.. already do. The Earth is not a completely smooth sphere and these turbines are insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
Well just to knit pick the Earth is smooth compared to it's size. But I agree that we can not stop the wind. It's like putting tooth picks in a river to stop it. If we could stop the wind, I think energy would be the least of our worries.
'The area where they're going to put this wind farm is in the desert. Maybe they could put Sterling engines between the wind turbines. Now that would be efficient.'
I agree.
'these turbines are insignificant in the grand scheme of things.'
I agree.