Wind farms - ugly truths

djpbarry

Birdnuts wrote: »

As I mentioned earlier your definition of a "subsidy" appear to encompass pretty much every commodity and service on the planet. Same goes for "tax breaks".

I’m very clearly not – you’re just not prepared to admit that you’re wrong.

djpbarry

SeanW wrote: »

However even this plan is subject to the caveat that in a Winter 2010 style crisis, home heating systems are likely to break down en-masse and people will rely on plug electric heaters to stay alive. There had better be a stable grid with plentiful cheap power available for such a crisis.

Oh, you mean like there was in 2010? Even though there were lots and lots of big, bad wind turbines connected to the grid, everyone still had electricity, didn’t they?

Capt'n Midnight

djpbarry wrote: »

Oh, you mean like there was in 2010? Even though there were lots and lots of big, bad wind turbines connected to the grid, everyone still had electricity, didn’t they?

Looks like my stats were way off the peak was higher than I thought it was. Still not as record demand though. And there was less dispatchable available since some of the 7GW was offline.

Week of Jan 11 2010 - 11MW of wind minimum , 4950 MW peak demand and the dispatchable margin at peak was only 800MW
http://www.cer.ie/docs/000602/cer10007.pdf

800MW margin and the East-West interconnector has opened up since. And that's before demand shedding or trying to get some of the offline capacity back on line.

Two weeks later the margin was over 2.2GW


Just like Germany and Italy dealing with the Solar Eclipse that wiped out GW's of solar in the middle of the day, the question of "how would the grid cope with a theoretical scenario" can be answered by saying "actually it handled worse with room to spare"

fclauson

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Week of Jan 11 2010 - 11MW of wind minimum , 4950 MW peak demand and the dispatchable margin at peak was only 800MW
http://www.cer.ie/docs/000602/cer10007.pdf

any idea where the more up to date versions of these are ?

Birdnuts

djpbarry wrote: »

I’m very clearly not – you’re just not prepared to admit that you’re wrong.

I suggest you actually read the link you provided on the subject. Even the IEA and that other crowd you quoted had different definitions of what a subsidy was. In any case they were applicable to any industry or service you care to mention and how it is treated by the tax system, in pretty much any modern industrialized country. Indeed you could argue that pretty much all foreign and much domestic investment is Ireland is subsidized to the hilt when you look at how little actual tax the likes of Apple,Starbuck etc. pay. That's before the likes of ongoing IDA support to various private firms enters the conversation

PS: That reminds of another form of support wind companies get in this country - via very generous investment from the Irish state via the state pension fund. .

Birdnuts

L wrote: »

Now, that aside, even assuming that wholesale was a poor indicator of retail
price, you'd expect the retail prices in a competitive market to converge
tightly. This doesn't happen in the Irish electricity market - which as we
discussed earlier helps to explain the high average retail price of electricity

.

Theres a similar trend in the UK and other countries that have large installed wind capacities so your explanation really doesn't hold that much water

The original article is better. Daily Caller is pretty
dodgy.

The Danish situation is a bit strange to say the least
- the current government (Venstre) is a minority government and it's not
entirely clear that their current policies (balancing the budget by slashing and
burning research funding across the board and immigration/social security) are
particularly popular. Since they've been in power less than six months, too
early to say either way.

How so?? - it expands on the issue and explores topics like energy poverty and the high cost of energy in such EU countries compared to the other countries with less installed wind/solar capacities etc. Sounds to me like its another case of wind energy advocates wanting to brush inconvenient truths under the carpet!!

I'm no fan of quangos but I'm not sure Eirgrid and CER as electricity reg meet
the definition (they're not government funded). SEAI have a range of functions
relating to research and energy efficiency grants - nothing particularly
controversial.

All are constantly pushing wind energy in their documentation and public statements. And the stuff in the links below doesn't exactly inspire confidence either

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/whelan-warns-on-sustainable-energy-bosss-windfarm-conflict-of-interest-29365613.html


http://www.broadsheet.ie/2014/02/20/conflict-of-windrests/

The government releases a white paper on energy this week. It will be interesting to see just who the winners and losers will be and what submissions will have been looked favourably on

That aside, I'm pretty sure a 20% CO2 reduction would have been the smarter
policy for the EU to put in place - and let the countries sort out how to do
that themselves whether by renewable energy, demand reduction or whatever

.


That would have been the commonsense approach alright - but no doubt lobbying played a big role in the final outcome, just like our current energy polices

Microgeneration yes, biomass - not really. The napkin math on it looks very bad
- we couldn't even begin to approach 20% of any target with the arable
land in Ireland (and that's with gutting our agricultural industry).
MacKay has some good bits on this

I wasn't talking about arable land. I was taking about the vast landholding of Bord Na Mona and Coillte

fclauson

this is neat

https://www.electricireland.ie/news-media/article/news/2015/11/18/our-interactive-guide-on-why-electricity-costs-what-it-does

L

Birdnuts wrote: »

Theres a similar trend in the UK and other countries that have large installed wind capacities so your explanation really doesn't hold that much water

Correlation doesn't always mean causation though. What's more interesting/useful is understanding the dynamics of the trend (and trying to understand why people don't consider the retail price a great marker for what is actually going on).

I'm not dismissing your point but I am saying that the answer is a great deal more complicated than saying "wind is expensive" and leaving it at that.

Birdnuts wrote: »

How so?? - it expands on the issue and explores topics like energy poverty and the high cost of energy in such EU countries compared to the other countries with less installed wind/solar capacities etc. Sounds to me like its another case of wind energy advocates wanting to brush inconvenient truths under the carpet!!

Well, the NYT is a (broadly) politically neutral Pulitzer winning publication of record and Daily Caller is a Republican spin site by a guy who works for Fox news.

Other headlines of theirs from the last few days involved how US constitutional protections on free religion didn't apply to Muslims (and how Trump was right).

It's much the same way you feel about the Guardian - except turned up to eleven.

Birdnuts wrote: »

All are constantly pushing wind energy in their documentation and public statements.

I'm not sure I've seen anything from CER on wind (off the top of my head). Link?

That aside, SEAI's job is sustainable energy research - I'd be surprised if they weren't putting out material dealing with Wind. CER and Eirgrid have legal responsibilities to do with the current grid state (Eirgrid in particular doesn't get to ignore it for their prudent System Operator legal requirements - they have to be able to keep the grid going no matter what politics happens).

Birdnuts wrote: »

And the stuff in the links below doesn't exactly inspire confidence either

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/whelan-warns-on-sustainable-energy-bosss-windfarm-conflict-of-interest-29365613.html


http://www.broadsheet.ie/2014/02/20/conflict-of-windrests/

No, it does not.

Birdnuts wrote: »

That would have been the commonsense approach alright - but no doubt lobbying played a big role in the final outcome, just like our current energy polices

I'm a fan of Hanlon's razor - never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity. Considering the vested interests (renewables are small fry compared to fossil fuel), it's more likely that it was badly thought through policy or intended to achieve something different from a CO2 reduction.

Birdnuts wrote: »

I wasn't talking about arable land. I was taking about the vast landholding of Bord Na Mona and Coillte

Fair enough. MacKay has some good figures on biofuel energy density that make it pretty clear that even growing biofuel on every scrap of Coillte/Bord Na Mona land in Ireland wouldn't make a dent in our energy needs. I'll stick up some numbers when I've some free time.

Edit:
Ireland's energy demand is about 13.3 Mtoe or 154.7 TWh. Per hour, this is about 17.7 GW. Bord na Mona owns 80k hectares (800 KM2), Coillte owns 445k hectares (4450 KM2). Assuming MacKay's coal equivalent figures, these would give 200 KW/KM2 or about 1 GW - 6% of our energy needs.

Converting all arable land (about 16.8% of Ireland's 84,421 KM2 - or 14,200 KM2) at the same rates would get us to about 16%. Sugar beat or the like would be more complicated - MacKay's estimates would put us at maybe 32%. This discounts the energy required to convert the beats to ethanol - which seems to conservatively be between 25% and 50% of the final ethanol energy.

As a thought experiment, if we completely covered Ireland in coal equivalent growth, we'd reach 16.9 GW - about 96% of our energy needs.

djpbarry

Birdnuts wrote: »

Indeed you could argue that pretty much all foreign and much domestic investment is Ireland is subsidized to the hilt when you look at how little actual tax the likes of Apple,Starbuck etc. pay.

No, you could not, because there are not specific provisions in Ireland’s tax code for “the likes of Apple and Starbucks”.

Meanwhile, there are a number of permanent provisions in the US tax code for producers of fossil fuels. You can continue to deny this all you like, but it’s clear as day:

In total, the United States government has identified eleven Federal fossil fuel production tax provisions, as shown below. Combined, these provisions total USD 4.7 billion in annual revenue cost (nominal annual average figure based on the 10-year revenue estimate).

https://www.treasury.gov/open/Documents/USA%20FFSR%20progress%20report%20to%20G20%202014%20Final.pdf

Birdnuts wrote: »

Theres a similar trend in the UK and other countries that have large installed wind capacities so your explanation really doesn't hold that much water

Possibly because consumers in the UK & Ireland seem to be tremendously reluctant to switch energy suppliers. The same seems to be true of bank accounts, for example:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34600941

Birdnuts wrote: »

That would have been the commonsense approach alright - but no doubt lobbying played a big role in the final outcome, just like our current energy polices

The idea that the renewables industry has any lobbying clout whatsoever is ridiculous.

Markcheese

L wrote:

that make it pretty clear that even growing biofuel on every scrap of land in Ireland wouldn't make a dent in our energy needs. I'll stick up some numbers when I've some free time.

Eek... didnt think biomass was as poor as that.

L

Markcheese wrote: »

Eek... didnt think biomass was as poor as that.

When I took a closer look, it wasn't quite as bad as I'd thought (MacKay gave his figures in W/m2 and I'd read Wh/m2 initially).

It's still not a winner - all the land in Ireland growing biofuel (regardless of land quality or buildings) would get about 96% of our energy need.

His numbers on algae though are much more interesting. Carbon sequestering or hydrogen producing algae have much more promising sounding biofuel production ratios. That'd be massively disruptive though on the landscape - slime as far as the eye can see.

fclauson

A more promising angle is to look at the consumption end

If (using SEAI numbers) around 50% of input energy is lost in conversion to electricity why not use heat pumps,

My HP runs at an alleged 420% i.e. 1kwh in = 4.2kwh out (based on standard testing)

Now that makes sense to me - new ground source units can stretch to 600% or more

Markcheese

fclauson wrote:

My HP runs at an alleged 420% i.e. 1kwh in = 4.2kwh out (based on standard testing)

Thats great, but to be honest how many homes in ireland mainly heat their homes using electricity.... ( personally i'm heading to heating the house with wood ) , and if as a nation we move significantly towards electricity for heating and transport - how much will we need ... and will that mean moving to much more gas...

Capt'n Midnight

Markcheese wrote: »

Thats great, but to be honest how many homes in ireland mainly heat their homes using electricity.

Mostly apartments built during the boom where they didn't build to the spec that would have allowed the usage of gas. Places which have almost zero chance of using ground based heat pumps


And besides Gas boilers are fairly efficient.
Converting gas to electricity , distributing it and then converting it back to heat means that even if you achieve more than 100% efficiency there's still the difference between retail electricity and retail gas price per KWh to compare too. Gas can be a quarter of the cost of electricity ( eg: Flogas 5c/KWh offer)

Yes you may use less fossil fuel with electric heat pumps. But there is still the install and construction inputs too.

Birdnuts

I'm not dismissing your point but I am saying that the answer is a
great deal more complicated than saying "wind is expensive" and leaving it at
that

.

If you look at my posts across this thread I have always sought to back up my points on this issue with real world examples. On the other hand certain other posters from the otherside(not yourself to be fair) simply sound like a broken record, endlessly repeating "wind is cheap" mantra with little or no supporting evidence

Well, the NYT is a (broadly) politically neutral Pulitzer winning publication of
record and Daily Caller is a Republican spin site by a guy who works for Fox
news.

Other headlines of theirs from the last few days involved how US
constitutional protections on free religion didn't apply to Muslims (and how
Trump was right).

It's much the same way you feel about the Guardian -
except turned up to eleven.

I'm sceptical of much media on many subjects, no matter what political wing they represent. But the subject of energy poverty is a very real and increasing issue across many countries in the EU with high retail power prices. Below is an example from Germany

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/high-costs-and-errors-of-german-transition-to-renewable-energy-a-920288.html

The SVP submission on the most recent government Energy White paper is also worth a read on this subject. You can download it from the CER site

SEAI's job is sustainable energy research - I'd be
surprised if they weren't putting out material dealing with Wind. CER and
Eirgrid have legal responsibilities to do with the current grid state (Eirgrid
in particular doesn't get to ignore it for their prudent System Operator legal
requirements - they have to be able to keep the grid going no matter what
politics happens

).

SEAI views on and promotion of wind energy is totally unbalanced and might as well be PR material from the likes of the IWEA. We've already discussed Eirgrids role in pushing projects like Gridwest and their interaction with affected communities. CER have played a major role in the current high cost energy market that has been very beneficial for wind power interests.






.

I'm a fan of Hanlon's razor - never attribute to malice what can adequately be
explained by stupidity. Considering the vested interests (renewables are small
fry compared to fossil fuel), it's more likely that it was badly thought through
policy or intended to achieve something different from a CO2 reduction

.

Never said oil companies were angels, but there's plenty of cowboys involved in the wind industry too

Fair enough. MacKay has some good figures on biofuel energy density
As a thought
experiment, if we completely covered Ireland in
coal equivalent growth, we'd
reach 16.9 GW - about 96% of our energy needs

I never claimed that willow biomass was the total solution to our energy needs - just part of the mix. And I certainly don't support the growing of crops simply for energy on conventional farmland(or expanding them into intact habitat) as is happening in tropical countries like Indonesia with Palm oil and the environmental scam that is ethanol fuel production from corn as it is practiced in the US. However as well as my BNM willow biomass example their are also opportunities in this area on a local scale that could make many rural communities in particular more or less independent of the grid using wood fueled stoves, generators, as well as energy from farm waste, biogass etc.

Birdnuts

djpbarry wrote: »

No, you could not, because there are not specific provisions in Ireland’s tax
code for “the likes of Apple and Starbucks”.

Meanwhile, there are a
number of permanent provisions in the US tax code for producers of fossil fuels.
You can continue to deny this all you like, but it’s clear as day:

https://www.treasury.gov/open/Documents/USA%20FFSR%20progress%20report%20to%20G20%202014%20Final.pdf

Your wrong again cos the tax code in the US is structured differently to here and your earlier link included general tax treatment too. In any case there are specific provisions in the US tax code for many industries. Including your lot

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/nancy-pfotenhauer/2014/05/12/even-warren-buffet-admits-wind-energy-is-a-bad-investment

Possibly because consumers in the UK & Ireland seem to be tremendously
reluctant to switch energy suppliers. The same seems to be true of bank
accounts, for example:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34600941

So were back to "blame the consumer on this one" - as I said earlier the consumers in Germany and Denmark must be really thick!!

The idea that the renewables industry has any lobbying clout whatsoever is
ridiculous

.

You need to get out more if you believe that. There's hardly a week goes by without the current minister opening a wind farm somewhere or addressing some function hosted by the IWEA. Also the CEO of Element power, the biggest wind developer in the state, is a prominent FG supporter and was actually going to run for them in the last election

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/fine-gael-banking-on-candidates-in-business-world-to-deliver-extra-seats-26613449.html

"Fine Gael's hierarchy is thinking about adding Tim Cowhig -- a leading figure in the energy sector"

L

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Mostly apartments built during the boom where they didn't build to the spec that would have allowed the usage of gas. Places which have almost zero chance of using ground based heat pumps

Well, air source seem to have CoPs around 3 for Ireland's temperature range - and fitting those to apartments should be straightforward. Do any of us have figures on how much of Irish heating is electric?

L

Birdnuts wrote: »

If you look at my posts across this thread I have always sought to back up my points on this issue with real world examples. On the other hand certain other posters from the otherside(not yourself to be fair) simply sound like a broken record, endlessly repeating "wind is cheap" mantra with little or no supporting evidence

What I'm saying is basically this: the power system as a whole is the most complicated and largest mechanism ever built by human hands. On top of this technical complexity, we've layered markets (wholesale and retail) with their own complex behaviours/interactions and then we've stuck political policy in the mix.

With this level of complexity and complication, if we start from a fixed assumption (ie. wind is expensive or wind is cheap), we need to be very careful to test every step and every section of our logic or we'll arrive at a foregone conclusion in support of our starting assumption (and much noise back and forth inevitably ensues as everyone on all sides does this and assumes everyone else is stupid/corrupt).

With that in mind, I'd suggest that average retail price, while useful for showing us the level of the retail market (and that Irish consumers are paying too much), loses a lot of valuable secondary information in the averaging process.

When we look at the spread of individual supplier tariffs and volumes of sale, we can see the decision isn't being made on a purely economic basis (as all else being equal, this spread of tariffs should still be reflected in the final bill after adjustment for the other factors). Part of this is loyalty, part of this is the status quo bias.

This means we can, given the understanding that all suppliers have to purchase at the same price, say that the average retail tariff will overestimate what the minimum electricity price in the current retail market is.

Further, since we can see the tariffs haven't converged across suppliers downwards towards a single price (which we'd expect in perfect competition), it is highly likely that there is still fat even on the lowest tariff in the market. This is supported by the large mismatch between wholesale electricity price (even when adjusted for PSO etc.) and the lowest retail tariff.

Birdnuts wrote: »

I'm sceptical of much media on many subjects, no matter what political wing they represent. But the subject of energy poverty is a very real and increasing issue across many countries in the EU with high retail power prices. Below is an example from Germany

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/high-costs-and-errors-of-german-transition-to-renewable-energy-a-920288.html

The SVP submission on the most recent government Energy White paper is also worth a read on this subject. You can download it from the CER site

Der Spiegel is a fairly decent source and that's an interesting article (given Der Spiegel's stock in trade is political controversy, it's worth reading them with that in mind though of course).

Can you pass me a link for the SVP submission? There's a heap of submissions from them to the CER so it's proving a little difficult to track down the one you mean. I can get the gist of what they've likely said from their other submissions though.

Energy poverty is a very real problem and a difficult one to lick. Putting aside relief programs as a necessity, one of the contributing problems (perverse and ironic as it seems) is the average tariff retailers charge. It creates a rate which is both too high to be affordable for those in danger of the energy poverty trap, and too low to drive changes in behaviour among the better off.

Hourly tariffs would at least provide some possibility of mitigating energy bills by shifting behaviour (which in turn would help to lower energy prices).

There's actually an interesting consultation bit from the department on energy poverty and the retail market issues.

Birdnuts wrote: »

I never claimed that willow biomass was the total solution to our energy needs - just part of the mix.

Birdnuts wrote: »

However as well as my BNM willow biomass example their are also opportunities in this area on a local scale that could make many rural communities in particular more or less independent of the grid using wood fueled stoves, generators, as well as energy from farm waste, biogass etc.

Fair. I suspect the contribution it can give is relatively minimal though. Local individual use is grand but I don't think it's scale-able to the size necessary for it to be a major factor in energy policy (see below).

Birdnuts wrote: »

And I certainly don't support the growing of crops simply for energy on conventional farmland(or expanding them into intact habitat) as is happening in tropical countries like Indonesia with Palm oil and the environmental scam that is ethanol fuel production from corn as it is practiced in the US.

Ok. So, these numbers are rough and ready (pulling them from Teagasc and they're from 2010) but it looks like we've about 64% of the land in Ireland as agricultural (pastoral or arable) and about 10.8% planted for forestry.

Assuming we don't want to rip up existing forests (community benefit and a state money source) or convert land from agriculture, that rules out 74.8% of the land in Ireland. It looks like urban areas are another 2.4% so 77.2% of land is ruled out. That gives about 22.8% of land to work with - which should give a max supply of 3.85 GW or 21.8% of our energy needs.

This isn't too bad - but it doesn't account for why the land currently isn't being planted (you'd expect land that could support biomass to be either forested or farmed already to be honest).

djpbarry

Birdnuts wrote: »

Your wrong again cos the tax code in the US is structured differently to here…

Which is what I said.

Birdnuts wrote: »

In any case there are specific provisions in the US tax code for many industries.

I know. That’s what I said. But you denied it several times.

Birdnuts wrote: »

So were back to "blame the consumer on this one"…

Blame them for what?

Birdnuts wrote: »

You need to get out more if you believe that.

I really don’t. For example, SSE, the parent company of Airtricity, had revenues of about £30 million in 2014. For the purposes of comparison, Tullow Oil, for example, had revenues of $2.2 billion for the same year.

Capt'n Midnight

L wrote: »

Well, air source seem to have CoPs around 3 for Ireland's temperature range - and fitting those to apartments should be straightforward. Do any of us have figures on how much of Irish heating is electric?

I'd assume most of the difference between winter and summer load would be heat with some lighting.

Yes some it would be water heating or cooking, and of course driers.



Not sure I'd believe those CoP's compared to people's real world experiences. see the Heat Pump threads over on http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=1041

Retro fitting wouldn't be cheap either so payback time would be interesting.

L

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

I'd assume most of the difference between winter and summer load would be heat with some lighting.

Yes some it would be water heating or cooking, and of course driers.

You'd capture the heating load, true. I think it's too messy as a guide though - winter peak isn't just heating driven. You have a lot more secondary effects due to less time spent outdoors (entertainment for example).

This is part of someone's taught master's degree so I'd take the numbers with a grain of salt, but it seems to have some good information and the supervisors are relatively well known competent experts in heat/energy.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Not sure I'd believe those CoP's compared to people's real world experiences. see the Heat Pump threads over on http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=1041

Yep, no argument (real world performance always sucks compared to theoretic) - I just wish there was better info on it. All I've got so far is SEAI heat pump info and another from that forum.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Retro fitting wouldn't be cheap either so payback time would be interesting.

Very. Do we have good numbers on costs? Reading around it looks like there's also a requirement for a secondary heat source of some type.

I think we've sidetracked a bit but this interests me - is it worth starting a new thread?

L

White paper has been released. I haven't had the chance to digest it properly yet but this struck me as relevant:

Onshore wind will continue to make a significant contribution. But the next phase of our energy transition will see the deployment of additional technologies as solar, offshore wind and ocean technologies mature and become more cost-effective.

SeanW

L wrote: »

White paper has been released. I haven't had the chance to digest it properly yet but this struck me as relevant:

So we're going to continue slaughtering bats on an industrial scale. Great news :rolleyes:

Remember that bats provide essential services to mankind in the areas they live in, they eat insects by the ton, so they save us a lot of insect bites, a lot of disease, and reduce the need in some parts of the world for chemical insecticides and insect repellants. So anyone who proposes allowing bats to be killed by windmills on any kind of scale ... really is no kinder to Planet Earth than an American energy hog that drives a massive SUV/Hummer everywhere they go.

Macha wrote: »

This myth has been debunked on this forum so many times. No new German coal plants have been given the go ahead since the phase out of nuclear was announced in 2011.

The Energiewende was first proposed in 1980 and was ramped up in its current form in 2002. Abadonment of nuclear elecrtricity has been a key plank in the Energiewende since the term was first popularised. In 1980. Germany was still connecting coal fired power plants in 2015 - and no-one has provided any explanation of why new coal plants were approved after 2000 except as replacements for nuclear, which could have been retained/commissioned new instead.

When was the coal plant in your link first proposed? The story itself says it's been under construction for 8 years and is owned by Vattenfall, the Swedish state company, that has been ordered to sell its German coal assets by the Swedish government. There's the headline, and then there's the more complicated reality.

There also the "complicated reality" that people have been so mad to get rid of the horrible evil atom, that they've been building new coal to replace or avoid reactors. Again, why was Green, Energiewende driven Germany was still connecting New Coal to the grid in 2015? Are you claiming that it had nothing to do with their nuclear phase out?

Ireland will have to figure out what it's going to do with its only coal plan, Moneypoint, and soon.

Here's what I would do with it: I'd mothball it and teach an army group how to run it in an emergency. So if there's ever another Christmas 2010 type scenario, the army can fire it up to provide cheap power with a limited notice. I'd replace its day-to-date operation with relatively small (1GW or less) nuclear.

djpbarry wrote: »

Oh, you mean like there was in 2010? Even though there were lots and lots of big, bad wind turbines connected to the grid, everyone still had electricity, didn’t they?

Renewables expansion is an ongoing process, there has presumably been a lot more renewables commissioned since 2010. And more in the future.

L wrote: »

Unfortunately you're focused on wind being responsible for everything regardless of actual root causes. If you tried to understand them, you'd be able to frame your arguments more convincingly.

What's to understand? They kill bats on an industrial scale, they spoil the landscape, they cost a fortune, and they have never replaced a single nuclear/fossil fired power plant, only made them more difficult to operate.

Look up what net load is. Then apply what we were talking about earlier. You use DSM to flatten out the shape of the load so you can use your generation portfolio more effectively.

Isn't DSM for business extremely expensive? Because you have to compensate a company for its profits that it would have made had it continued production when the wind stops blowing ...

Saying it's bad because it doesn't replace generation is broadly the same sense as saying that you don't need feet cos you have a car or that a biscuit isn't very good at being a cup of tea. They're complementary things.

They're not complimentary. One imposes problems on the other.

The SVP submission on the most recent government Energy White paper is also worth a read on this subject. You can download it from the CER site

Is that Saint Vincent dePaul? I'd imagine their main concern would be fuel poverty. Precisely what would happen if we had German/Danish electricity prices (which, in the latter case, let's remind ourselves are worse than those of remote island chains hundreds of miles into the Pacific like Kiribati). I'm not sure quoting anything by SVP is a good idea because I cannot seriously imagine that anyone advocating German/Danish style energy policies is particularly concerned about poor people.

Capt'n Midnight

SeanW wrote: »

So we're going to continue slaughtering bats on an industrial scale. Great news :rolleyes:

This is the measured impact of US energy sources on birds.

http://cleantechnica.com/2015/02/16/german-wind-turbines-killing-migratory-bats/
And of course, nothing comes anywhere close to causing bird deaths more than the cat, which on the whole manages to kill anywhere between 1.4 and 3.7 billion per year!

Germany was still connecting coal fired power plants in 2015 - and no-one has provided any explanation of why new coal plants were approved after 2000 except as replacements for nuclear, which could have been retained/commissioned new instead.

How many times have I posted that old coal plants are about 25% efficient while their replacements are perhaps 45% ?

Since polls have shown up to 96% of Germans are in support of the energy policy it's hardly surprising that haven't done a U turn on it.


Meanwhile in the UK the Tories won't allow fracking in National Parks or Areas of Outstanding Beauty. But it's OK to setup beside them and drill sideways.

Here's what I would do with it: I'd mothball it and teach an army group how to run it in an emergency. So if there's ever another Christmas 2010 type scenario, the army can fire it up to provide cheap power with a limited notice. I'd replace its day-to-date operation with relatively small (1GW or less) nuclear.

And by Christmas 2010 scenario you mean business as usual because of oodles of spare dispatchable capacity?


I'm going to keep pointing out to you that
- the trend is for bigger reactors so where will you get the 1GW ?
- they still haven't fully debugged or even built the promised next generation reactors
- we won't be able to get a better deal than the UK, no loss leaders for us and we don't have 60+ years of running reactors that they do
- and there is the slight problem that you'll need 1GW of spinning reserve , congratulations you'll need to keep Moneypoint running to back up it's replacement.
- even if it comes in on time and on budget, and the track record is abysmal on that, it won't generate until the late 2020's

And it takes a while to get a coal fired power station up to speed. Ever see the Three Men in a Boat in Scotland ? Took 36 hours to fire up the boiler on a steam boat. (Nuclear can take up to 72 hours to do a restart)

fclauson

fclauson wrote: »

any idea where the more up to date versions of these are ?

CER no longer produce the dispatch margin report - they told me to ask Eirgrid

Birdnuts

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

[QUOTE[/B][/B]
http://cleantechnica.com/2015/02/16/german-wind-turbines-killing-migratory-bats/
And of course, nothing comes anywhere close to causing bird deaths more than the cat, which on the whole manages to kill anywhere between 1.4 and 3.7 billion per year!

That pro-wind industry link provides no basis for any of those "estimates". I'd love to know how they calculated the coal and nuclear impacts in particular??. The reality is that wind farms are having a growing impact on many species, particulary rarer ,larger soaring birds like storks,vultures, pelicans etc.. The cat issues is a red herring as they are not a threat to such species and mainly kill smaller more common species like sparrows,blackbirds that to a large degree withstand such mortality.

A more reliable source for such things are the organisations that work in bird conservation such as the American Bird Conservancy

http://www.birdwatchingdaily.com/blog/2015/02/14/abc-renews-call-for-regulations-to-reduce-the-number-of-birds-killed-at-wind-farms/


"Based on the operation of 22,000 turbines, FWS estimated in 2009 that at least 440,000 birds per year — including threatened and endangered species — were being killed by wind turbines (PDF). Since then, another study, published in the March 2013 issue of the Wildlife Society Bulletin, expanded that estimate to 573,000.

The number of wind turbines in the United States is expected to increase 10-fold by 2030, or perhaps earlier. Together, the projects are projected to kill between 1.4 million and 2 million birds each year.

Because these estimates do not include mortality at associated power lines and towers, which are also undergoing massive expansion, ABC believes the projection will be exceeded significantly. Power lines and towers currently kill more than 6.8 million birds annually

"

The point about increased killing from wind farm related pylon sprawl is also significant and this is not included in wind energy kill figures.


As pointed out in another part of that link - oil companies are rightly heavily fined for killing protected species via oil spills whereas the wind industy gets a free pass despite having a particular impact on rarer soaring species. Also the fact that wind has failed to reduce the need for fossil fuels to any significant extent further underlines the dubious environmental benefits of many wind farm developments. And that's before you start talking of their impacts on fragile upland peatlands etc.

L

SeanW wrote: »

So we're going to continue slaughtering bats on an industrial scale.

Got some figures on that (peer reviewed by preference or reputable newspaper/organization of record failing that)? That's not something I've done much reading on.

SeanW wrote: »

What's to understand? They kill bats on an industrial scale, they spoil the landscape, they cost a fortune, and they have never replaced a single nuclear/fossil fired power plant, only made them more difficult to operate.

Quite a lot actually I'm afraid.

I won't comment on the bats (not something I have done a lot of reading on) or the landscape issues (opinion is everyone's right), but on cost and power systems, you've the wrong end of the stick.

Cost wise, they're front loaded - high initial investment cost, minimal operational costs. Large fossil fuel gen tends to be medium initial investment cost, medium to high operational costs (small peakers or diesels tend to be low initial cost, painfully high operational costs). Basically, over a life time, wind doesn't cost a fortune any more than a gas turbine does.

Replacement wise, that's another foot and car comment. Fossil fuel generators aren't interchangeable with every other fossil fuel generator. Portfolios of power plant cover each others weaknesses (even without wind, you have peakers/midmerit/baseload distinctions).

That means that 10 GW capacity of one plant mix may have very different cost implications to 10 GW of another (as well as very different capabilities). Having wind in the mix changes the balancing of the portfolio towards more lower capital cost fossil fuel gen with less run time (as what's needed is secondary services such as system inertia or voltage support). This moves away from high capital cost inflexible baseload (unless they make improvements to be able to supply services that the portfolio is short on). This is currently a little more complicated to see due to a number of factors (new high efficiency gas tech, lower fuel prices, SRMC based markets) but is still the case.

SeanW wrote: »

They're not complimentary. One imposes problems on the other.

They're still complimentary - every grid technology imposes problems on every other and always has. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater because of that misses the point of having a plant portfolio in the first place.

The first generators used to rip themselves apart (literally) when they tried to run them together. That problem got solved. Same for early fossil fuel generator inefficiencies - the main reason we have an electrified society today is because generators needed more load to build bigger (and hence more efficient) generators to increase their profitability.

The grid's been changing for as long as it's been around to route around the problems that come with incoming tech. It's just not been as visible to the man on the street until now.

Wind changes what other generators are required on the grid and incentivizes them to look at what services they can provide that wind can't. On balance, it forces improvement onto complacent vested interests and results in a stronger portfolio.

SeanW wrote: »

Isn't DSM for business extremely expensive? Because you have to compensate a company for its profits that it would have made had it continued production when the wind stops blowing ...

Not really. DSM typically doesn't mean "all stop" but more streamlining power consumption for that period of time - so a datacenter might shift some secondary operations to a different datacenter or industrial processes might work from stockpiles rather than producing components as they need them.

Basically industrially DSM seems mostly to be about shifting load in time or space as opposed to getting rid of it entirely.

SeanW wrote: »

Here's what I would do with it: I'd mothball it and teach an army group how to run it in an emergency. So if there's ever another Christmas 2010 type scenario, the army can fire it up to provide cheap power with a limited notice. I'd replace its day-to-date operation with relatively small (1GW or less) nuclear.

This is an idea I'd be curious about. I'm unsure how well it would work in practice, but in theory this conversion might help bring moneypoint down to a more reasonable emissions output as well as reducing the fuel input (which might make the maths work out for biomass). That said, some of the limitations on moneypoint are going to be increasing maintenance costs - there's only so long that a plant can keep operating before it starts bleeding too much money on repairs.

SeanW wrote: »

I'd replace its day-to-date operation with relatively small (1GW or less) nuclear.

Woah, I hope you mean multiple plant as opposed to one reactor. A 1GW gen would more than double the spinning reserve required by the power system (and completely murder generation efficiency). We'd be talking potentially doubling the current balancing cost of the grid to somewhere around 300M-400M.

fclauson

L wrote: »

Woah, I hope you mean multiple plant as opposed to one reactor. A 1GW gen would more than double the spinning reserve required by the power system (and completely murder generation efficiency). We'd be talking potentially doubling the current balancing cost of the grid to somewhere around 300M-400M.

True - spinning reserve needs to match the largest generator on line at any time. Therefor a 1Gw plant - needs a 1Gw spinning reserve

This is why spinning reserve for wind is fairly low - as with the combination of good weather forecasts which can predict multiple hours in advance along with each turbine failure not having a big impact - spinning reserve can be kept down.

this does not mitigate the need for plant to be available when there is no wind - but the need to bring it on line is fairly limited given winds short term predictability

L

Pretty accurate. A 1GW plant would need 750MW of primary spinning reserve, 1000MW of secondary and 1000MW of tertiary (different bands are different response times). Wind, as you say, has negligible impact on reserves as the failure of individual turbines has such little impact on power production and wind fall off is much more gradual than spinning reserve.

Markcheese

Cant see even solar aided thermal taking off here ... and I cant really see the esb investing in moneypoint so it can use a fuel thats 3 times the price of its current coal ... if we're going to incentivise biomass production in the future I think i'd rather see it go toward replacing home heating oil or domestically burnt coal rather than burnt in a relatively inefficent converted turf station...
Nuclear keeps being trotted out - oh,we should invest in nuclear now-cos the next big thing in safer more sustainable nuclear is just around the corner- grand, invest in nuclear when thats ready , not now.
Carbon capture and storage may be money points big saviour. Wont be cheap though (probably still cheaper than american wood pellets) , but as it'd probably need a completly new plant I cant see the esb ditching whats there and paid for in any rush...
Which kind of leaves us where we currently are, base load of dirty coal,quite a few newish combined cycle reasonably efficent gas plants- plenty of nameplate capacity wind generation ( with the costs front loaded,) a small amount off hydro -peat generation about to go off line.. and the peaking plants....
No major change gonna be coming down the tracks so then,,,