Wind-farms? Facts please

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Originally posted by Rico:
we're about to have a farm of 60-odd wind turbines built on the outer edge of town on one of the most windswept gadawful hills in existence (usually under cloud) which will, apparrently, "generate power at full potential about 47 per cent of the time, double the international average for wind farms."... "Meridian had chosen Siemens 2.3-megawatt wind turbines for the 62-turbine farm."..."have a total capacity of more than 140 megawatts, enough electricity to power all the houses in Wellington"... the key to the output being above average is the constant wind profile of the site.

I used to work for a software house providing trading systems for the independent generating companies following the 'Dash for Gas' a while ago. Most of these gas powered power stations were rated at c200MW. They were relatively clean and gas was cheap and plentiful at the time.

Given that we don't have the same level of wind as Wellington (isn't it known as the "Windy City"?), just how many wind turbines would be needed to replace just one of these let alone one of the big coal fired stations?

I've been to Gran Canaria (which seems to have constant wind) and the coastline is littered with wind turbines, I guess it must work there but we're not talking about a population of 60m.

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I think the construction of new areas of badly designed housing is far more of an eyesore-and a lot more permanent FWIW

I agree. BUT.....

It isn't sensible to promote wind-farms, or tollerate them, just because we already have another problem that needs to be dealt with.

We need to sort out badly designed housing, amd a whole load of other things as well.

And we need to sort out a global population policy - preferably before nature does it for us.

Cheers

Don

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just how many wind turbines would be needed to replace just one of these let alone one of the big coal fired stations?

About 200, however.....

You can call up a gas-fired power station and have it on line within minutes. Very useful to cope with the morning and evening "cup-of-tea" peaks.

Try calling up a wind turbine at 06:30 or in the evening....and for much of the time they will tell you that its calm (no wind).

Much of our weather it characterised by the wind dying down late afternoon/early evening and not picking up again until mid-morning. Bit of a bugger for a peak-load generating opperation.

Assuming that wind-turbines average 1 megawatt capacity each, then about 2,000 would be needed to replace a fossil-fuel power station (eg Eggborough) and about 3,000 to replace a nuclear one, assuming they could generate 100% of the time. You'd need to increase that number and provide electrical storage (batteries?) to cope with the out-of-sequence variations between demand and generating capability.

As you might have gathered by now, I am not an advocate for wind-turbines - primarily because of the visual intrusion.

Cheers

Don

What Don said about the felxibility of the gas-fired station is true.

One of the key things with the supply is that demand varies a lot throughout the day and for certain events it is considerable (e.g. advert breaks duing popular TV shows).

The way the electricity pool was rigged was so that the nuclear stations were on 24/7 together with some of the large older coal fired ones as they were not responsive tobeing switched on and off like a tap.

The generating companies had to bid for supplying a certain number of MWs for half hour slots throughout the day. (they may still do so it's a few years since I was involved in all this). The National Grid would then purchase enough power from the generating companies (starting with nuclear) depending on the bid price up to the predicted demand level. The mad thing was that ALL of the companies would then be paid using the price of power at this level! Tghis lead to the small companies bidding to generate power for nothing and the price paid was effectively set by Powergen. It's like going to the local market to buy twelve oranges, one stall holder has ten for 30p each, the second has loads for 40p each so you buy ten from the first stall holder and the rest from the second stall BUT you pay them BOTH 40p per orange! This may have changed.

With wind power it would not be possible to accurately predict the amount of power that would be generated in each half hour slot.

It's not as simple as just putting up a windmill and connecting it up to the grid...

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I spend quite a lot of time in Sutherland

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heard that each windmill has a concrete base the size of a football pitch.

Not true from the ones we went to have a squint at. More like 20m square with grazing/crops almost up to the base actually.

Surely the arguments about unpredictability only become an issue when wind acts as the sole system or large proportion of generating capacity? We have (and will continue to have) a variety of sources of power contributing to the Grid.

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Surely the arguments about unpredictability only become an issue when wind acts as the sole system or large proportion of generating capacity? We have (and will continue to have) a variety of sources of power contributing to the Grid.

Unpredictability is an issue as soon as you reach a demand-level and can't supply it.

Having "a variety of sources of power" only makes sense when they contibute in a meaningful way. Nuclear, coal, oil, gas, hydro and hydro-pumped-storage systems comprise a variety of sources that help bring stability to market-forces and can meet both base-load and peak demands. The wind-turbine contibutes too litle, too unreliably to justify its cost in terms of landscape intrusion.

Obviously SOMEBODY is making money out of these wind-turbines. The "green brigade" is making itself heard and the politicians are jumping on the "environmental" band-wagon. But everybody is turning a blind eye to the visual intrusion that is associated with siting them in beautiful countryside (ie where the wind blows a bit stronger and a bit more frequently.)

Cheers

Don

Also have a look at:

Wind Power in the UK

Yes, I do work for them.

Just had a quick look at the report.

Problem solved - cover Scotland in wind turbines...well the bits that aren't producing hydro-electric power anyway. They get the 'best' wind up there.

The only time I've ventured up there was to install a system at Chapel Cross Power Station (an old nuclear one). I stayed in a hotel in Gretna (on Valentines day!) and was given the honeymoon suite for some reason (I was on my own :-(). It was an eery drive to the power station, foggy and the building with its large cooling towers loomed out of the murk from the top of a hill - spooky. I guess that a hill full of slowly turning turbines would be similarly creepy.

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Also have a look at:

How about a four-paragraph precis, instead of us all having to read all 176 pages?.

I think Seagull's got the picture.

Close Eggborough and plant 2,000 or more x 2MW wind-turbines in the Yorkshire Wolds.

Better still, plant them up on the North Yorks Moors (next to Fylingdales) or in the Yorkshire Dales where James Herriot lives......

Then close Drax, Ferrybridge, Thorpe and Radcliff and whilst we're on, Hartlepool as well - oops !! Hartlepool is the biggest UK generator we have (5GW ?) so we'll need about 10,000 wind-turbines on Cross Fell for that one alone.........

Believe me. I've seen what the end result could actually look like. South west Alberta is not a pretty sight.

I feel we are in need of a "wake-up" call......this looks like a nightmare to me. We already have too many of these things intruding into our landscape.

Cheers

Don

Don
We get the picture. You don't like the look of them.
Some of us disagree.

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We get the picture. You don't like the look of them.

Not quite. I actually do like the look of them.

But NOT in the coutryside landscape, which is where they seem to get placed. If these things are going to form part of our "diverse" power generating capacity, then build thim in our large towns and cities. I could tollerate the visual impact within a town or city.

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Some of us disagree.

Fully appreciated, and I think I have acknowledged that in most of my posts on this subject.

Cheers

Don

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But NOT in the coutryside landscape, which is where they seem to get placed. If these things are going to form part of our "diverse" power generating capacity, then build thim in our large towns and cities. I could tollerate the visual impact within a town or city.

I think that is an interesting idea. Take a large industrial area (the ICI works south of Middlesborough come to mind, or Ellesmere Port) and it would be hard to see the addition of windmills as a great eyesore.

Surely a better solution for really large scale projects would be offshore-however I presume the costs are much larger.

Bruce

Where we live in Spain (Vinaros, about 200km south of Barcelona), a plan was hatched to build over 130 wind generators about 2.1/2km out to sea. Another massive plan was to build even more near the beautiful Ebru Delta, just north of us.

My suggestion to these planners- why can't the sodding things be built at least 10km from the nearest shoreline? The local population was really upset; the local fishing fleet would have been greatly affected. Happily, I understand that the huge local opposition got the plan squashed.

I defy anyone looking either out to sea or on land not to be fixated by these things. The beautiful seascapes/landscapes would be changed dramatically.

If it can be proven that they are beneficial to humankind/the planet, fine. But put them out at sea, even if it means that costs go up.

Graeme (going to listen to some music to calm me down )

Don raises an interesting point. With poor city-block design, winds are often accelerated around large building. This of course is a boon for wind turbines, so there could be some synergy in placing windmills on street corners to take advantage of those 50kmh winds that we find.

ISTR the base on which these things sit is very very large, something like 50 truckloads of concrete for each base for those at the Te Apiti windfarm? Very bloody deep, lots of reinforcement, and constructed in stages. Still, pull down the pylon, dump on some topsoil, plant grass and return the sheep eh?

@ seagull - yes indeed, it's Windy Wellington down here. 35km/h is pretty standard and a 'light breeze'. 50 km/h is considered a 'good drying wind' - with reference to your washing on the line. I've seen people literally blown off their feet down here. still, as they say, "you can't beat wellington on a good day".

Re the discussions on the variability of wind, I reckon there needs to be diversity - relying solely on wind would be folly. Hydro and geothermal would be seen as complimentary sources. I recall a lot of the hydro projects built here in the 60's and 70's were criticised also for ruining the landscape - seems nobody liked lakes much, back then. #; )

hey ho


image hosting on flickr.com

Did anybody else notice that a planning approval was given earlier this week for a 341 unit wndfarm 12km off the Essex (or was it (Kentish) coast.

Estimated cost £1.5bn for 341 x 3Mw turbines delivering 1,000Mw maximum capacity. Would meet the demands of about 3/4 million homes in the South.

Shouldn't be too visible, even on a clear day.

Cheers

Don

Let us hope they have better luck with the under water transmission line than they have had at Blyth.