Talk:Wind power

Possible Vandalism?

"CO2 emissions and pollution

Wind power consumes no fuel for continuing operation, and has no emissions directly related to electricity production. Operation does not produce carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, mercury, particulates, or any other type of air pollution, as do fossil fuel power sources." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.173.201.59 (talk) 12:50, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Energy Storage

The intermitancy section states that storing wind power might add 25% to the cost of the electricity, this needs a source. Does that mean that all the electricity actually usable which comes from storage will cost 25% more whilst ignoring the loss? Or is this ignoring the installation cost and only accounting for the marginal cost? I don't see how a whole lifecycle storage system for wind power could result in only a 25% increase in the cost of power taken from that storage system, since that entails a 75% efficiency. Hydro stroage systems are about 20% efficient and lead acid batteries are much more expensive, not to mention very enironmentally unfriendly. Hvatum (talk) 22:21, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Did you look at the inline reference (that's what they're for)? Not storing wind energy, but offsetting the effect of intermittency - there's more than one way to skin a cat. I'd also think you'll find that a pumped storage scheme is a lot better than 20% efficient - think hard - why would anyone build anything like that if it was only 20% efficient? Having chunks of the ice shelf drop into the ocean is also environmentally unfriendly - it's a matter of degrees, isn't it? --Wtshymanski (talk) 02:15, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Capacity Factor - Misleading

Within the intoduction to the article is stated

“ At the end of 2006, worldwide capacity of wind-powered generators was 73.9 gigawatts. ”

however further on in the article in the 'Wind Energy' section subsection 'Capacity Factor' is stated

“ Since wind speed is not constant, a wind generator's annual energy production is never as much as its nameplate rating multiplied by the total hours in a year. The ratio of actual productivity in a year to this theoretical maximum is called the capacity factor. A well-sited wind generator will have a capacity factor of about 35%. ”

Furthermore throughout this article are numerous instances of capacity figures that are almost all silent on whether this is a peak or average capacity number. For a general reader this lack of detail is misleading, particulary because of the large difference between average and peak (35% and 100%). This is not a criticism of Wind Power but simply accuracy. These same issues are also applicable to other electrical power generation method's capacity factors, for instance coal powered plant capacity changes due to cooling tower effectivness variablity with temperature, humidity and water availability.

I propose the following:

Capacity figures be prefixed or postfixed with peak eg. "worldwide peak capacity of wind-powered generators was 73.9 gigawatts" or "73.9 gigawatts (peak)" or include both peak and average eg. (73.9/25.9) or (73.9 peak / 25.9 average) Although this is dealt with in a specific section 'Capacity Factor' it is not applied throughout the article as it should be for accuracy and clarity, and this limits the development of the article in the areas of, for instance, differences in load factors seasonally or in different regions or between land and sea based sites. What do you think?

Theo Pardilla 03:03, 6 January 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Theo Pardilla (talk • contribs)

I object. You can't add all the wind turbines in the world and assume an average capacity factor. No grid-connected generating plant operates at 100% nameplate rating for 100% of a year. The convention in the electrical industry is always to give the nameplate rating of generators of a plant (less, if necessary, plant internal conumption) as the capacity, and then discuss capacity factors as relevant. A total rating (megawatts, gigawatts) is necessarily a power rating, and the capacity factor gives the ratio of actual annual energy production compared with nameplate rating multipled by 8760 hours/year. I suggest the "expand" tag is unnecessary and should be removed. --Wtshymanski (talk) 18:14, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Whilst I agree with Wtshymanski's statement that all grid connected generating plants operate at sub 100% nameplate and continuous rates, articles are intended for a non specialist or non technical readership and the quantification of power output is deceptive therefore as it does not specify that this figure is a maximum peak number. This differs qualitatively from most other grid connected generation technologies in that its maximum long term average is around 1/3rd of its peak or nameplate rating, due primarily to reliance on uncontrollable wind patterns, whereas gas, coal or nuclear can have a maximum long term average of around 90%. Maximum capacity factors for wind power will of course depend upon local and regional wind patterns and although you may not want to 'assume' an average global capacity factor you can calculate an estimate based upon general scientific models and refine it as needed. The 1/3rd figure seems, according to the literature, to be about right. However this does not obviate the need for a subsection about Capacity Factors. Sure you can run a gas generator at sub 90% rates say 25 or 10, but the inherent maximum capacity is around 90 or so and is near enough to 100 to not need to give prominence to capacity factory clarification. You havent addressed my main point that an unclarified power rating maximum is misleading for a general audience, and whilst a section in the article devoted to capacity factors is necessary, it does not relieve the requirement to prominently differentiate peak and maximum average power. Would your position still hold if maximum capacity factor was 3% or .3%? It should be self evident that a figure circa 33% is different from a circa 90% figure by a substantative order of magnitude to the extent of qualitative difference, and whilst you may well agree with this observation I believe that it follows from this that prominence be given to differentiation at the point of enumeration of power rating for the purposes of clearly conveying these differences to a general reader. Electrical industry power rating conventions are based on base load continuous generation at high rates of 70, 80 or 90% ranges and are therefore inapplicable to windpower in exactly the same way.

--Theo Pardilla 14:25, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

That was very long. Electrical industry practice is to give the nameplate rating of the generators, less any in-house consumption. Intermittency is very prominent in the article now. No-one but an oil sheik can afford to run a natural gas-fired plant at 100% capacity factor at current NG prices, not while there's any more economical base load (desalination plants are the obvious exception, but they tend to be in the Mideast gas-producing countries for just that reason). "Maximum average" is meaningless in this context. If the capacity factor was 3% no-one would be building wind plants. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:08, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

The capacity factor issue for wind power is qualitatively different than for traditional power generation and I can see no downside in being extra clear when the article is talking about peak power vs annual average.--agr (talk) 17:37, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

The capacity factor is defined the same way for all sources and so is directly comparable. Most hydro plants, in my experience, do not have enough water capacity to run at full nameplate output for a year - they are sized to harvest energy when it's available and produce at lower levels the rest of the year. --Wtshymanski (talk) 17:47, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

It's fine to cite nameplate capacities when describing wind in a vacuum, but if you're comparing a 20% capacity factor wind farm with a 50% capacity factor hydro plant with an 85% capacity factor nuclear plant, it's certainly misleading to only cite the nameplate capacities. — Omegatron 10:22, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

"Wind in a vacuum" is a delightful phrase I'm sure I'll never see used anywhere but on the Wikipedia. Agree, annual production is a better measure of contribution to an energy balance than capacity, but everyone reports capacity. --Wtshymanski (talk) 16:51, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

You seem to have missed the points.

No-one opposes clarifying prominently capacity factors when there is no downside except ideological, inertial or cognitive, no-one. Simply reciting "Electrical industry practice is to give the nameplate rating of the generators" is an inadequate substitute for refinement. Wind power can never provide capacity factors averaged over the long term in the 70s 80s or 90s as its simply an inherent limitation from variable wind patterns and whilst there may well be some areas of the world where its theoretically possible to have much higher capacity factors than 35% such as the Antactic its simply impossible almost everywhere else. No-one thinks that fuel costs are relevant to physical, intrinsic capacity limitations, No-one. Not even the most profligate wealthy can make the wind blow continuously and they cannot change the laws of physics. Wind is limited to 35% but GHG and Nuclear plants can run at near 100% and are not inherently retarded by physics.

--Theo Pardilla 12:37, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

A late insertion: I agree with your observation about ground-mounted wind turbines, but airborne wind turbines might actually be able to obtain capacity factors rivaling nuclear power plants, as high-altitude winds are very steady in many parts of the world. --Teratornis (talk) 05:44, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I am completely missing the point. What are you trying to say that the existing (as of January 17,2008) section oncapacity factor does not already say? Barring any naive AIs reading the Wikipedia. I think our readers understand that the wind blows where and when it wills, and the section shows the engineering and economic impact of the wind's variability. (The St. Leon guys told me their capacity factor was 40% in 2006 but I don't have a published reference for that.) --Wtshymanski (talk) 18:21, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Capacity factor of a single turbine at some academic institution is not representative of capacity factors of wind farms financed by cold-eyed accountants watching the bottom line. I suspect real wind farms don't disclose their operating statistics on a real-time basis because this is sensitive commerical information (I'd like to see a real wind farm with a real-time display - not just one turbine!). Nor is a lash-up of solar panels and wind turbines feeding your geodesic dome representative of commercial wind farms, which do not have anything to do with solar panels - the complementarity is only relevant to the geodesic dome crowd, and good luck to 'em. Capacity factor has very littel do do with blade design and *everything* to do with where you put the darn things; even Grandpa's Knob had a 32% capacity factor till it fell apart and that was more than 60 years ago. --Wtshymanski (talk) 19:16, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

The first reference states: "A reasonable capacity factor would be 0.25 to 0.30. A very good capacity factor would be 0.40." And later: "In recent years, the U.S. wind industry has begun using seemingly insignificant refinements in blade airfoil shapes to increase annual energy output from 10 to well over 25 percent." The siting is important, but for a given location, blade design is extremely important in improving capacity factor. Grandpa's Knob may have been a particularly good location. Find a spot with constant winds, and you can expect a whole lot higher than 40% capacity factor. Be careful not to confuse efficiency with capacity factor. The second reference says that "Typical wind power capacity factors are 20-40%." When you give a total range of 20 to 40% it is redundant to say that 40% is obtained from particularly favorable sites. When you say that typical values range from 20 to 40% it is implicit that actual values both exceed and are lower than the endpoints, which is why "particularly favorable" needs to be identified as "more than 40%", not, "at the upper end of the range". This is just plain logic. I'm looking for data from wind farms as well. So far I have a few small turbines, plus the 660 kW turbine. The reference which was deleted says that the best locations are Northern Europe along the North Sea, the southern tip of the South American continent, the island of Tasmania in Australia, the Great Lakes region, and the northeastern and northwestern coasts of North America. You can read that from the abstract, no need to buy the article. The Strait of Magellan is famous for having very constant winds. Put a wind farm there and you will be hugely higher than 40% capacity factor. 199.125.109.38 (talk) 04:48, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

For not quite "real-time" but hourly archives, see Ontario system operator's data. Currently five windfarms with capacity and actual average output per hour. There are a few articles on the web that have done some analysis of actual capacity factors, as I recall running consistently 25-30% annually, plus seasonal variation.--Gregalton (talk) 06:17, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Excellent. This is just what I was looking for. Now I need ones for Europe and the United States. This is a massive amount of data to go through, though.

 Wind farm       Location              Capacity in MW Capacity factor in 2007
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Amaranth I      Township of Melancthon        67.5    30.61%
 Kingsbridge I   Huron County                  39.6    35.03%
 Port Burwell    Norfolk and Elgin Counties    99      28.05%
 Prince I&II     Sault Ste. Marie District    189      28.82%

Wind Power in Ontario

199.125.109.38 (talk) 08:31, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I haven't found any sources as detailed as this for other geographies. You may also want to keep in mind/take a look at when these came online - I believe three of the four came online in 2006.

This is not so much a question for talkpage, but I have interest in doing some more detailed analysis of the coincidence / correlation with other generating sources/demand/prices. I don't, however, have the xml/coding skills. You can talkpage me if this is the type of thing you're interested in.

I should have noted that there is lots of other data, but raw and overviews, available on how the IESO looks at all the aspects of wind integration in a good-sized system.--Gregalton (talk) 11:38, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

intermittency in intro

"Wind energy is plentiful, renewable, widely distributed, clean, and reduces toxic atmospheric and greenhouse gas emissions if used to replace fossil-fuel-derived electricity. The intermittency of wind seldom creates problems when using wind power at low to moderate penetration levels.[4]"

Although I heavily favor wind power, I still sense how twisted-POV this last sentence of the intro is (it denies a problem without ever acknowledging the problem). It would be much more straight-forward and honest to say instead something like: "The variability (intermittency) of the wind is a potential problem, especially when it supplies a large percentage of the power in a system, but ameliorating techniques have been developed that are adequate in most applications." -69.87.203.168 (talk) 03:22, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I also strongly support windpower but the last paragraph of the intro seems too POV. I'm not sure any comments on the advantages or disadvantages of wind power need to be addressed in the opening introduction as they are sufficiently addressed later. I think this last paragraph should be removed completely (and/or moved elsewhere?).Ga2re2t (talk) 21:19, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Do you have a problem with the current wording "The intermittency of wind seldom creates insurmountable problems when using wind power to supply up to roughly 10% of total electrical demand (low to moderate penetration), but presents challenges that are not yet fully solved when wind is to be used for a larger fraction of demand." It seems accurate and well sourced.--agr (talk) 16:49, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I have a problem with it. The reference is a year old. Later on in the article it states that Minnesota did a study that found that the cost of 25% wind was minimal and later on that Denmark gets 20% of their electricity from wind. The lead needs to be rewritten. I believe that more recently 70% has also been considered, combined with solar which tends to have a reverse intermittency from wind, and supplemented with pumped storage. 199.125.109.108 (talk) 02:33, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Intermittency is usually brought up as the ultimate deal-killer on wind power. However this is like saying that the lack of railways were an obstruction to the introduction of rail transport, which could not run on the regular roads, or that the lack of power lines was an obstacle to the widespread use of electricity. It is not an insurmountable problem, and many solutions exist. First is having a large grid system, which evens out the system. Second to the transmission problems in this, is the HVDC system proposed in Europe. Third is the construction of a system of new pumped storage systems and fourth is the management of demand, using real-time pricing according to supply. Fifth would be a fast-tracking to produce a viable electric car, by breaking the battery-patent/Chevron logjams and suchlike, allowing cars to be recharged at peak supply times, as well as storage heaters, storage coolers, mobile-phone rechargers, etc etc etc. Put all these together and you will wipe out any intermittency problems. Adding Solar Power will also help to manage peak demand during the day. Lets face it folks, fossils are in the past. We can live in the problems of the past or we can look for solutions in the future. - Mike —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.147.143.193 (talk) 17:32, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Rest assured, if wind was all the energy source there was, intermittancy solutions would be found. Brute-force solution is building far more capacity than you need for peak demand, and interconnecting it - rather like some hydro systems are built, now. More elegant (less costly) solutions would invovle storage. Intermittency is an economic issue, not a fundamental physical limit. --Wtshymanski (talk) 16:39, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Another option is to use excess wind power to generate hydrogen for use in sustainable ammonia production. Currently ammonia production consumes large quantities of natural gas, and that is obviously unsustainable. Eventually we'll have to generate the hydrogen by electrolysis of water. Ammonia plants would be excellent captive users of wind power, since it's easy to store hydrogen on-site to buffer the power input. --Teratornis (talk) 05:54, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

The best way to fix the lead is change 10% to 20%. Low to moderate penetration would be say 5% to 30%. Low penetration would be 1 to 10%. Moderate penetration is definitely not 10%, and since Denmark is having no problem with 20% that is what the lead should say, 20%. Newer studies show that even 60% penetration can be accommodated with no difficulty. See the study about the cost of using 70% for example. The combined power plant developed in Germany used 60.9% wind, 14.3% solar and 24.8% biomass. 0.5% was imported and 4.1% was exported; and 1.4% was lost by sloshing it back and forth in hydrostorage. What they were demonstrating was that Germany can get 100% of electricity from renewable energy. 199.125.109.57 (talk) 07:10, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

On intermittancy, have there been any studies on intermittancy on large scale wind-power production ? I can imagine that when the wind doesn't blow in Northern Europe, it would blow in Southern Europe and vice-versa, Just because the earth keeps turning.

Lopsided coverage?

This article appears to be concentrated on electrical generation from wind turbines, and yet "Wind power" means any form of usable power from wind. There is no mention at all of sailing ships, pumps, balloons and gliding flight for example. Look at the German article to see the difference in coverage. Or have I overlooked a main article on Wind energy? What do editors think about changing the lead to remove this lopsidedness? Also, what about these proposed new sections, derived from the German article?

• Physics of wind energy
• uses of wind energy - sailing, mills, pumps, balloons, thermal gliding flight, electricity generation

-Wikianon (talk) 16:37, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I think we need to better define the scope of this Wind power article in relation to the concept of Wind energy - which currently redirects to Wind power. Should Wind power concentrate on man's use of the energy from wind (and maybe electricity generation only)? In which case it seems we need a new "parent" Wind energy article to cover the physical aspects of wind, its distribution, the various wind systems, its kinetic energy, its effect on Earth's environment, and a summary of its use by man with Wind power containing most of what we have here. Or should Wind power be the parent article with subarticles for history of wind energy use, Wind energy power plants, and so forth?

Is there a better subdvision? At present the article is large and 80% of it concentrates on electricity production, and is missing important parts of wind power, not only history.

Looking at the Energy Portal, Solar power is placed as the parent of Photovoltaic electricity and Hydropower is placed as the parent of Hydroelectricity, so it sems logical to have Wind power as the parent article with Wind turbine, Wind farm, and maybe Wind electrical energy as child articles.

I will post a question at Talk:Energy#Wind power articles organization? for suggestions. -Wikianon (talk) 22:24, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Wind

Wind applications (kites, sailboats, balloons)

History of wind power

Windmill

Wind power

Wind farm

Wind turbine

Windbelt

199.125.109.98 (talk) 08:29, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

One way to fix this problem without heavy rewrites to the article is to create one or more navigation templates for the bottom of wind power articles. I'm working on a Template:Wind power now. See some other templates I started earlier: {{Peak oil}} and {{Bioenergy}}. --Teratornis (talk) 06:04, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

In particular, check out SkySails, a clever use of wind for motive power, which unlike most wind-generated electricity, directly replaces petroleum use in cargo ships. With the oil price increases since 2003 apparently just getting warmed up due to peak oil, reducing the petroleum consumption of cargo ships could soon become critically important. Power kites for towing ships can displace lots of petroleum use while bypassing the standard objections to wind-generated electricity - although I suppose the wind power opponents who haven't gotten the memo that fossil fuels are subject to peaking will probably think of some reason to complain about the technology. --Teratornis (talk) 06:22, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

(undent)Some followup to issues above:

• I made a preliminary navigation template: {{Wind power}}, which I am adding to wind power articles.
• Those who do not read German can generate a fairly usable machine translation into English with this {{Google translation}} link:
  • Translate the German Wikipedia's Windenergie article to English

--Teratornis (talk) 19:52, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Some other machine translations with {{Google translation}}:

• Translate the Spanish Wikipedia's Energía eólica article to English
• Translate the French Wikipedia's Énergie éolienne article to English

--Teratornis (talk) 20:07, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Complementary nature of wind power and solar power

This article isn't about wind farms, it is about wind power. It has long been recognized that solar and wind are complementary and allow higher utilization if they are used together. This needs to be pointed out in the article. Saying it isn't important to the operator of a wind farm is missing the point. It is vitally important to the grid - far more wind power can be utilized if it is complemented with solar farms and pumped hydrostorage. I have added a reference from the Oregonian about a project the local power company is doing in Washington State. According to Elliot Mainzer, a policy manager with Bonneville Power Administration, "There are natural complementary patterns between wind and solar." The project combines a 230 MW wind farm with a 450 kW solar farm because "There's no getting around it, solar is more expensive -- just as wind was 25 years ago." They would have liked to have the solar panels the same size as the wind farm.

Note the nearly three decimal orders of magnitude difference between the power levels of the solar farm and the wind farm - which one is making the money? Do you see why it's not relevant? BPA is obviously doing that as a demoor for PR - looks like it's working. It's like saying my backup income plan for being laid off is cashing in the returnable bottles. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:44, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

::Good for you. There are thousands, perhaps millions in the United States who rely on collecting bottles and cans for a living. 199.125.109.57 (talk) 17:27, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Here is another quote, this one from 2004: "Hybrid systems show how wind and solar complement each other in a big way," Lorenzo Roybal, a master research technician with PV International Programs, said. "Either the sun is shining or the wind is blowing, so there is always something producing power."[1] 199.125.109.73 (talk) 06:05, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

The complementarity is of no commercial use - no-one installs enough solar to replace wind on calm days and I have yet to see a reference from the power industry considering this. It's all geodesic-dome hippy stuff, not real world. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:44, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Prices are rapidly decreasing for solar power.[2] They are already low enough for investors to be willing to install them for free in return for a long term power purchase agreement. That practice started early last year. Long term you might be able to say that wind will always be cheaper than solar, but I doubt it, solar has a lot less maintenance than wind, and is 100 times more available than wind. Wind now accounts for over 1% of worldwide electricity, but solar is not far behind, and is increasing at a faster rate than wind. Solar is currently the fastest growing energy technology. Complementary systems, also sometimes called hybrid systems, are seen from Maine to Alaska. About the only location in the United States where they don't work are in the sunny states around Florida, which are currently rated by the AWEA as having 0 potential for wind power. I guess that hurricanes don't count. 199.125.109.57 (talk) 17:23, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Please do not remove this with no discussion. 199.125.109.49 (talk) 05:46, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

See discussion above. The complementarity effect, if any, is completely useless - and what if, perish forbid, the wind isn't blowing *at night*? Please don't re-add this without discussion! Have you not noticed that *no one on the good green Earth or major planets* is building wind farms with solar panels? The toy demo project is irrelevant to commercial wind power operations. A 450 kW solar panel in the context of a 230 megawatt wind project is irrelevant, it doesn't do anything to firm up the energy supplied by the wind farm, and is strictly there for public relations purposes.

My concern is that the unwary Wikipedia user (let us share a moment of silent reflection on the perils of someone relying on the Wikipedia for information) is somehow going to think that solar power is a relevant point in the installation of wind projects - when it's not. Or is this a "facts are optional, I'm riding my hobbyhorse to death and you can't stop me", kind of encyclopedia? Your response, Mr. 199.125.109.49, if that *is* your real name? --Wtshymanski (talk) 18:55, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Calm down. I have provided ample references of the complementary nature of sun and wind, and of the commercial application thereof. It could just as easily be argued that wind has no commercial application at all, because it only supplies 1% of electricity, other than of course a few isolated locations, like Denmark, where it also isn't very important because it only supplies less than 20% of electricity. This article for the umpteenth time is not restricted to applicability for one location or application, it is about all applications of wind power, and the complementary nature of wind and sun has been instrumentally applied in many locations, and needs to be mentioned. Quit being so foolish. What has been happening in this dialog is that you keep losing the argument, and run out of things to say and then go and change the article anyway. Please stop. You started out seeming quite intelligent until you insisted on odd spellings like complemtarity, benificial and negligable. Not that sicinttists have to have good spelling, and your other edits in other articles also tend to include misspellings, but when you put it back after it was pointed out that it was misspelled you really lost a lot of credibility. The sample data changes each day of course, but the period 2/3 to 2/9 was miserable for wind and not good for sun either other than on the 3rd and on the 9th. Yesterday and today wind and sun flipped - today had a lot of wind and no sun and yesterday was sunny with no wind. 199.125.109.49 (talk) 23:32, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

On the 14th it flipped again, with no wind and lots of sun. Another period this flipping occurred was from 1/26 to 2/1, a seven day period, except that the 27th and the 28th both had wind and little sun. 199.125.109.98 (talk) 14:28, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

(undent) As mentioned above, one straightforward way to reduce the impact of intermittency is to build bigger grids, for example: Supergrid to Supply Europe with Wind Power. Wind farms west of the Rockies could link up with solar power tower plants in the Mojave desert. Also notice that solar power towers that use liquid sodium as the heat transfer fluid can store enough heat to continue generating electricity for some time after sundown. With widely separated wind and solar generators in different climate zones, the overall variability would be much less. Europeans are thinking about building an undersea HVDC cable to link up the European grid with Iceland which has untapped hydro and geothermal. If it's practical to light London from Iceland, it's practical to link up lots of widely separated intermittent generators. And of course Moore's law continues to churn along, potentially reducing the cost of energy demand management. Someday maybe most electricity-consuming machines will react to the spot price of power, and adjust their power consumption as necessary to minimize their operating expense. As computing costs continue to fall, power consumers can get smarter. Electric water heaters, irrigation pumps, and so on have some potential to follow the maximum availability of wind. --Teratornis (talk) 07:41, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

There is definitely no need to go into details about solar in this wind power article, but the importance of interconnecting grids is briefly mentioned in the Penetration section. The wording could be improved - "interconnection to a large grid area export of electricity when needed" gets the idea across, and later Denmark is mentioned "The Danish grid is heavily interconnected to the European electrical grid, and it has solved grid management problems by exporting almost half of its wind power to Norway. The correlation between electricity export and wind power production is very strong." The concept of interconnecting continents to smooth out demand should be mentioned, as well as the need for importing as well as exporting power, unless storage is used. If you see the above discussion of a combined power plant, you will see that storage is probably more important than interconnecting continents. It's a trade off between bring up technology like interconnecting continents that doesn't exist and technology like local grids and storage that does exist. Wikipedia is not intended to try to predict the future. 199.125.109.56 (talk) 17:37, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Updated wind data

I updated the wind power capacity list with info from the EWEA and other associations around the world. Why does this keep getting deleted? It is accurate information and the current list is inaccurate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.138.192.231 (talk) 21:21, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Maybe because you didn't indicate a reference? How is anyone to know that you weren't just fiddling with the numbers? 199.125.109.38 (talk) 21:41, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

The references (EWEA, GWEC) are listed for the current numbers so they are not new references. I am updating from current sources:

http://www.ewea.org/fileadmin/ewea_documents/mailing/windmap-08g.pdf

http://www.gwec.net/uploads/media/gwec-table-2008.pdf

http://www.gwec.net/index.php?id=30&no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=139&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=4&cHash=6691aa654e —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.138.192.231 (talk) 03:34, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Just check the updated current references!

Here's another source:

http://home.wxs.nl/~windsh/stats.html

I also check individual national wind associations, such as:

http://www.canwea.ca/images/uploads/File/fiche_a_29_janv_08.pdf

At the top of the wind power capacity table it lists notes [30] and [31]. Those are the old EWEA and GWEC tables/maps.. I could not figure out how to put in the updated references in their place (the first two links above). When I click edit it shows nothing there for the reference list. If you know how to do it, please do so. Those two sources should be adequate. If anyone feels it necessary, we could also put in a note to "See national wind association sites." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alan 69.138.192.231 (talk) 16:59, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

The body of the reference is in-line with the text; when the page is rendered by the browser, the in-line reference is shown in the references section at the <noiwkik>

http://www.ieawind.org/AnnexXXV/Meetings/Oklahoma/IEA%20SysOp%20GWPC2006%20paper_final.pdf IEA Wind Summary Paper, Design and Operation of Power Systems with Large Amounts of Wind Power, September 2006

http://environment.independent.co.uk/climate_change/article3194088.ece

</nowiki> tag. Look at the other citations in the text and you'll see how it works. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:46, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

The opening paragraph needs to be updated as well. There are now more than 94.1 GW of grid connected wind power.

69.138.192.231 (talk) 08:41, 7 February 2008 (UTC)Alan

Great! You've done the hard part, the researching of sources - and you've even typed in the URLs here. Now could you just stick them in the article at the appropriate places like this <ref> http://goodreference.com Elbonian Wind Power Association Web site, retrieved February 7,2008 </noref> . --Wtshymanski (talk) 16:22, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Just reverted several edits - one by User:Sgitheanach and a few by an anon with no edit summary. The edits had resulted in a broken image and broken ref links. Then I noticed this discussion - please be more careful with edits and us an edit summary (ip edits w/ no summary are immediately suspect). Vsmith (talk) 12:20, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I suggest as a new external link:

• World wind power as charts GWEC 6.2.2008 Watti Renew (talk) 13:53, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Capacity is not the same as power generated. Capacity is the total that could be generated if the wind were blowing 100% 24/7. Real power output from wind farms is like 20% of rated capacity. Please be careful when combining information from multiple sources to reach a conclusion. — Omegatron 23:47, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, in the electric power industry, "capacity" is the sum total of generator nameplate ratings. This is a power rating. The annual energy production may be much less than total capacity running for a year but this is not unusual in the power business...combustion turbines running on expensive natural gas are used only for peaking power and so have very low capacity factors for fuelled units. The difference with wind is that the capacity is not dispatchable - it runs when the wind blows, not when everyone is cooking supper. See the discussion above and don't get "energy" and "power" mixed up as the media so regularly does. Even the most innumerate journalist should be able to grasp the difference between how much money he saves in the bank each year and how much he gets paid per hour. --Wtshymanski (talk) 17:54, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with the difference between energy and power. This is about a turbine rated for 1 MW capacity only generating 0.25 MW on average. When the ___ Wind Energy Association reports on total capacity, they're talking about total potential output power, not actual generated power. You can't use this number to calculate the world percentage generated by wind. — Omegatron 23:23, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, exactly. Its not total potential output power, it's capacity - sum of generator nameplate ratings. A more meaningful number would be annual Twh produced, rather than total capacity. It's not clear to me that the 1% isn't energy production, not capacity. Annual capacity factor varies quite a lot ...the St. Leon project in Manitoba was justfied on 35% annual capacity and lately has been doing closer to 40%. Naturally, high-capacity factor sites get developed first. --Wtshymanski (talk) 01:21, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

It's not clear to me, either, which is why it needs a reference. — Omegatron 09:56, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm...

• 1999: 24.954 TWh for wind [3] out of 14735.63 total worldwide electricity generation [4] = 0.17%
• 2001: 1.4% of 2,968 TWh for wind [5] = 41.5 TWh, out of 15580.65 TWh worldwide = 0.26%
• 2005: 105.629 TWh for wind [6] out of 18262.72 total = 0.58%
• 2006: 160 TWh for wind [7] out of 19027.72 total = 0.84%

So "1%" is plausible. :) — Omegatron 03:36, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Check the press release pdf that I added as reference; they are claiming 200 TWH in 2007. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:52, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I saw. They don't provide a source and it didn't seem realistic compared to the other numbers I had found. — Omegatron 23:19, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I still can't find a list of actual world-wide generated electrical energy for wind, by year. Can anyone help? This would help to make original research estimations of safety and see if there's a trend. While we can't put that original research into the article itself, it would be good information to have. — Omegatron 16:56, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Worldwide average capacity factor per year vs installed capacity per year would provide the same information, and we have the latter. — Omegatron 17:05, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Canopy alternative to blades

I am new to wiki, but old to energy studies. Why was my reference to a canopy based system removed without discussion? I cited pro bono, public domain work at www.gewp.org suggesting that the apex exit of a parachute is bird friendly.Nukeh (talk) 01:15, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Someone just answered and told me why: I should not be referencing my own websites. I agree, therefore the reference should be removed. Unfortunately, only about 10% of my work can be accessed by abstracts freely available to the public (e.g., PubMed). None has free public access to the actual papers because of the copyright of publisher. (There have to be many people in this boat.) My approach to this problem was to republish work on websites under fair-use copyright law and then re-reference it elsewhere so at least the fundamental aspects of the work is freely accessible to the public. The public did pay for the work through taxes via government grants to fund the work. Nukeh (talk) 11:11, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I hope that you understand that there is nothing wrong with self-promotion - in the right place - Wikipedia, however is not the right place. It is very hard to maintain neutrality if you are tooting your own horn. 199.125.109.57 (talk) 19:27, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, now I fully understand. Thanks for considering I am new to wiki, but old to academic reviews for grants and publications on paper media. The days of calling Maddox at Nature, Cech at Science, and sending NAS papers to buddies are over. I love wiki, and I want to do good work for wiki. Nukeh (talk) 19:42, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

You are allowed to link to your own website, as long as the link is relevant to the article and you're doing so in a neutral manner. Since 99% of people linking to their own website are doing it for non-neutral, promotional reasons, it's highly frowned upon, but it's not outright prohibited. It's just better to discuss it on the talk page and let other editors add it to the article if they think it fits. — Omegatron 09:54, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Also note: the name of this wiki is Wikipedia (specifically, the English Wikipedia). Since there thousands of wikis, calling this site "wiki" is like referring to a specific wind farm as "wind farm". Check out the Editor's index for the 2000 or so instruction pages that will tell you how to do everything here. --Teratornis (talk) 06:11, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Spelling

My dictionary shows complementariness as a noun, but I sure never have heard of it before. Easier to just say "this". Complementarily, the adverb, is a little more familiar, but not much. 199.125.109.57 (talk) 20:02, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

External link: video illustration

Is anybody going to strongly object to me adding a link to this video (requires flash) in the safety section, as a good illustration of what can go wrong? Having looked at WP:EL, you could probably argue either way about whether or not is should be in. Guinness (talk) 12:07, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about this - is there some context for the video? Dates, age of machine, owner, location, etc? The fact that a crew turned up to record the event makes me wonder if this wasn't a delibrate trial. Videos of dams bursting, boilers collapsing, and Geiger counters clicking are all well and good but are they relevant to normal operations of the respective energy sources? --Wtshymanski (talk) 18:22, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm planning on starting an article on wind power accidents, and started a list of youtube videos:

1. Denmark turbine exploding from overspeed in a storm:
   • http://jp.dk/uknews/article1277616.ece
   • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3FZtmlHwcA
   • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nSB1SdVHqQ
2. Turbine fire (Spain?) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKkTUY2slYQ
3. Turbine fire (location?) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgXcHzi2t4s
4. Turbine fire (Palm Springs, CA) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N4HQv-UyUo
5. Turbine destroyed by lightning along a road
   • 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCvf61_ebgM
   • 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpGkTS1CREo
   • ...
6. Fenner, NY blade failure
   • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eku6hJ-V8Ks
7. Wayne County, PA blade failure
   • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTraL-lVR0E
8. Fire caused by downed wind farm power lines
   • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax5tSd4uWro

Probably don't want the entire list in this article, of course.  :) — Omegatron 23:33, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh and while you are at it how about a list of all automobile accidents? Neither seems to be particularly notable. 4.233.143.3 (talk) 18:12, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

List of civilian nuclear accidents, List of military nuclear accidents, List of coal mining disasters, List of mining disasters in Poland, List of accidents and incidents on commercial aircraft, List of rail accidents, List of horse accidents, ... — Omegatron 23:31, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Radar interference

I can understand a shadow effect of not being able to see as well through a wind farm, but someone apparently hasn't noticed that radar travels at the speed of light, and so the turbine is going to appear to be motionless to the radar. As to not being able to detect aircraft at any height above the wind farm, regardless of the turbine height, well that is just balderdash. Like as if the wind farm was going to interfere with the radar image of the space shuttle for example. If a reference is clearly absurd is there any reason to include it? Here is one of the comments to the article:

Dear oh dear! Have any of you considered that this "radar interference" information is simply UNTRUE? This is exactly the modus of misinformation that has been going for decades in the USA, once money is passed from hand to hand under the table from an influential party that would be financially threatened by a change, to a party (such as a military branch) that cannot be argued with as easily. It is the media's responsibility to probe and to DEMAND to examine the details of exactly how this hole in radar coverage is purported to be accomplished. You will soon begin to see that the only "hole" is in the truth here, and in doing so, you will also be able to establish who you can trust in future and, more importantly, who is pushing this egregious issue for their own benefit at the cost of the British public! Don't accept nonsense like this without questioning the sources!

199.125.109.89 (talk) 06:11, 1 March 2008 (UTC) also wind energy can be produced if there is alot of wind and the wind mill can make faster energy —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.3.4.129 (talk) 03:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Wave Power becomes section in Wind Power?

Ocean waves are generated by wind. Wave could redirect here to Wind, and we could be more self-consistent and informative in the process of combining information and editors. Any support? I understand that such logic could eventually lead to all articles being under Big Bang, but one consolidation does not imply such a domino effect. There is some cross-fertilization, too, given that weather, wind, and wave modelling are interactive in theory, prediction, and explanation of high energy wind and wave locations.100TWdoug (talk) 19:04, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

No. 199.125.109.57 (talk) 19:42, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Could you give a reason? - I forgot to mention that.100TWdoug (talk) 19:54, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Also no. You might as well also put wave power under hydropower. The subjects are clearly distinct. --Wtshymanski (talk) 21:40, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

"Ocean waves are generated by wind." No, it think Ocean waves are mostly an effect of tide--> the movement of the earth, the moon and the sun relative to each other. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.165.35.217 (talk) 20:26, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Fine - Issue closed as far as I am concerned with 2 no's. I withdraw the suggestion.

How does content from Wave, Wind, Hydro ...

... make it into Alternative Energy? Are WP editors working in more than one article at once? Isn't this redundant and time consuming?100TWdoug (talk) 00:33, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually collectively WP editors are working on many thousands of articles at once. Alternative energy is a slightly different subject than for example renewable energy. Many editors individually work on hundreds of articles. Many work on one and never show up again. Alternative energy is a term that was more common thirty years ago. Today renewable energy is a more common term, and has become very mainstream, with more new investment in renewable energy than in other types of energy. There is little point in expanding the alternative energy article, and little point in combining it with any other article. 199.125.109.57 (talk) 04:24, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Impact on Global Weather Patterns

This sounds like a bit of a stupid question, but presumably if we start using a lot of wind energy, then we are slowing down the movement and circulation of air in the atmosphere. How are we able to determine what the long term impact of this is? Recall that people expressing concerns about polluting the air and causing climate change were ridiculed when first proposed. How do we know that broad-based use of wind-based power generation won't have dire long-term consequences? (Those consequences to seem like they would be rapidly reversible, however.)

Presumably a similar argument could be made about geothermal exhausting the heat within the Earth, causing the tectonic action to cease, but that seems a lot further off than wind-based power generation having an impact.

194.59.184.12 (talk) 12:49, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Given that turbines are only from 25-80m high and the wind flows happen to levels considerably higher (understatement), any effect should be a rounding error. Also note spacing between turbines is pretty significant. And of course, any conversion into electricity will later be released as energy (heat), so contributing again to flows of air.--Gregalton (talk) 14:00, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Also I fail to see any consequence as a result of capturing energy instead of bending birches with it. 199.125.109.56 (talk) 17:40, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

In particular, consider the massive deforestations that have occurred throughout the world. In pre-Columbian North America, forests were nearly continuous from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River. Settlers from Europe felled vast areas of forest to make room for agriculture, reducing the ground friction and speeding the flow of winds. Putting up wind turbines might increase wind drag to something closer to the original value. Most likely, whatever impact wind turbines could have on the weather will be less than the impact of generating the equivalent energy with fossil fuels, assuming fossil fuels will be available. It's conceivable, however, that if wind power gets near to reaching its theoretical potential, especially with airborne wind turbines, there might be some noticeable effects on weather patterns. --Teratornis (talk) 08:36, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

The only effect would be from a reduction in global warming. You are barking up the wrong tree. 199.125.109.73 (talk) 01:16, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Mountain ranges affect the weather around them, by getting in the way of winds, and sucking kinetic energy out of them. If wind turbines were to become numerous enough in a given area, they might amount to something like a small mountain range, particularly as wind turbines keep getting individually larger. I doubt we will see wind power on such a scale for decades. Mountain ranges do not threaten the global climate - the Earth has managed quite well with a lot of mountains for a long time, so I wouldn't expect the weather impacts to be globally harmful. Cities already affect the weather around them (Urban heat island). But if wind power reached a prodigious scale, with millions of high-altitude airborne wind turbines sucking power out of the Jet streams, then there might eventually be some impact on global weather patterns. This isn't even worth worrying about, though, compared to Global warming and Peak oil, respectively the near-term and very near-term threats. --Teratornis (talk) 06:38, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Here is an article that talks about wind farms affecting local weather. This is nothing like An Inconvenient Truth, of course. --Teratornis (talk) 07:15, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

The two most recent articles on that page are much more interesting than that one from 2 1/2 years ago that just says that modern turbines have less effect than older ones. The first one, from November 2007, quotes the study that says that any ten interconnected wind farms can be counted to supply at least 33% base load. I don't think we have that in the article, but we should. I would propose adding the sentence in the Penetration section:

"A study published in November 2007 in the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology concluded that any ten wind farms could be interconnected by the grid and relied on to supply from 33 to 47% of yearly-averaged wind power as reliable, baseload electric power, providing minimum wind condition standards were met."[8]

The other, from October, deals with the same issue in Texas, but is just an announcement of a grant to study wind penetration. 199.125.109.98 (talk) 13:37, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Biased POV

The article repeatedly treats CO₂ as a pollutant. This is clear bias towards global warming theory. The term "greenhouse gas" is biased since it accepts greenhouse theories (for a good rejection of the theory see "Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO₂ Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics (Gerhard Gerlich, Ralf D. Tscheuschner, Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics, July 2007). A wind power article should discuss wind power and not tie in global warming ideas. Still, as much as I reject this CO₂ science, it does seem fair to mention that wind power reduces CO₂, although the usefulness of this is disputed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.58.224.12 (talk) 19:07, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

My recollection is that a recent court order (by the Supreme Court) requires the U.S. EPA to treat CO2 as a pollutant. Wind power is extensively discussed around the world as part of the solution to global warming, so I see no reason to not mention global warming issues, as appropriate to this article. If you are one of the few people left on the planet that doesn't think that global warming exists, well, you are in the extreme minority. Go check out the Larsen B ice shelf. Wait, you can't, it melted. The Snows of Kilamanjaro? Those are mostly gone as well. 199.125.109.98 (talk) 21:53, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Whether CO2 causes global warming aside, adherence to that theory has become dogmatic to the point of brainwashing in a large part of the West's population. There are plenty of well educated people that do not believe human emissions are significantly contributing to global warming, and saying the person above is in the "extreme minority" is naiive, narrow minded and band wagonish. 72.179.63.12 (talk) 01:47, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I see, so we are all wrong and you are the only one who knows the real truth? Well take it to the global warming article please and ask that it be changed immediately. I'll check back to see if this article needs to be changed as a result of your changes there. 199.125.109.38 (talk) 06:20, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

That reply was unfair. User 72.179.63.12 merely claimed that adherence has become dogmatic and that plenty of people disagreed. And that was a reasonable response to "if you are one of the few people left...." by User 199.125.109.98. That said, see my reply to the original post by 69.48.224.12. crt (talk) 15:19, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I suggest user 72.179.63.12 finds out what NAS and AAAS are, and what their opinions are on GW. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.165.35.217 (talk) 20:23, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Saying that the term "greenhouse gas" is biased really stretches the definition of bias. The term has a well-defined and well-known meaning, and a reasonable theory or mechanism. It's certainly interesting that a recent physics article suggests that theory is flawed, but it hardly constitutes a bias not to take into account all possible views. For example, I'm quite enamored with Andrew Prentice's theory of the origin of the solar system. But I think it has about 12 adherents worldwide. Sure, he's made some great predictions, definitely worth someone pursuing. But I'd never claim an article on the history of the solar system was biased just because it took the accepted view to be, well, accepted. crt (talk) 15:19, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

bat "enthusiasts"?

Surely bat conservationists or bat biologists? Cheers! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.26.89.151 (talk) 10:07, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Wind power 2008

In previous years, editors have updated wind installed capacity during the year as data became available - I think we should add a 2008 column to the table and freeze the data or even restore to end-2007. Any opinions?--Gregalton (talk) 12:36, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I would recommend restoring to end of 2007 data. It is way too troublesome to update it month by month. There is no need for a 2008 column until the end of 2008 figures become available. In the article it is ok to note trends and indicate projections, but maintaining a table is too problematical. I think someone put in a 2008 column with only one number, and I took it out. Also the "Annual Wind Power Generation (TWh) / Total electricity consumption(TWh)" chart is too confusing, it needs to have the numbers put into separate columns. 199.125.109.49 (talk) 20:41, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

{{editprotected}} Please replace the "Annual Wind Power Generation" table with the following. 199.125.109.49 (talk) 02:05, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Annual Wind Power Generation (TWh) / Total electricity consumption(TWh)
Rank	Nation	2005		2006		2007
1	Germany	27.225	533.700	30.700	569.943	39.500	584.939
2	United States		4049.8	26.3	4104.967		4179.908
3	Spain	23.166	254.90	29.777	294.596		303.758
4	India		661.64
5	China		2474.7	2.70	2834.4		3255.9
6	Denmark (& Faeroe Islands)	6.614	34.30	7.432	44.24		37.276
7	France		547.8	2.323	550.063		545.289
8	United Kingdom	0.973	407.365		383.898		379.756
9	Portugal		35.0	4.74	48.876
World total (TWh)			16790

This page is not fully protected, so admin help isn't needed to edit it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:20, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

What really is driving Wind Power development?

Could it be the PTC that is going to "bust" the industry within a few years?

any comments? 97.88.136.94 (talk) 02:05, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but the only PTC I know about is the Power Takeoff Converter that gets attached to a tractor. Must be some other PTC that you had in mind. 199.125.109.38 (talk) 06:47, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

New models & more effectivity to Windpower

Hello, I found intresting article about windpower [9] and [10] and it came to my mind that mighby from this new technological steps should be mentions also? It seems that this technology will make revolution in know wind power industry.