Connecting Wind Farms Can Make A More Reliable And Cheaper Power Source

Science Daily ^ | 11/21/2007

[G Larry]

How to make a lost cause look better.

‘Lipstick on a Pig’ comes to mind.

[steveab]

“except on the High Plains of Texas”

I lived Flagstaff, Az. The wind never stop blowing. The Navajo’s wanted to put a wind farm on their land by Winslow but the rancher didn’t want it.

NOT IN MY BACK YARD THING You can not conserve your way out of a man made problem

[thinking]

I hate to throw water on this theory but, all wind farms are connected to the National Grid, and are synchronized to all power generators on the grid nation-wide....this a basic principle of AC power generation....hence the weakness of wind generation....there has to be a fossil fuel generator, waiting on line/grid, to supply power when the wind is not available, otherwise there would be burn-outs, or simply, no AC power...

[Mikey_1962]

"Widely Distributed Wind Turbines Mitigate Intermittancy Issues"

True and the "Mega-Scale" farms are coming...GE alone has orders for 4,500 turbine in 2010 right now!

[Mikey_1962]

The Big money is now involved, GE alone has orders for 4,500 turbine in 2010 right now, and there is Vestas, Clipper, etc... It is coming online very quickly.

[VOA]

Connecting Wind Farms Can Make A More Reliable And Cheaper Power Source

Won't happen if the "Bird Holocaust" environmentalists have their
way. Because there won't be that many windfarms to connect!

[pepsionice]

If you read up on Germany and its massive wind farm experience....they had a little experience last year...which they rarely chat publicly on. A huge surge of power suddenly appeared on the national grid...and the programmed “turn-off” situation occurred...with numerous power plants shutting down. It took around twelve hours before the majority of customers got their power back.

When the team sat down to figure why the system shut down....they found this massive wind “surge” that occurred, and came down from the north of the country...through all the valleys....to the south....pumping a massive amount of power into the grid...via the wind farms. No one had ever anticipated that situation occuring. They’ve remodeled their programing slightly...but this is something they can’t anticipate or predict.

It is absolutely true that a power plant must be up and running....even at a lower level...even if the wind farms are providing 100 percent of your power grid. So you cannot escape having power plants around.

[thinking]

Thanks for the interesting comments...I can see that happening, but I am surprised, that the Germans had not for seen such an event....just my theory, but I suspect, the surge, forced the wind generators, to shut down on either overspeed, or more probably, overload; the resultant disconnect of the wind generators, overloaded the grid, and crashed the national system.

The big problem we all face today, is the environment wackos , are not schooled in physics, and or engineering...they propose all measure of “green” concepts, but fail to factor in the real world...there is no free ride....as an example; consider how much fossil fuel is required to manufacture a wind generator, and install the infrastructure to accommodate the power output....simply, how many years of power generation will be required to offset the fossil fuel used in construction....I suggest dozens of years....

[pepsionice]

This is an amusing aspect to wind farms...which most folks don’t realize.

Here in Germany...the farms usually consist of three to twelve wind mills...of a huge proportion. They were interviewing the maintenance guy...who goes out once each morning to check the gear and make sure it all works. He carried a plastic bag with him...which the camera crew asked what the purpose of it was? He walked over and picked up a dead bird...then another dead bird...then another. He said in a rather amusing German maintenance guy-sort-of-way: “It attracts the birds, and they die.”

This generated a group of the Green guys...”save-the-birds” dudes....who got all upset and now question this wind-mill idea. So...you’ve got one green group who desperately want this to work....and another green group who desperately want to halt the construction and go back regular coal-fired plants.