Talk:Wind power

/Archive 1

Does anyone have some better images? I like this one which I know is from San Gorgonio Pass, but I'm not sure of its provenance. Nrcprm2026 21:58, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

World windpower map

I found this map interesting [1]. Maybe someone who understands German can decide if it is copyrighted? More graphs here [2]. Ultramarine 18:13, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The USA map should anyway be taken off. This article is not about Wind power in the United States! deeptrivia (talk) 00:48, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

A worldwide wind power map would be good, but would lose a lot of detail. The US map is the best freely available example I've seen, but I'd be happy to see something better. Iain McClatchie 19:21, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Energy Audit of wind turbines.

Discussions as to whether or not wind power is a net energy producer over its lifecycle. It was pointed out that energy costs are incorporated into the cost of any product and are generally a relatively small amount of the cost of a product so that it was unlikely that wind power is a net energy sink. A reference was eventually obtained: "[[3]] addresses this question. You'll all be relieved to know that the example wind installations produced between 17 and 39 times as much energy as it took to build and run them. --Wtshymanski 17:37, 10 August 2005 (UTC)"

Opposition POV's: Ecological disaster / global warming.

Discussion took place as to whether consuming wind energy would interfere with heat transport in the atmosphere.

Per Earth's_energy_budget the solar radiation input number you're looking for is 174,000 TW (Terawatts), 70% of which is absorbed, 64% by the atmosphere, so about 111,360 TW is tied up in the atmosphere at any given moment. For comparison, our Fossil Fuel consumption is about 13TW, all of which is human added waste heat. We don't require that much electric energy, total global grid consumption is about 1.5 TW (mostly from coal and ng which are included in the FF figure). So replacing FF derived grid power with renew/systain-ables (wind, etc), and the remaining ineffecient transportation (~20% usefull work done) use of FF with more effecient transportation methods (EV and BEV) would reduce that energy requirement substantially. This transportation transition may require the doubeling of grid capacity to 3 TW (my rough estimate). So it might prove to help! Eliminating 13 TW of excess heat and instead obsorbing 3 TW of said excess energy (though I doubt it would work out so elegantly). Anyway, that 3 TW represents some 1/37120th or 0.00269% of the energy in the atmosphere. Of course I could be offbase and am no expert myself. --D0li0 22:49, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Shaping

We need some good sources on "shaping," which I understand to mean back-up power for calm wind periods. I've read that when hydropower is used to shape electric power on a grid, the price increase amounts to 20%. This seems somewhat at odds with a rule of thumb estimate mentioned that no more than 1/3rd power on a grid should be wind. What is the actual premium involved in shaping wind power on a large (e.g. North American) grid?

What is the actual proportion of wind power beyond which shaping is inadequate for reliability? --James P.S. 07:04, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Least expensive form of new power

I've read from the Rocky Mountain News that wind power is the least expensive form of new power, recently dipping below the per-kwh cost of coal. Does anyone dispute this? --James P.S. 07:04, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

The "Rocky Mountain News" article is suspect. It says For instance, the construction cost of a conventional coal-fired plant is about $1,000 for every kilowatt-hour of electricity it produces. Cost of a wind power plant is $900 per kilowatt-hour, nuclear is $1,700 per kilowatt-hour while solar thermal is $2,400 per kilowatt-hour. In contrast, the cost is much lower at $400 per kilowatt-hour for a natural gas-fired plant, according to the Energy Information Administration. Evidently journalists writing about energy don't know the difference between a kilowatthour and a kilowatt. Look at your own electrical bill and work out your cost per kilowatthour and you'll see the problem immediately - these prices are about 4 decimal orders of magnitude too high. Assuming our innumerate source meant that the capital cost is in dollars per kilowatt (not kilowatt-hour), then consider that a wind plant doesn't produce nameplate kw all year - this means the capital cost is more like $2,058 dollars for a kilowatt with the same load factor as a nuclear plant. I've deleted this reference yet again - cost per kw is only one of the costs per kwh. --Wtshymanski 14:18, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

The simple and obvious typo you are referring to -- using "kwh" for "kw" in the construction cost doesn't disqualify the cost per kwh table at the end of the article, which is in line with other sources. Moreover, the statement that coal is still less expensive is misleading because only the oldest grandfathered-exempt coal plants are. --James S. 01:23, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

It's not a single typo, it shows a complete lack of understanding of the cost of electricity generation - this consistent error makes me doubt the accuracy of the whole article. It's not much help quoting articles that require a subscription to access. I'd like to see an article quoted that had some internal consistency and credibilty -journalists are notoriously inaccurate at numbers. --Wtshymanski 00:13, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, which one takes a subscription? I can see them all and I don't think I have a sub to anything here. --James S. 03:15, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Coverage stats

I've calculated that the U.S. could serve 95% of its electrical demand (again, with grid shaping based on hydropower) with wind turbines on less than 3% of U.S. farmland. Does anyone want to challenge this assertion before I add it to the article? --James P.S. 07:04, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

How did you determine this?

I first got the area of farmland from the CIA Factbook or something. I then went to www.windpower.org FAQ and looked up the power density per area for new installations. Then I found some PDF from the Electric Power Research Institute to get US demand. I came up with a quotient of 1.2% IIRC, then I used some extreme shaping and grid capacity assumptions to round up to 3%. Please check my work. —James S. 21:52, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Did you calculate how much acreage is needed for the pumped storage? Are you proposing to use existing dams in your equation, and finally at what point do we cross the line into Original Research here? I do believe the 3% number is the one occasionally throw around - specious though in a sense because wind towers don't really occupy the land, you can continue to farm the land with or without. Another approach to shaping is demand shaping - rather than supply increasing. Having a significant portion of the load prioritized can mitigate entirely the issue of fluctuating supply. Generally heaters are used, cooling ice can be used, etc ... obviously both will be used. Benjamin Gatti 21:31, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

James - I think, at first reading, your calculations, whilst possibly numerically accurate, are worthless because they do not take into account the (huge) transmission links (and their associated costs) that would be needed to make such a scheme work. Basically the pumped storage is in a different place to the wind which is in a different place to the load (cities). Bear in mind that 400/500 kV transmission links (double circuit, around 2 GW per circuit) cost around $1M per km or around $1.5M per mile - you'd need 1000's of miles of such lines in the US I reckon. --Apower 11:34, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I have worked in the power industry for many years in the UK, and for many years in the field of intermittent power generation (wind et al). Can people with no detailed knowledge of power systems and their operation please stop contributing well-meaning nonsense? E.g. comment concerning "maintaining a.c. phase" which I'm just about to remove. Any half decent power engineer knows the phase difference across a transmission line is (approximately) proportional to the real power transmitted and is NOT constant across the system - if it were no power would flow! Generation is made equal to demand on a continuous basis by maintaining constant frequency - any visit to a control room will demonstrate this. --Apower 17:40, 10 January 2006 (UTC)User:apower 17:40, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

In direct response to the original question, the most succinct answer I know is this, from the UK:

“The analysis suggests that:

– costs are negligible at low levels, indeed small amounts of intermittent generation cannot be detected by the system operator;

– costs are less than 0.1p/kWh for 10% of electricity from intermittents;

– costs are less than 0.2p/kWh for 20% of electricity from intermittents.”

Source: Cabinet Office, Performance and Innovation Unit, 2002, “The Energy Review” (full report can be found here: http://www.strategy.gov.uk/downloads/su/energy/TheEnergyReview.pdf - see page 100). These are costs per kWh generated by wind.

Quite where the figure of a 20% increase in cost comes from I don't know - 0.1p/kWh is around 2-4% of the current cost of wind power. I am especially surprised as hydro would be the cheapest form of balancing power available, and is generally viewed as an excellent complement to variable sources like wind.

In answer to the question of an 'upper limit' - at the moment there is no proof of a technical upper limit to the penetration of variable power sources like wind on power systems, the issues are more economic and regulatory. Regions such as western Denmark and parts of northern Germany gain a quarter or more of their overall power from wind, and at times have been running on 100% wind; there has yet to be a power cut in these areas caused by wind variability. Danish grid company Energinet is relaxed about further wind development in the country, though northern German grid co Eon Netz is more hostile (but then it's dealing within a balancing market environment that is stacked against wind). These regions are highly interconnected with the European power grid (particularly Denmark with Norway and its hydro-dominated generation system), which certainly helps, but these real-life examples show that high penetrations are possible.

Re the relative cost of wind and other power sources - it really depends on the site: for instance, in New Zealand, which has possibly the best wind resources in the world, wind slugs it out with all-comers, with no subsidies bar a small uplift from selling carbon reduction credits; Germany is still handing out about 8€¢/kWh fixed for 20 years because its wind resource is terrible. The cheaper-than-coal line is almost certainly true in the US, however, if it factors in the effect of the currently in force Production Tax Credit, worth 1.9¢/kWh. The effect of this benefit is to make the wind market in the US go bananas - 2,500MW of new wind power went in last year, roughly 5% of the total installed wind capacity in the world.

Gordon Edge

[Declaration of interest/expertise: I work for the British Wind Energy Association.] 82.138.219.238 21:52, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Gordon, I'm not arguing with you (really!) but figures like "Denmark produces over 25% of its power (energy) from wind" are grossly misleading when applied to arguments over the maximum penetration into a power system. Denmark (and Germany) is connected to, and is part of, the VAST UCPTE power system. Your comment "These regions are highly interconnected with the European power grid (particularly Denmark with Norway and its hydro-dominated generation system), which certainly helps" made me chuckle as it's like saying the invention of the Saturn 5 rocket "helped" with the moon landings. The proportion of wind energy on this (UCPTE) system is very small (I'd guess <2% without looking the figures up) which is why it's not a problem. I should declare I'm ex-National Grid, UK. --Apower 13:36, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Stationary fuel cells for storage

Here's a basis for current H2 electrolysis storage.

NPOV Question

This sentence from (economics) seems to assert that wind requires subsidies in order to compete with traditional energy; however, 97% of subsidies have gone to nuclear energy, while gas and oil get huge subsides in many ways not least of which is the free-ride on the health effects of pollution.

"* In order to compete with traditional sources of energy, wind power often receives financial incentives. In the United States, wind power receives a tax credit of 1.9 cents per kilowatt-hour produced, with a year inflationary adjustment."

So I would propose perhaps changing it:

"Wind power requires far less government economic support than either fossil fuels or nuclear power, and for this reason is the fastest growing form of energy production available today." Benjamin Gatti 21:24, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think we need to belabor this point of view. A NPOV does require that we acknowledge that at the current time, getting wind to compete with other subsidized forms of energy requires subsidies for wind. -- Chuck

Wind Power Land Usage

Hey, I was interested in how a wind farm compared to land usage vs. strip mining for coal, so I tracked down some data and did the math.

Coal mining: 40,000,000 short tons of coal / 1 mile^2 (USGS data for Montana strip mining area)

1000 mw coal plant = 4 mst coal / year (US DOE)
plant lifespan = 50 years
200 mst coal burned over lifetime
total stripmine area to produce coal = 5 miles^2

94 miles^2 = 1000mw wind plant coverage (AWEA)
only 5% of this is actually occupied by turbines (AWEA), or 4.7 miles^2

Thus the actual turbines for a 1000 mw wind farm would occupy less area than the strip mining required to run an equivalent coal plant for 50 years. However, the additional "buffer" zone around the turbine would be 20x the strip mining.

Still, it seems pretty good, especially when you calculate the resources in transporting coal and the emissions.

I wasn't sure whether or not to put this in the actual article.

• Interesting figures. It should be noted that the typical expected life of a wind turbine is 20 years (although if a facility proves viable the turbines would be upgraded after that). Also, AWEA's insistence that only 5% of the area of a wind farm is actually "used" is like saying a 747 only occupies only a few square feet of ground space (where its wheels sit). A wind turbine needs clearance around it and its visual and noise or vibrational impact are obviously widespread -- especially when they are erected on prominent ridgelines. Kerberos 23:53, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

• • Yes - partly true, and not - you see, with subsidized wind turbines taking 5% of a farmers land, it still leaves the remaining 95% to grow subsidies corn, or raise subsidized pigs, so in the mid-west, this is true, however near urban areas, it would be a problem, but then nuclear plants and coal mines don't fit the model planned community very well either. Personally, I think wave energy is better for urban centers - its very close in most cases, doesn't intrude on the visuals, and protects the coastline. Benjamin Gatti 03:48, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

fastest growing

Can we substantiate whether or not wind power is the fastest growing source (on a percentage basis) of electricity produced in the United States? The EIA sort of supports that statement [4] as recently as 2004. However, note the following: 1) "commercial hydropower" grew faster, whatever that is; (2) the growth in solar is for utility generated solar (which is dominated by a plant in the mojave desert) -- off grid and/or grid connected electricity produced by non-utilities is not counted. So many qualifications seem to be required to substantiate this claim that I currently don't think it is a useful claim. Can we get data for the world as a whole? -- Chuck

Also, note that it is plausible that electricity production increased by 30-some-odd percent in 2004 over 2003 despite losing federal tax breaks due to latencies between when projects are started and when they start producing electricity. So I'm not sure that it's reasonable for us to suggest that wind power can grow rapidly even without the federal support. Of course, if we can get some 2005 electricity generation figures for the U.S. ... -- Chuck

(Chuck) It would help a great deal if you would create a log-in. I enjoy your edits, but there would have been complaints about deleting old comments, as they are instead Archived (which I took care of for you). Your insights are much appreciated. Benjamin Gatti 00:50, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the etiquette lesson.  ;-) Chuck Simmons 00:59, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Construction cost and externality recovery

I thought we had verified that it took 18 weeks for a turbine to replace its cost of materials and construction, and recover the expended CO₂ on balance. Is that still in the article or did someone take it out? --James S. 06:02, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Was it three months or four months? Doesn't recovering the energy budget include recovery of the CO₂ excess from production, or is that what the extra month is for? --James S. 00:54, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Global mean wind speed

Here is an interesting report: http://www.ssmi.com/papers/ocean_surface.pdf --James S. 00:54, 1 March 2006 (UTC)