Wind chill: Rural residents worry about impact of lightly regulated industry (NM-Wind turbines)

The Santa Fe New Mexican ^ | Staci Matlock

[CedarDave]

More turbines are in windy New Mexico's future, making many renewable energy advocates cheer. They note wind energy is far cleaner and almost as cheap as electricity from coal-fired power plants. Wind energy companies tout the revenue and jobs generated for cash-strapped rural counties.

But a battle is brewing over where wind energy facilities should be built and the first battleground is in rural villages.

"Wind power is a clean, inexhaustible domestic resource," said Michael McDiarmid, of the Energy Minerals and Natural Resources Department. "I think it's important for our energy future to have more wind energy."

The state ranks 12th in the U.S. in potential wind energy capacity, with 49,700 megawatts possible. Under state regulations, utility companies in New Mexico must produce 20 percent of total energy needs from renewable resources by 2020, at least 20 percent of it from wind.

Debates are raging within environmental circles about what is really "green" energy. Those who point out potential problems with wind power facilities are slammed as NIMBYs (people who say Not In My Back Yard).

... What [residents] found out disturbed them: Noise, flashing lights at night, impacts on wildlife and dramatically changed landscapes are all issues other people living near wind farms have dealt with, and scientists are trying to evaluate.

What's not required in New Mexico is approval from any state agency if the project is on private land. ...In New Mexico and most states, it's up to the counties.

"Renewable energy is not free energy," said Bill Dolson, a pilot, computer engineer and landscape artist in El Valle. "All energy has a cost. In the case of wind energy, that cost is the destruction of the rural landscape on a national level if measures are not put into place to regulate the placement of wind facilities."

[CedarDave]

Lengthy article that covers the pros and cons of this energy source.

The rush to alternative energy has impacts, especially on rural residents who see their nearby landscape being radically altered. Of course, the primary theme going through the article is that more government regulation is necessary to mitigate these impacts.

Renewables to date have had very little impact on actual energy production. Though rising quickly, it remains just a small portion of the nation's overall energy supply.

From the article, more than a third of the new power added to the electric grid last year was from wind energy (article source: the American Wind Energy Association). Currently, about 5 million U.S. homes are powered in part by wind.

[CedarDave]

Forgot the date of the article: Sunday, January 11, 2009

[CedarDave]

Currently, about 5 million U.S. homes are powered in part by wind.

I suspect they count homes that receive power from a power company that is connected in any way to a wind power grid, no matter how minor the energy contribution.

[pnh102]

If wind power isn’t “regulated” then I hope it stays that way. The second it gets regulated it will cease to be an option explored by investors as a supplemental power source.

[CedarDave]

Grabbed your cartoon from Norm's thread. Thought is was funny and so true!

Future cloudy for California solar farm (OptiSolar lays off nearly half its work-force)

[CedarDave]

PING! to the New Mexico list.

FReepmail greyfox39 to be added or removed from the list.

[Red_Devil 232]

Thermal power stations

Conventional power stations fission a material or burn a fuel to obtain heat that is used to boil water and superheat the resulting steam which is fed to the steam turbines (some power stations also use gas turbines in combination with steam turbines). The turbines drive turbogenerators that make electricity.

A power station takes days to start producing electricity from a cold start. Time is needed to boil the water, to superheat the steam, to warm all the components of the power station, and to spin the turbogenerators up to operating speed.

Each power station is designed to provide an output of electricity. It can only provide very little more or very little less than this output (i.e., a power station has a "low turndown ratio").

Electricity demand matching

Electricity is wanted all the time but the demand for electricity varies from hour to hour, day to day, and month to month. The electricity grid has to match the supply of electricity to the demand for it at all times. This is difficult because power stations cannot be switched on and off as demand varies.

The problem of matching electricity supply to varying demand is overcome by operating power stations in three modes called "base load," "generation," and "spinning standby."

Some power stations operate all the time providing electricity to the grid, and they are said to provide "base load."

Other power stations also operate all the time but do not provide electricity all the time. They burn (or fission) their fuel to boil water and superheat the resulting steam which is fed to the steam turbines that are thus kept hot and spinning all the time. Of course, they emit all the emissions from use of their fuel all the time. But some of this time they dump heat from their cooling towers instead of generating electricity, and they are then said to be operating "spinning standby."

One or more power stations can be instantly switched from spinning standby to provide electricity to match an increase to demand for electricity. It is said to be operating "generation" when it is providing electricity. Power stations are switched between spinning standby and generation as demand for electricity changes.

Thus the grid operator manages the system to match supply with demand for electricity by switching power stations between "generation" and "spinning standby."

Windfarm input to electricity

Windfarms only provide electricity when the wind is strong enough and not too strong. So, they suddenly provide electricity when the wind changes. The grid operator must match this changed supply of electricity to the existing demand for electricity. Of course, the grid operator achieves the match by switching a power station to spinning standby mode. That power station continues to operate in this mode so it can provide electricity when the windfarm stops supplying electricity because the wind has changed again.

Windfarms only force power stations to operate more spinning standby. They provide no useful electricity and make no reduction to emissions from power generation. Indeed, the windfarm is the true source of emissions from a power station operating spinning standby in support of the windfarm.

Windfarms have capital, maintenance and operating costs that add to the cost of electricity. These costs are their only contribution to electricity supply.

[eclecticEel]

Under state regulations, utility companies in New Mexico must produce 20 percent of total energy needs from renewable resources by 2020, at least 20 percent of it from wind.

Which works out to be 4% of New Mexico's electricity needs will be met by wind power; this is the type of thoroughly unimpressive result that the envirowackos are 'cheering'.

[GOPyouth]

making many renewable energy advocates cheer

I'm no scientist, but the last time I checked, there's absolutely no such thing as renewable energy.

[Army Air Corps]

Impressive, eh?

[businessprofessor]

Windfarms only force power stations to operate more spinning standby. They provide no useful electricity and make no reduction to emissions from power generation. Indeed, the windfarm is the true source of emissions from a power station operating spinning standby in support of the windfarm.

Are you saying that a power generator must have 100% of the windfarm capacity as standby at all times? It seems that a power generator must only have some fraction of the windfarm capacity as standby. I would guess that complex algorithms are used to determine the amount of standby required each day or even hour. Still if the requirement is only for some fraction, it is a heavy tax on renewable energy. Does the same standby situation apply to solar (PV and solar thermal)?

[OldGuard1]

I’m no big wind advocate (when it comes to energy, I care about two things: how cheap it is, and whether it comes from our enemies or not, so coal is just fine in my book), but your statement not actually accurate. Several corrections.

1) For the most part, wind isn’t intermittent; it’s variable. Only a small percentage of the time is there no generation at a wind farm.

2) There are not just two types of power generation (intermittent and baseload). There’s also peaking power. Peaking power generation capacity is required anyways in order to meet the fact that *demand* fluctuates. Fluctuations in demand would otherwise have to go to spinning standby. Peaking generation is that which can rapidly fluctuate up and down in output, such as natural gas and hydro. Now, wind can increase the need for peaking power generation capacity, but it’s generally not nearly as much as the wind farm produces, and peaking power certainly not spinning standby. All of the studies I’ve seen show very minimal additional spinning standby from adding wind to the mix. However, if you try to add more 10% or so wind without long-distance transmission and/or storage, then you either need additional peaking capacity whose costs becomes prohibitive or you have to make more use of spinning standby. But in our current low-penetration environment, that’s not the case; the amount of power generated by the turbines exceeds by over an order of magnitude the amount spent on spinning standby.

3) Windfarms still produce power when the wind is too strong. They just don’t produce as much power as a raw V-squared relationship would suggest.

4) The changes in wind farm power output are seldom sudden.

My gripe with wind is simply that we’re subsidizing it. Stop that, and I’m fine with it. Its domestic, and if it can compete on its own merits, so be it. Same with solar, geothermal, and whatever. Stop spending my tax money on it, and I’ll wish it no foul.

[OldGuard1]

I'm no scientist, but the last time I checked, there's absolutely no such thing as renewable energy.
The laws of thermodynamics will be obeyed in this household!

[thackney]

Windfarms still produce power when the wind is too strong.

No, most designs quits producing power when winds are too strong.

[ArrogantBustard]

The laws of thermodynamics will be obeyed in this household!

You can't win.

You can't break even.

There's only one way out of the game ...

[Red_Devil 232]

Are you saying that a power generator must have 100% of the windfarm capacity as standby at all times?

When windpower contributes 20% or more of the potential electricity supply you had better have 100% of that 20% covered when you have a failure (no wind, low wind speed, to high of a wind speed) otherwise you manage it like Southern California does - Rolling Brown Outs - until you get power from somewhere else.

The DOE says there are 18,000 square miles of good wind sites in the U.S., which with current technology could produce 20% of the country's electricity. This rosy plan, based on the wind industry's sales brochures, as well as on a claim of electricity use that is only three-quarters of the actual use in 2002, would require "only" 142,060 1.5-MW towers. They also explain, "If the wind resource is well matched to peak loads, wind energy can effectively contribute to system capacity." That's a big if -- counting on the wind to blow exactly when demand rises -- especially if you expect the wind to cover 20% (or even 5%) of that demand. As in Denmark and Germany, you would quickly learn that the prudent thing to do is to look elsewhere first in meeting the load demand. And we'd be stuck with a lot of generally unhelpful hardware covering every windy spot in the U.S., while the developers would be looking to put up yet more to make up for and deny their failings.

[OldGuard1]

No, most designs quits producing power when winds are too strong. Look up the word "furling". There's also a newer tech where the blades themselves rotate or bend at the hub. In either method, power is still produced, but not as much as the standard V-squared relationship would suggest. The more the turbine furls or the blades rotate/bend, the lower the percent of the wind the turbine can capture... but it's still capturing power.

[OldGuard1]

When windpower contributes 20% or more of the potential electricity supply you had better have 100% of that 20% covered when you have a failure (no wind, low wind speed, to high of a wind speed) otherwise you manage it like Southern California does - Rolling Brown Outs - until you get power from somewhere else.

That's a gross misunderstanding of how power generation works. We already *have to* have far more maximum generation capacity than we actually use, because demand fluctuates dramatically between day/night and over the course of the year. Our current average capacity factor is something like 50% -- we average generating about half of what we're capable of. There's a complex relationship balancing baseload, peaking, and variable power sources. It gets even more complicated when you have long-distance power transmission, such as HVDC, where a variable source in one area may be producing surplus while one far away is producing too little.

Just let it suffice to say that power companies use elaborate statistical models to determine infrastructure requirements to guarantee uptimes of at least a given percent of the time, and these show that when variable sources like wind and solar are have low penetration (less than 10%), they produce an order of magnitude more power than they waste in spinning standby and don't require much additional peaking infrastructure. However, once you start getting over 10%, if you don't have HVDC and/or storage, that changes fairly quickly with increasing penetration. With HVDC, you can get up to something like 30% penetration without problems, but beyond that, you pretty much have to have storage, which is a big problem.

[thackney]

It is a concept, but the when I look at the technical specs for the current designs, they still reference cut-out speeds.

http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/products/wind_turbines/en/36mw/36mw_specs.htm

http://www.suzlon.com/Multi-Megawatt%20Series%20Technical%20Specificatons.pdf

http://northernpower.com/assets/files/NWind100_Specs_02B_mech-2.pdf

http://www.avionexusa.com/avionex-100-400.htm

Do you have reference to a currently produced, utility sized turbine that does not have a max wind speed.

[Red_Devil 232]

You might want to read this.

The Problem With Wind