Too much wind power

[pewd]

From todays Dallas News:
Debate flares over Wind Power in Texas

..."and even with enough transmission lines, the on-again, off-again nature of wind can leave coal and natural gas-fired power plants scrambling to fill in the gaps."...


I'm not an engineer, however, it seems that the article is ignoring the concept of power storage. Wind and solar systems need a way of storing energy for times when those systems can't produce - low wind conditions, or night (for PV systems).

How about pumping water uphill, then turning a turbine at night,
or heating water and storing it in insulated underground tanks, then running that into heat exchange (heat pump?) systems at night or in low wind conditions.

Theres more to it than just spinning a wind turbine at times when it happens to be windy. We need some new ideas represented in our regulatory boards.

[icarus]

Originally Posted by pewd

From todays Dallas News:
Debate flares over Wind Power in Texas

..."and even with enough transmission lines, the on-again, off-again nature of wind can leave coal and natural gas-fired power plants scrambling to fill in the gaps."...


I'm not an engineer, however, it seems that the article is ignoring the concept of power storage. Wind and solar systems need a way of storing energy for times when those systems can't produce - low wind conditions, or night (for PV systems).

How about pumping water uphill, then turning a turbine at night,
or heating water and storing it in insulated underground tanks, then running that into heat exchange (heat pump?) systems at night or in low wind conditions.

Theres more to it than just spinning a wind turbine at times when it happens to be windy. We need some new ideas represented in our regulatory boards.

How about plug in hybirds, buy AND selling to the grid? These acting as a big 24/7, disaggregated storage battery for wind and Solar.

(Pumping water up hill to generate hydro is a net enrgry loser.)

Icarus

[qbee42]

[quote=icarus;663822
(Pumping water up hill to generate hydro is a net enrgry loser.)

Icarus[/quote]
All methods of storing energy are net energy losers.

Tom

[tomgraywind]

Plug-in hybrids would be great, not so much because of the storage capability, but because they would let wind and solar power really begin to take a direct bite out of oil imports.

With all due respect to Ms. Souder, her article is a bit over the top. Wind farms do deliver variable amounts of electricity, but the rate of change in their output is much slower than what happens when a large conventional (coal or nuclear) plant suddenly goes out of service. With wind forecasting, utility system operators should not have a problem dealing with variations in the wind just as they do with variations with customer demand throughout the day.

Storage is rarely considered, not because folks are unaware of it, but because there are almost always cheaper options--more transmission, more gas peaking units, etc.

Regards,
Thomas O. Gray
American Wind Energy Association
PowerOfWind.com
American Wind Energy Association
20% Windpower by 2030

[GreenSteve]

There are some places where the wind blows much more often than it does not. I hapen to live about 7 miles from one of the biggest wind farms in the US, in the San Gorgonio Mountain pass near Palm Springs, CA. In the same area there are some natural gas peak generator stations that can jump on the grid during times of peak demand or still air.

Wind power is a very logical way to develop power without producing CO2.

Photos: More Windmills, Palm Springs: un álbum de Flickr

[icarus]

Originally Posted by qbee42

All methods of storing energy are net energy losers.

Tom

I realize that, and I should have been more careful with my wording. My point is that pumping water up hill only to have it run down through a turbine is a very inefficient way to generate power. You could however, justify it if you were using power that might other wise go to waste, ie wind or solar, but in fact you would be way farther ahead to put it into the grid first, or batteries second.

Icarus

[FL_Prius_Driver]

Whenever someone points out that:
1) Windfarms kill birds.
2) Windfarms are not dependable
3) Windfarms are intermittent
just shows that they did not bother with any homework. None at all. They just fired a bad opinion from the hip.

1) Where are the studies showing modern wind turbines kill birds? (How many prop driven airplanes kill birds?)

2) Wind power is vastly more dependable than user variations in load. Note that even with just coal and nuclear power plants, power companies still need to have home load management systems to handle user demand cycles.

3) One of the short time averaging items fielded are flywheel storage systems
Beacon Power
There are many others being examined, but I know I could adjust my loads to match power source variations with little problem.

[FL_Prius_Driver]

Originally Posted by tomgraywind

Plug-in hybrids would be great, not so much because of the storage capability, but because they would let wind and solar power really begin to take a direct bite out of oil imports.

With all due respect to Ms. Souder, her article is a bit over the top. Wind farms do deliver variable amounts of electricity, but the rate of change in their output is much slower than what happens when a large conventional (coal or nuclear) plant suddenly goes out of service. With wind forecasting, utility system operators should not have a problem dealing with variations in the wind just as they do with variations with customer demand throughout the day.

Storage is rarely considered, not because folks are unaware of it, but because there are almost always cheaper options--more transmission, more gas peaking units, etc.

Regards,
Thomas O. Gray
American Wind Energy Association
PowerOfWind.com
American Wind Energy Association
20% Windpower by 2030

Thanks for you input. One item I would like to add. Little advocation has been advanced for users to vary their loads to match generation variations. With very little automation the following things could be done:
1) Heat the hot water when the generation is optimum
2) Run Non-Time dependent loads (pool pumps, air compressors, etc.) at power company notified periods.
3) Put light loads (lighting, computers) on a UPS system that allows for load management.

Admittedly, there would need to be economic incentive to do so, but then there actually is a economic reward for doing so for the producer and the user.

[patsparks]

The very reason we need more wind farms is the variable nature of the wind.
In sailing a way to get an advantage over an opponent is to find a piece of water where the wind is blowing harder at the time you are on that piece of water. The wind as we all know is never constant, it can be blowing hard on one side of town while not at all on the other.

The best way to achieve stability of supply is to have wind farms all over the place, better still stop thinking farms and think turbines. Why not single turbines where ever they can placed? No need to have a minimum number greater than 1. This way, especially in a land mass as big as Texas, if the wind isn't blowing on one part of the state it will be blowing on another. When the wind blows across the state, sell the energy to neighbouring states, when there is little wind across Texas, buy from other states or take the opportunity to fire up the old coal or gas fired power stations as the power from wind slowly drops as the calm air moves over the state.

Of course drops in wind speed shouldn't come as a surprise, with Doppler radar wind speeds can be detected hundreds of miles away giving early warning that wind speeds are going to fall allowing early action to be taken.

I think the idea of using excess wind and solar energy from high production periods or low demand periods to pump water into dams is a good idea, although it would require a large body of water below the dam. Even though the losses are big, the energy would otherwise not be used at all. I think a preferred method would be to use hydro only when there was a demand wind and solar were not able to meet and completely shut down hydro when wind and solar can meet demand. This saved that potential energy of falling water for when it is needed like a battery.

There is currently under development a base-load solar technology using the sun and concentrator dishes to heat ammonia, that heat can be stored and recovered to produce steam to drive a conventional steam turbine power generator.

Wizard Power, the Whyalla community and the Federal Government through the Australian Greenhouse Office. The Big Dish will be linked to ammonia-based storage technology which will be able to produce on-demand peak-load or base-load power.

AdelaideNow... Whyalla solar project set to shine

The big advantage of solar is, when you want to turn your air conditioner on, it works its best. A diverse range of energy inputs spread across the state or the nation are what is required to successfully use natural energies to replace fossil fuel power.

[thepolarcrew]

#8+#9
What we need here is the wisdom and prospective of a Master Electrician and Innovation. Computer synchronization of a wind grid with battery back up and storage if need be.

If Toyota can couple an ICE with a battery pack what’s the difference?

I think the key stumbling block here is initial investment. If a municipality where to have lets say a block of storage batteries located through-out a metro, convert utilities such as street lights or similar types of utilities to dual purpose (conventional vs halogen bulb) and do a constant draw with back up, and take every other street light off the grid as power was drawn down this would take a lot of power off the grid to start with.

Coal or gas could have a committed turbine for back up if all else fails.
Or #9