Integrating Large Amounts of Wind Power Onto the Grid
I wrote a piece a few months ago on nay-sayers to wind, in which I pointed out that the UK’s Duke of Edinburgh just may be the king. In it, I noted:
Here in the U.S., we have climate change deniers, and all manner of other opponents to renewable energy. In essence, they’re the oil and coal companies, the members of Congress they influence, and those who believe the torrents of propaganda they generate on “clean coal,” “safe nuclear,” and the other oxymorons that are creeping into our vocabularies.
In the U.K. however, they come in the form of certain members of the nobility. According to The Guardian, the Duke of Edinburgh has made a fierce attack on wind farms, claiming that “they don’t work,” and describing them as “a disgrace” and “absolutely useless.” Pictured here, however, I would say that he looks rather jolly. Who would know that such scathing (and silly) statements lie behind such a winsome smile and what I’m sure is truly excellent breeding?
In response, Nick Cook, a wonderful chap from Cheltenham (Western England), with whom I Skype writes:
(Your piece notes that) “The law of statistics means that the wind is likely to be blowing somewhere.” Unfortunately the law of statistics also means that the wind is not guaranteed to be always blowing somewhere, as happened in December 2010 in the UK when it hardly blew anywhere for a fortnight. This is when you need some serious storage capacity, several TWh worth if you are to get most of your electricity from solar and wind. (For reference the average UK electricity usage is about 1 TW.)
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not anti-wind, but we do need to be pragmatic — not a nay-sayer but also not over optimistic. To balance out these we will need very substantial energy storage and the only technology that can sensibly and economically store these quantities of energy are chemical fuels, ideally synthetic hydrocarbons.
Nick:
Yes, we DO need storage, but only when we have huge penetration of wind and solar. We’re a long way from that now — at least in the U.S., where it’s about 2%; we could quadruple that and not have any issue with storage at all.
And yes, synthetic fuels is a very good approach. As you know, I’m a big believer in Doty Windfuels; I think they’ve cracked the code here.
Re: your comment on chemical storage, I would point out that we’re fairly close to batteries at $100/KWh. That starts to make grid-scale energy storage affordable.
And try to keep the Duke under control there, mate.
Craig,
We’re doing better than 2% on wind.
I think for 2011 we exceeded 3% wind, and January 2012 we exceeded 4% wind… As natural gas prices drop, the penetration of wind energy becomes much more manageable, and we’ll see penetration levels climb quickly for the next year. But eventually all good things end. A single cold winter and we could see natural gas prices skyrocket, causing wind curtailment rates to soar once again.
Now for solar you are certainly correct. We haven’t gotten beyond ~0.05% solar power yet..
Yes, that’s true; thanks for the correction.
Here is an article on wind energy which asserts that it is a mistaken technology:
http://fifewindfarms.org.uk/wind-turbines-do-they-increase-carbon-emissions/
To summarize, wind energy is so irregular that it must be totally backed up by other energy sources. Because it forces the other sources to run in an inefficient mode, wind energy may actually INCREASE CO2 emissions. Moreover, it greatly increases the cost of energy. It is only a matter of time before consumers realize this.
Although the article does not address solar power, it would appear that because of its greater predictability, solar power would be less expensive than wind power.