Wind Could Provide 25% or More Electricity for Most States

New comment from the Duke of Edinburgh after reviewing wind farm performance in the UK:

"In a withering assault on the onshore wind turbine industry, the Duke said the farms were "a disgrace".
He also criticised the industry's reliance on subsidies from electricity customers, claimed wind farms would "never work" and accused people who support them of believing in a "fairy tale".
The Duke's comments will be seized upon by the burgeoning lobby who say wind farms are ruining the countryside and forcing up energy bills.
Criticism of their effect on the environment has mounted, with The Sunday Telegraph disclosing today that turbines are being switched off during strong winds following complaints about their noise."
Industrial wind farms are a taxpayer subsidized joke. Don't live within a mile of one or that low frequency noise will drive you up the wall that the noise penetrates. I'm off to help the residents of Goodhue County, MN who are under attack from some surplus wind turbines left over from T Boone Pickens collapsed wind farm scheme.

Clee, you had better have a lot of batteries for that 98% PV supply. What is there about ERCOT's 8.7% for wind that you don't understand?
There is another standard called Capacity Value - is it there when you need it. Your car and a nuclear plant are essentially 100%. Wind is essentially zero. When I bring classes to tour a power plant and they ask control room personnel about wind, the response is either laughter or hands raised in despair.
For education google my name and Keystone XL pipeline for my newest editorial in several papers.
Rolf Westgard
We've had fun but it's time to sign off until the next silly renewable energy claim in Ren Energy World.
Rolf Westgard

As I posted earlier rolf.

"On really hot Texas days the wind speed drops in West Texas where most of the current wind turbines are located.

That's why Texas is now in the process of building a lot of offshore wind capacity. The wind tends to blow very strong and steady offshore when it is hot inland."

You've posted confirming data - there's not a lot of wind available in West Texas in the summer.

You again failed to post a link to your claim of extremely low year-round wind for all of Texas. Were you lying or do you not know how to copy a link from the address bar and past it into your post?

(All you have to do is to copy the link address at the top of the page when you are viewing it and paste it into your comment.)

=======================

Please post your link.

FROM ERCOT NEWS RELEASE May 31, 2011

Generation by fuel type

Summer generation by fuel type is 64.2 percent natural gas, 26 percent coal, 7 percent nuclear, 1.1 percent wind, and 0.7 percent hydro, 0.1 percent biomass, and 0.8 percent other (includes landfill gas and petroleum coke, and other fuels not specifically categorized such as diesel).

ERCOT continues to lead the nation with the most installed wind generation capacity at 9,452 MW. For summer peak capacity, ERCOT counts 8.7 percent of wind nameplate capacity as dependable capacity at peak in accordance with ERCOT's stakeholder-adopted methodology.

SUMMER FUEL TYPES, 2011
Fuel Source

% of Available Capacity *

% of Nameplate Capacity

Biomass

0.1%

0.1%

Coal

26.0%

23.3%

Natural Gas

64.2%

57.4%

Nuclear

7.0%

6.3%

Other

0.8%

0.7%

Hydro

0.7%

0.7%

Wind

1.1%

11.6%

Solar

0.0%

0.0%

*Wind has been discounted using availability factor of 8.7%.

rolf - Do you need help learning how to post a link?

I've looked on several ERCOT pages and I haven't found your "1%" stuff.

--

What does 8.7% capacity have to do with the percentage of electricity Denmark gets from wind? (That's an incorrect number, like the other CEPOS numbers. Denmark showed a 21% capacity in 2010.)

--

Of course there is a need for storage, backup generation and load shifting in order to deal with wind generation. No form of generation is 24/365 reliable, all require grid operators to make adjustments.

When wind is backed up with storage and dispatchable hydro there are no NOX and SO2 emissions. NOX and SO2 emissions are coal issues. Do you not know the basics?

--

Please post your link.

If you really want to understand, go to the Bentek study of the Colorado Public Service and ERCOT systems. You will understand the need for substantial NG backup, and also the increases in NOX and SO2 emissions from cycling when wind is added.

As Kevin Forbes, the director of the Center for the Study of Energy and Environmental Stewardship at Catholic University, said, "Wind energy gives people a nice warm fuzzy feeling that we're taking action on climate change." Yet when it comes to CO2 emissions, "the reality is that it's not doing much of anything."

It's the CEPOS study that reports 8.7% capacity factor for Denmark wind.

Just go to the ERCOT web site. They regularly forecast 5 years out.

Let me copy two more paragraphs from the paper. These explain where your faulty claim originates and cites a paper which disproves that claim.

"In 2009, the Houston & Washington DC-based Institute for Energy Research commissioned the Danish free-market think-tank CEPOS ("Center for Policy Studies") to produce a report on the Danish wind industry: Hugh Sharman and Henrik Meyer wrote that report (Sharman & Meyer, 2009), with analysis of Danish exports by Paul-Frederik Bach. Its argument about export built on an earlier paper by Hugh Sharman, which had claimed that Denmark had integrated wind by exporting most of the power it generated, based on correlations between wind power and exports (Sharman, 2005). The 2009 CEPOS report argued that the correlations between wind and exports show causality, and that a very high proportion of wind power is exported.

In response, members of the Coherent Energy and Environmental System Analysis (CEESA) Research Project, lead by Henrik Lund, published a detailed rebuttal (Lund et al., 2010). The CEESA report looked at some of the economics of the argument, including the merit order effect, and examined the economics of two points in 2008. It found that Danish exports of wind amounted to less than 1% of wind power generated, equivalently 0.2% of demand, and supported the claims that Denmark met around 19% of its demand from wind power."

http://www.energynumbers.info/wp-content/uploads/Andrew_Smith-Danish_wind_exports.pdf

I'm sure you'll want to get in touch with your past students and let them know you fed them bad info....

rolf - being an "academic" I'm sure that you place high value on facts. Here's a study of wind production in Denmark. It addresses the faulty studies on which you base your incorrect statements about Denmark dumping power at a loss. The paper analyzes hourly power data from 2000-2010, hourly price data from 2006-2010, and minute-by-minute data from the last twelve months.

Here's a paragraph which pretty much sums it up...

"No valid algorithm can produce the "high export" figure, and that valid methods suggest that the proportion of wind that is exported of the order of 0.1-2.5%, depending on the individual year, with an average of 0.1-1.2% for the decade 2000-2009."

One thing that confused the authors of earlier papers was that even when wind is cranking in Denmark the price of power is sometimes high in surrounding countries and Denmark thermal plants continue to run even though Denmark does not need their 'more expensive than wind' generation. That power gets sold on to other markets for a profit.

http://www.energynumbers.info/wp-content/uploads/Andrew_Smith-Danish_wind_exports.pdf

I'll ask you again, rolf.

Give us a link for your "Wind 1.1% 1.2% 1.2% 1.3% 1.2% 1.2% 1.2% 1.2% 1.2% 1.2%" claim.

Denmark dumps its excess wind at a loss. It buys back power, mostly from Sweden's hydro and nuclear. Sweden isn't stupid enough to have much wind power. My crackpot sites are ERCOT, EIA, and IEA.
I'll make a place for you in my next energy class for the U of MN.

Rolf, you're starting to become a joke.

ERCOT reported that they got 8% of their power from wind in 2010.

Denmark generates around 20% of the amount of electricity that they use with wind. At times they sell some of that power on to other countries which can use it and then they buy back power when wind is not producing as much.

Germany, Norway and Sweden have a lot of dispatchable hydro. They use Danish wind when available and save the water for when the wind is blowing less.

That is the model that all of Europe and North Africa is implementing. Power from where it is most plentiful at the time.

You need to stop getting your information from crackpot sites.

That 8% is like the 20% from wind reported from Denmark. The turbines produce it, but the delicately balanced grid can't use it. In Denmark's case they dump most of their wind energy to Norway and Sweden at a big loss, sometimes for nothing. Norway and Sweden use the energy to pump water up behind their numerous hydro dams. Texas actual use is 1.1% form wind. Denmarks's actual wind contribution to the grid is 8.7%. Anything above about 10% wind to a large grid is not possible.

Clee asked for a link to the data you posted.

---------------------------------------------

On this page ERCOT reports that 8% of all Texas energy produced in 2010 came from wind.

http://www.ercot.com/content/news/presentations/2011/ERCOT+Quick+Facts+-+Aug+2011.pdf

Texas has just started a $6.8 billion transmission project which is expected to let them double the amount of power they get from wind by 2013.

Texas seems to be lovin' them some fiasco....

I'm just posting ERCOT data which makes the wind fiasco very clear.

On really hot Texas days the wind speed drops in West Texas where most of the current wind turbines are located.

That's why Texas is now in the process of building a lot of offshore wind capacity. The wind tends to blow very strong and steady offshore when it is hot inland.

It'a all about wise design.

West Texas wind is becoming a major power provider for the other three seasons.

(Just north of the Panhandle, Oklahoma is getting ready to ship wind power to Tennessee over a planed HVDC line. TVA is finding it cheaper to buy wind-electricity than to build new gas generation.)

Even with low winds in late July wind generation saved Texas from rolling blackouts when 20 non-wind plants suddenly went off line due to elevated heat conditions.

Texas had a similar problem in February when extreme cold stressed their grid, but wind pulled them through.

http://energy.aol.com/2011/08/10/wind-power-lessons-from-the-texas-heat-wave/

Here's what the CEO of the Texas grid had to say about the role wind played during their problem in February...

' I would highlight that we put out a special word of thanks to the wind community because they did contribute significantly through this time frame. Wind was blowing, and we had often 3,500 megawatts of wind generation during that morning peak, which certainly helped us in this situation.'

Part of the problem was 50 coal and gas plants going off line. Some of the gas problems seems to have come from homeowners sucking up the gas for heating and cutting supply for turbines.

http://www.texastribune.org/texas-energy/energy/an-interview-with-the-ceo-of-the-texas-grid/

The data is brand new from ERCOT. Wind provides ONE 1% of Texas summer electric power. It's a taxpayer funded scam.

The ERCOT system was studied due to the availability of wind data to correlate with coal cycling events and because of the larger gas-fired generation capacity resident on the system. Identifying days where wind generation resulted in the cycling of coal units allowed for a precise understanding of the emission impacts. The gravity and frequency of these events increased as more wind generation was introduced to the system. This mirrors the results found on the Public Service of Colorado(PSCO) system, supporting the theory that the increased rate of cycling is due to the incremental integration of wind generation. Furthermore, these wind-driven, coal-cycling events resulted in significantly more SO2 and NOX emissions than if wind generation had not been utilized. The same results were found on the PSCO system. Not only does wind generation not allow ERCOT utilities to save SO2, NOX and CO2 emissions, it is directly responsible for creating more SO2 and NOX emissions and CO2 emission savings are minimal at best.

"Rolf, while I do have sympathy for the neurotoxic radiation necrosis you must be dealing with,""

Cheap shots don't strengthen a weak case. Take away all those taxpayer subsidies, and the wind business goes as quite as those turbine blades on a muggy summer day when all ACs run, and there isn't a 'breath of air'.
Wind is an erratic joke requiring lots of NG or hydro backup.

Here is ERCOT's official forecast for Texas power. Wind never gets above 1.2% of generation even out to 2020. Wind is an expensive fiasco even in Texas.

Fuel Type 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Biomass 9 4 194 194 194 194 194 194 194 194 194
Coal 1 9,034 1 9,959 19,959 19,959 19,959 19,959 20,619 20,619 20,619 20,619
Natural Gas 4 6,943 4 7,665 47,705 48,502 50,679 50,697 51,014 51,014 51,014 51,014
Nuclear 5 ,131 5 ,131 5,131 5,131 5,131 5,131 5,131 5,131 5,131 5,131
Other 6 01 6 01 601 601 601 1,221 1,841 1,841 1,841 1,841
Hydro 5 37 5 37 537 537 537 537 537 537 537 537
Wind 8 35 8 88 933 953 953 953 953 953 953 953
Solar - 9 0 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90
Total 7 3,174 7 5,065 75,150 75,967 78,144 78,781 80,378 80,378 80,378 80,378
Fuel Type 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Biomass 0.1% 0.3% 0.3% 0.3% 0.2% 0.2% 0.2% 0.2% 0.2% 0.2%
Coal 26.0% 26.6% 26.6% 26.3% 25.5% 25.3% 25.7% 25.7% 25.7% 25.7%
Natural Gas 64.2% 63.5% 63.5% 63.8% 64.9% 64.4% 63.5% 63.5% 63.5% 63.5%
Nuclear 7.0% 6.8% 6.8% 6.8% 6.6% 6.5% 6.4% 6.4% 6.4% 6.4%
Other 0.8% 0.8% 0.8% 0.8% 0.8% 1.5% 2.3% 2.3% 2.3% 2.3%
Hydro 0.7% 0.7% 0.7% 0.7% 0.7% 0.7% 0.7% 0.7% 0.7% 0.7%
Wind 1.1% 1.2% 1.2% 1.3% 1.2% 1.2% 1.2% 1.2% 1.2% 1.2%
Solar 0.0% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1%

We can always depend on you rolf.

A perpetual fount of misinformation.

Three Mile Island and numerous near misses such as Davis-Bessie.

The 30 year old turbines at Altamont Pass are just now being taken down, not because they are dead, but because they are starting to require more maintenance and the space is better used by the much better turbines/taller towers we are now building.

All those lovely old reactors? I'm guessing that they are going to live only until the next TMI/Chernobyl/Fukushimi and then the good citizens of the US are going to follow in the footsteps of the people of Germany, Switzerland and Belgium and demand a complete shut down.

Thankfully wind is already cheaper than old nuclear (if one includes the subsidies) and solar will soon be there.

I'm just hoping the next melt-down happens slowly enough for people to get out of the way.

104 US reactors operating safely for decades. NRC is now looking at 80 years for those units. Wind turbines are dead at 20-25.

Nuclear power supporters love to talk about capacity and energy density because that is all they have. Let's talk about the capacity to create harm. Let's talk about the disaster density, where every single person in a 30 mile radius must be evacuated, never to return, not just in their lifetime, but for generations to come. Let's talk about the capacity for harm with nuclear wastes that remain deadly for millions of years, just for the sake of electricity for 80 years or less. Let's talk about the capacity for wasting public money with customer charges that continue even when the reactor is not finished and contributes nothing.
Capacity factors are irrelevant in wind energy. What is relevant is the amount of electricity produced over the lifetime of the equipment and the cost of installation and operation of that equipment. The only question is the return on investment. With testing and wind tracking, output is verifiable and predictable. The map on this page shows how wind potential has been identified for the whole country and there is plenty of proven evidence to show where wind power is a good investment. One could build a nuclear power plant in the middle of the desert, and it would be worthless without a source of fresh water for cooling. The energy density and capacity would mean nothing, as that information does not guarantee the value of the investment. You may find a few Fox viewers that are convinced by silly comparisons, but most thinking people can see the difference between noise pollution and discussion of relevant facts.

rolf - I'm 'off the grid', have been for over 20 years.

My power comes from PV panels stored in batteries and from a gasoline powered generator.

From November, 2010 to November, 2011 my generator ran 115 hours.

Now, based on your logic, what I should do is to quit using my solar panels since the Sun doesn't have a 100% capacity like my generator does.

Based on your thinking I should run my generator 24/365 and spend thousands of dollars a year for fuel because solar has a "dismal capacity factor".

Alligator: Thanks for the reference to the car engine. It illustrates the difference between it and a wind turbine. The car engine and a nuclear plant have a CAPACITY VALUE of about 100%, that is when you need its power, it is there. Wind tubines have a capacity value near zero. the power is not dispatchable since you have no idea if it will produce or not. That is even more important than wind's dismal capacity factor.

Vestas CEO Ditlev Engel just said that without the big PTC subsidy, the wind business is dead.
In the past, the termination of such policies has shown markets can "disappear," Engel said today by phone interview.
"Our concern is that if the PTC is not extended, history has shown us that these markets tend to fall off a cliff," Engel from the company's headquarters in Aarhus, Denmark. "We should prepare ourselves for it."
Wind is a subsidized joke.

Rolf, while I do have sympathy for the neurotoxic radiation necrosis you must be dealing with, the nameplate capacities of wind power are appearing higher than output because wind power must be able to survive gale force wind periods without damages. The fact that wind turbines do not operate at their maximum capacity is meaningless. One does not operate their car engine at red line rpm every minute, and by the same token one does not build wind turbines to be only capable of operating at average wind speeds. Find some new nonsense to talk about, as this capacity factor bull is tired and so yesteryear.

Jami - offshore wind is an infant compared to the post-toddler that is onshore wind. We started building large wind farms some four decades ago and are just recently starting to build offshore wind.

Offshore wind has driven changes in how turbines are constructed. Gear boxes are disappearing as the gear trains are the weak points in turbines, they require the most maintenance/repairs. Turbines are getting larger. As offshore technology improves offshore wind installations will accelerate. It's already happening in Europe.

Fossil fuel has strong political support. The Koch brothers who have vast fortunes tied up in fossil fuel are a major funding source behind the Tea Party. The fossil fuel industry "owns" several senators and representatives.

But that's starting to change. Recently we've seen purposed legislation designed to hamper wind farm construction killed in Republican states. We've seen elected officials such as the Republican governor of Wyoming push for the installation of more wind generation.

Wind is making money for its investors, it's saving money for utility customers, and it's creating income for state and local governments. Wind is creating good jobs in places that really need jobs. Wind is gaining political power, even in the Republican party.

Here rolf - Take a look at the price of electricity at night when Texas wind is blowing.

http://www.ercot.com/content/cdr/html/20111014_real_time_spp

Texas might not have a lot of summer wind, but they've got a lot of summer solar. And the wind, when it does blow, generates a lot of cheap electricity. Any smart grid operator uses the cheapest input first and then turns to the more expensive. They don't build expensive generation for 24/365 when they have more affordable alternatives.

I won't bother going through all the storage/dispatchable power/load-shifting stuff again. You've been informed many, many times about all that stuff and you continue to ignore it.

My sympathy to your students. They're going to have some serious unlearning to do after you get through misleading them.

Texas has 3 times the name plate wind power capacity of any other state. In Texas, ERCOT reports that in summer that wind's capacity factor is a measly 8.7% and provided just 1% of Texas 74,000 MW demand.Less than 800 MW out more than 9,000 installed.
The ultimate wind boondoggle is Cape Wind,our largest wind project off Cape Cod. The developer admits that in summer when demand is highest, this $2.5 billion fiasco will produce about 100MW.
Take away the subsidies, and the wind business goes as quiet as those turbine blades on a muggy summer day when all ACs run, and there isn't a 'breath of air'
I take my energy classes(U of MN adult ed) to tour various Excel Energy power plants. Mention wind to the control room operators, and they either burst our laughing or throw their hands up in despair.
In the UK last winter when that big cold spell settled in, output from all those wind turbines almost went to zero. Wind is a joke.

So, I guess the map is more of the potential based on wind and political will, with a very high weighting on the the latter.

John and Bob, very informative. thanks.

This should get you started John...

http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/windmaps/offshore.asp

There are wind tables linked on the page but they are limited to wind within 50 miles of shore and they don't cover all coastal states. For example, Texas is not listed but Texas is in the process of installing offshore wind.

Here's the NREL report.

And just yesterday the federal government announced a major new study of offshore wind production for US coasts.

http://www.altenergymag.com/news/2011/11/08/us-department-of-energy-to-fund-major-offshore-wind-grid-interconnection-study/22075

Finally, here's a US wind map showing both on- and offshore wind. Note how what we think of really wind rich areas like the Midwest are predominately class 3, 4, and 5 zones, the best 6 and 7 class zones are just off our coasts.

We've got class 4, 5, 6 and 7 zones running from the south tip of Florida all the way to the Canadian boarder. Even Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama have class 4 wind offshore.

Look at what "40%" California has to tap.

http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/pdfs/wind_maps/us_windmap.pdf

rolf - It's ridiculous to compare wind and nuclear based on capacity factor. The real comparison is cost and externalities.

If industrial wind is a taxpayer funded scam, it's a scam that has backfired on its perpetrators. Wind is bringing lots of inexpensive electricity to our grids while bringing us none of the safety and hazardous waste problems of nuclear.

Places such as Texas which have lots of wind on their grid are enjoying decreased electricity costs.

--

Oh, and an honest critic of wind would compare the cost of electricity from paid off reactors with the cost of electricity from paid off wind farms. Or the cost of new generation from each.

New nuclear has been priced off the table.

If you have updated data on offshore wind power, I'd love to see the studies. The offshore wind data comes from publicly available studies published in 2009 or before and as such may not be included.

@Bob - I appreciate your comment that the borders are artificial in terms of electricity flows, but state political boundaries are highly significant in setting renewable energy and economic development policy and therefore this map has a great deal of meaning.

Nuclear has a 92% capacity factor and the 8% is that periodic fuel raplacement period. Wind in the US is running 27% capacity factor and you can't know when the 73% is going to happen. Industrial wind is a taxpayer funded scam.

Estoy enviando este comentario, desde Chihuahua Chih., colindante con el Edo. de Texas, coincido con el mapa y sus posibilidades de la utilizaciòn de la Energìa Eòlica, que NO cuesta y està ahì todos los dias, con sus variables de Velocidad y sus cambios, de acuerdo a las Estaciones del año.
Pero con todo lo que digan, es mucho mejor, que utilizar las Energìas Fòsiles y la peligrosìsima Energìa Nuclear.
Saludos desde Chihuahua Mèxico.
Ing. Enrique H. Esquivel Vega

rofl - Wrong.

Grid managers constantly deal with changes in supply and load. Wind neither abruptly starts or abruptly stops. And wind farms are installing storage so that they can guarantee minimum production times.

Hydro is extremely dispatchable. Gas plants can be turned on and off as needed. Coal plants can be ramped down to lower output levels if their power isn't needed without damaging their efficiency. And there are load adjustments that grid managers can call on to help match supply to demand.

No power source is 100% reliable or 100% available. In August two reactors in Virginia suddenly went off line due to an earthquake. Grid operators had to make a major adjustment extremely rapidly.

Wind, you can predict. Just monitoring the flow of a weather systems across multiple wind farms tells one when a particular farm is likely to increase or decrease output.

(BTW, those two reactors still haven't been restarted. But the wind is still blowing and turbines spinning.)

This map has a couple of problems.

First, it ignores the ample offshore wind that both coasts have available. 5% Virginia, 2% North Carolina and 1% South Carolina could get a large percentage of their electricity from just off their beaches.

Second, those state boarder lines are artificial. There is no physical barrier that blocks wind-produced electricity from 3,253% Oklahoma from being used in 1% Tennessee. TVA is in the planning stage to build a HVDC transmission line to move some of that 3,253% onto their grid.

We constantly move coal from West Virginia, Wyoming, and the other 24 coal-producing states to states which do not mine coal. Nothing stops coal from crossing those lines drawn on the map.

The southeast has poorer wind than the rest of the US. Although 25% wind doesn't make sense anywhere in the US.

Why are the southern states, especially coastal FL with coast wind, I would guess, all rated near to or big zeros?

Biomass, like natural gas, is also dispatchable for backing up wind energy. Dispatchables like NG, biomass and trash-2-energy back up for wind power makes sense in the NE considering those dispatchables are generally more available there, and the wind is less available there. Biomass and trash-2-energy makes more sense in the midwest, the northwest and high plains states. In those areas we could be installing distributed power plants at or near hundreds or even thousands of load centers, meaning at or nearer towns and cities. This would reduce line losses and thus increase efficiency. It would also provide a better use for trash than landfilling. see http://aaecorp.com/ceo.html

I don't think the comment #1 is correct: the wind power is fed to the grid, which is Nation wide. Lack of wind in an area is statistically compensated in most instances by wind, blowing some where else. 100% back up is really excessive and unreasonable. Then: why back up should come from (new?) gas plants only and not from water-, from geothermal- from sun- and, to a certain but not negligible extent, from nuclear- and fossil fuel- power plants? And lately, what about the role of smart grids? I think we need to rethink our whole system of energy production and consumption, unless someone prefers climate problems

Complete nonsense. Erratic wind drives power plant control room operators up the wall. And it needs close to 100% backup from natural gas plants.