Don’t get to ‘wee wee’d’ up over this article. They have to be seriously slanting the facts.
If 19% of the power for the country is being generated by wind, then there is clearly a large reduction in carbon footprint.
The article claims, ‘not a single power plant was shutdown’.
So how is that possible...
Either they have increased their electric consumption 19%; or they have cut back on the power generation at the power plants (but not closed them.)
I don’t like it when articles are written to mislead and not enlighten!!!
19% is nothing to sneeze at.
We’re not even close to that in the US, and probably never will be.
I don’t support wind over more efficient sources, but for some remote applications, 19% would be a hell of a start.
The 19% would be at peak operation. The coal power plants have to have sufficient resources to take up the slack when wind generators are not operating at capacity. Just as when the wind generated load decreases, the more reliable source has to over-produce. This causes the consumption of more coal.
Consideration #1: Wind in the United States I think has a capacity factor of only about 33%, which means if there is 30,000 wind installed over there, it only provides about 10,000 Megawatt hours. So perhaps the 19% figure is the installed capacity, which means that only about 7% of the overall energy need is met.
Consideration #2: Wind patterns (at least in the US...I assume it is the same over there) are such that the highest wind speeds are generallyovernight (when loads are down), and is the wind speeds are at a minimum over the day peak, especially on hot days. For instance, the wind output in the Midwest US last summer over the peak hour of the summer was 11 Mw's.....yes, I said 11 Mw's. Therefore, even though coal or gas generation is displaced overnight, you can't permanently shut it down because you need it to meet peak loads over the summer or winter peaking conditions.
Consideration #3: Wind is very unpredictable, which means that the utilities must have extra generation on line capable of responding quickly to second to second wind variations. Therefore, even though the wind capacity is installed, it is doubtful they could do away with much of the generation that the wind was supposed to replace.
Unfortunately you don’t know in advance when the wind will stop blowing and you can’t crank up a conventional plant in short order so you must keep the coal or gas running even though you are not spinning the turbines. It is called back-stopping and all wind generation has to be supported by conventional means.
One of the facts that the wind-industry will not tell you is that wind can actually INCREASE the carbon output.
Why?
They cannot REPLACE a coal-fired (or nuclear, or other) plant, because they are not dependable enough.
Theerfore, unless folks are willing to live without electricity when it's not windy (hint: they're not), you have to maintain exactly the same capacity in coal-fired (or other) plants as before, to cover the demand.
But a plant operating at 95% capacity actually spits out LESS pollution than a plant operating at 50% capacity.
And obviously the efficiency goes down as the wind kicks up.
So it's not as green as the free-wind folks would like to believe.
Did you mean 1.9%?
Anyway, we need a bigger carbon footprint - better for the farms.
Although it's 19% of production it only covers 10-14% of actual demand. Wind power is highly variable and you need backup power to cover times of low wind, which is why those fossil fuel plants are still there.
But the real hidden flaw in the system is that a lot of the slack is covered by power imported from Norway, Sweden Germany in times of lean wind. Of course in the good times Denmark can export Wind to those countries.
But the Danes havent repealed the Law of Supply and Demand, so they not only have the highest cost power (wind) competing with the lowest (hydro), but the times they have surplus power their customers also have the same (Germany has wind power too you know), so the export price has to be reduced to make the other countries accept Danish Wind.
At times this export price is negative. The Danes have to pay other countries to take Danish power.
The article claims, ‘not a single power plant was shutdown’.
So how is that possible...
To understand how it is possible, you have to understand how the electrical system works. 19% of the kwH delivered may have been from wind, but the wind is not a steady reliable producer. For instance, in one part of the day, wind may be providing 30 or 40% of the total demand, but then the wind can slow or even stop entirely, and demand must be met from other sources.
Conventional steam plants, be they coal, gas, oil or biofuel, can not be switched on and off like a light switch. They have to be ready to generate extra MW at a moment's notice since the wind is so intermittent. To do so, they have to have a fire burning in the boiler, generating steam, and have the turbine spinning and synchronized to the grid running at low power or even no power -- a very inefficient way of operating. Only then can they ramp up to meet demand and keep the grid from crashing entirely. So while the wind is blowing, these conventional plants are still operating, burning fuel, but not operating at their highest efficiency levels, which is typically 100% power.
That is just the generation side of the equation. Wind also causes some unique problems on the transmission side. It is vital that the grid be balanced from a voltage and frequency standpoint, and because wind changes by the second, the output to the grid can cause voltage and frequency to vary beyond acceptable values and the higher the percentage of wind on the grid, the more dramatically values can jump. To keep the grid balanced, conventional plants that can respond rapidly must be deployed to track the frequency and voltage to keep the grid balanced.
Obviously you are not in the power business. This article is spot on.
Wind power is unreliable - that is why the transportation industry got out of it 150 years ago. You don’t see clipper ships delivering goods and commodities to NY harbor, do you? There is a reason they abandoned it, because it stinks as an energy source.
Every wind deal only shows a pro forma power production for a maximum 35% of the year, but much less in reality. They cost $2500 per KW or about as much as a coal plant and produce so little power. Therefore you would have to install 3 times the windmills (3000 MW) to get to the power output of a 1000 MW coal plant. (Much more steel and concrete and wire go into those windmills than a coal plant!) Yet - what people don’t know because they have not read a wind study, on the continental US the two worst months for wind power are July and August. When you need electric power the most due to air conditioning demand, windmills produce virtually nothing. That’s why they have kept their fossil fuel plants!
The country pays 3 times for a windmill, once to put it up, the second is the $20 per MWhr that the government subsidizes its production and the third, and this is where Denmark is spot on - the fossil fuel powered backup required to stabilize the grid when 1000 MW’s of wind power stop suddenly. (This happened in Texas and almost brought down the grid.)
GE loves to sell wind turbines because behind every wind turbine sale is a natural gas fired turbine sale that is actually fired up and idling. It is called “spinning reserve” because grid operators realize the fragility of their system and they cannot rely on the wind so when the wind is blowing they start their turbines and idle them and as the wind dies down they ramp up the gas generators so there is a seamless stream of power to the grid. That is why Denmark did not close its fossil fuel plants - because they couldn’t and that is why our electric bills will continue to go up to subsidize wind and to pay for the equipment to back it up. The irony is that the utility is burning gas waiting for the wind to start, and then burning gas waiting for it to stop. Plus all the steel, concrete and wire that is forged to make these wasted wind assets when they produce so little power that is unreliable. The CEO of Socal Edison said for every 100MW’s of wind, he gets 6 usable MW’s.
Wind power cannot be stored and therefore it is a complete waste of resources. It also kills birds and bats and will destroy the ecology if allowed to continue.