Wind Power: Free, Plentiful and Fickle
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 12.29.06
Emma Graham-Harrison/Reuters
We love wind, as do a lot of companies who are investing in wind farms around the world, but the New York Times writes that while every Kilowatt generated by wind replaces fossil fuel or nuclear, standby capacity has to be built for when the wind does not blow. They discuss Texas, where demand is driven by air conditioning for homes and businesses, but the hottest days are often the least windy. Consequently they are building coal or gas plants to match every megawatt of wind capacity. Being for peak load and backup, they are not the most efficient or cleanest plants around. It is also often windy at night when demand is low, and the wind power is competing with low cost base load. Until a decent method of storing wind power (making hydrogen, pumping water uphill) is figured out, or until a carbon tax is put on coal plants, (according to this article, not this writer) wind power may be little more than window dressing. ::New York Times
Holland has 20% of it's power suppied from wind energy ,that is hardly window dressing,who do these reporters get paid from to write such rubbish!
Yes, but Holland is also on a fairly windy part of the ocean, which, for that reason, has more predictable summer winds than Texas. Don't call the report rubbish unless you can cite facts showing it's incorrect.
Back up power on windless days, or sunless days for photovoltaic cells, seems to be the weak link in alternative energies.
I've read about home fuel cells that use natural gas or methane to produce electricity. This seems like the best way around the lull in wind. Power on demand when the wind isn't blowing without having to have the backup power plants fired up waiting to be used. Not sure on the energy loss for the coal gasification though.
The article is well written and does a great job at showing the realities of wind power. It is not a cure-all, and no renewable technology is at present. Only when we fully understand the limitations of both fossil fuel and renewable fuel use can we develop strategies to address the problems associated with them.
BTW, the US is not Holland. The Netherlands has vastly different geographic conditions that makes it much more conducive to utilizing offshore wind power. High density areas close to the windy coast make it easier to meet some of their demand; our best locations are in the middle of the nation and far away from major population centers. This is a reality without a simple solution.
The utilities plan to build the coal plants regardless. Dissing the wind power they simply compete for market dominance, hoping to discourage customers from signing on to green power and preventing a mass movement that will force them to to upgrade their process technology and pollution controls. The battle is on and they are tipping at windmills of their imagination!
You don't have to match the new wind power megawatt for megawatt.. The matching power already existed in an existing power plant that will be taken off line, or idled due to the windfarm being built.
Simply put, adding more capacity to the grid via green sources, DOES NOT require adding more backup power. The backup power already existed beforehand...
Well my last comment didn't make it. What I wanted to know was how in the hell that article conveyed wind power as window dressing? It merely stated that wind power has some issues. The only rubbish here is the original post and the first comment.
Now why not use flywheels to store provide backup power? It could clean the output and provide some backup for wind lulls. I'm not sure how long a huge flywheel would keep momentum though. Also why not build all wind farms offshore, it's almost always windy. Install superconducting transmission lines to get the energy where it's needed.
The existence of a backup, even when it isn't accesible at peak times, will lessen price swings for energy. This will be useful because energy prices will continue their inexorable march upward over time.
Of course, air conditioning is not a necessity, like food or shelter, but without it economic productivity would severely limited in summer and in the South. If prices go up enough, it will be curtailed, or made far more efficient. We will have to change habits. Siestas, open windows, lighter clothing, etc. The problem is so many of our buildings are pretty much uninhabitable without a/c, including the one I am working in right now.
There is also a way to eliminate the electrical middle-man. Since air-conditioners are merely electrically powered mechanical compressors, a linkage could be constructed very easily that runs the compressor off of wind. A compressor is a short-term storage system for energy, which could ease heat extremes over a number of hours. This wouldn't be a universally useful device, but could work in windy areas that happen to be hot.
There's some interesting stuff about "baseloads" and such here:
http://www.biofuels.coop/windblog/?p=115
Once you have enough clean power generation installed, you can think about stocking some of it for when you need more.
ie. convert some to hydrogen to be used in fuel cells. Compress air (in large underground tanks?) and then generate electricity with it when there's no wind/sun. Or giant flywheels. Pump water to be used in hydro..
But with enough decentralized clean generation, it should be possible to always have what you need on average. With wind + solar + wave over a large area, the wind/sun is always shinning/blowing somewhere, and wave power pretty much always works.
Of course you need more of it to compensate for when there's a lull, but I'd rather have more clean power than just enough dirty one.
Just to clear a few points up,firstly the bottom line of the artitcal calls wind power window dressing.
2, Just because a city is not as windy as holland excludes it from generating wind energy? what a joke.The problem with the usa is that if you can't be the biggest and the best you won't join the race. You should follow the europeans lead.
wind energy is viable and clean,and getting cheaper by the year. It never has to be a base load supplier just a big part of the jigsaw .Storage of energy will come within the next 10 years ,Stop living in the oil age and join the 21st century.And i still say the report is a load of rubbish and i question the authers motives.
A great piece on wind power in It’s Free, Plentiful and Fickle. Especially where it points to the promise of storage as a potential solution to wind’s lack of “firmness” in providing power generation.
The problem is -- except for CES and pumped hydro applications which have very geographical limitations – hitherto we really haven’t been able to store mass quantities of electricity.
Indeed shortly after the 2003 blackouts, Greenspan characterized electrical generation business, “as an industry without inventory.”
However, there’s been a development in the storage of mass electrical generation that may prove beneficial to the commercial success of renewable sources.
A new electrochemical storage system by VRB Power called the Vanadium Redox Battery Energy Storage System (“VRB/ESS”), effectively stores mass amounts of electricity.
The jury’s still out whether VRB’s batter will be successfully commercialized. But they do seem to be hitting some key milestones.
Last August, the company sold a 1.5 megawatt flow battery system to Irish wind developer Tapbury Management where Tyler Hamilton of the Toronto Star column noted “Tapbury wants to bring "firmness" to an intermittent renewable energy source like wind.
Earlier VRB sold a 10 kWh system to SOLON AG, a German solar PV module producer where it plans to evaluate the system in both grid-connected and grid-independent scenarios where solar energy is the primary source.
Importantly, the VRB/ESS is also a “green” technology, and enjoys the lowest ecological impact of all electrochemical energy storage technologies.
A couple of great podcasts,” Why Mass Storage Is So Important for Renewables” is available at www.renewableenergyaccess.com and at Tyler Hamilton’s blog, “Clean Break”.