The Conservative Cave
Current Events => The DUmpster => Topic started by: thundley4 on May 02, 2011, 06:58:23 PM
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paparush (1000+ posts) Sun May-01-11 10:18 PM
Original message
Six Scottish wind farms paid to shut down because they were pushing too much power into the grid.
Six wind farms were given six-figure payments to switch off their turbines because the Scottish grid network could not absorb all the energy being produced, it has emerged.
Research by the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) found energy companies were paid a total of £900,000 for stopping the turbines for several hours between April 5 and 6 this year.
The REF said some of the payments were as high as 20 times the value of the electricity which would have been generated if the turbines kept running.
The National Grid makes constraint payments to power stations that agree to stop generating in order to stabilise the network.
It happens when the grid system or a section of the system is unable to absorb all the electricity being generated, and some generators that are contracted to generate are asked to stand down.
http://breakingnews.heraldscotland.com/breaking-news/?m...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1003256
The DUmmies jump on the bandwagon, but don't read the article.
Wait this one did.
Incitatus (1000+ posts) Sun May-01-11 10:26 PM
Response to Original message
10. This quote is interesting
Edited on Sun May-01-11 10:27 PM by Incitatus
"Government must rethink the scale and pace of wind power development before the costs of managing it become intolerable and the scale of the waste scandalous."
Could this be a clever way of attacking clean energy? There must have been a better solution than having to pay them 20 times the amount they would have produced.
The DUmmies totally ignore a very important part of the article.
Dr Lee Moroney, Planning Director for the REF, said: "The variability of wind power poses grid management problems for which there are no cheap solutions.
That problem of variability increases when more power comes from wind and solar farms. There are none so blind as those who won't see.
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http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1003256
The DUmmies jump on the bandwagon, but don't read the article.
Wait this one did.
The DUmmies totally ignore a very important part of the article.
That problem of variability increases when more power comes from wind and solar farms. There are none so blind as those who won't see.
Only hydro can be online and producing electricity on short notice but the DUmmies won't let you dam anymore rivers....and pumpback stations can only store so much water....and you can't turn a nuclear plant on and off like a light swith....and the same is true for a coal fired power station.....and DUmmies are DUmb.
Did I mention DUmmies were DUmb?
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On the few occasions when I've driven past those huge, unspeakably ugly windfarms, it always seems at least two-thirds of the whirlybird things are shut down. What's up with that?
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Dr Lee Moroney, Planning Director for the REF, said: "The variability of wind power poses grid management problems for which there are no cheap solutions.
Other reason that liberalism is a mental disorder. No cheap solutions for "variability" of wind power. Enough said.
Good economics and common sense do not exist in a liberal mind.
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On the few occasions when I've driven past those huge, unspeakably ugly windfarms, it always seems at least two-thirds of the whirlybird things are shut down. What's up with that?
Wind speed too high.
Wind speed too low.
Unable to predict wind speed variances.
Windmill has reached it axial rotation limit.
Grid is at capacity.
Pick your poison.
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When you "drop load" the turbin runs away and when you add to much load to quickly the system will "drop load" to.....ah hell it's to complicated for me to explain it all to a DUmmie.
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The fundamental weakness of all the green energy systems, and really of energy policy, is that there is only one proven way to store power economically instead of having to use it immediately as it is generated. That one method is a very geographically limited and extremely capital-intensive building of upper and lower water reservoirs, with a connecting station that pumps upward when there is excess power in the net from the primary generation system, and lets water run down through turbines to generate power when the primary system is underperforming.
It would also be possible to use primary power to crack water electrolytically in excess periods, then burn the hydrogen and oxygen back into water to run fuel turbines and produce power when the prime is slack, but while more geographically flexible it's equally resource-intensive, and nobody actually does that so it isn't a proven technology.
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On the few occasions when I've driven past those huge, unspeakably ugly windfarms, it always seems at least two-thirds of the whirlybird things are shut down. What's up with that?
I have to admit, I love the sight of wind farms, but I've noticed typicaly a third are not running.
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I have to admit, I love the sight of wind farms, but I've noticed typicaly a third are not running.
Try living near one. I guarantee you won't love it so much then.