Re: [Vo]:Would someone care to estimate actual wind capacity factor from this data?
Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: Now that's what I'm talking about: http://www.duke-energy.com/news/releases/2013012301.asp http://www.sandia.gov/ess/docs/pr_conferences/2011/3_Ratnayake_Notrees.pdf Okay, the first article says it has 36 MW of capacity and it costs . . . $44 million? Not sure. 36 MW for how long? The second article says it has 24 MWh of storage. So at peak it with all of the turbines off it would not last for one hour, but that is an unlikely scenario. This wind farm has 153 MW nameplate capacity, so that's 43 MW on average. The second article has some graphs showing what happens when they lose 8 MW in a trip which I assume means a sudden loss of several turbines. It says 4 WTGs go off. Probably means Wind Turbine Generator. They are 2 MW each?! Wow. When a nuke plant trips, scrams and goes off line the power company really has to hustle. Interesting! - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Would someone care to estimate actual wind capacity factor from this data?
Jouni Valkonen jounivalko...@gmail.com wrote: I calculated for german capacity factor 19 % from 2011 data. There was on average 28 GW wind power installed during the year and total output was 46 500 GWh. Therefore I would assume that your sources used misleading data. Your assumption is incorrect. The data I used is for the U.S. Our on-shore wind is stronger and steadier than Germany. The 19% capacity factor for Germany has been published elsewhere, but it does not apply to the U.S., the U.K. or to offshore wind. U.S. prime wind locations such as N. and S. Dakota are the best in the world (on-shore). N. and S. Dakota could supply all of the electricity in North America from wind, if there was a way to transmit and store it. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Would someone care to estimate actual wind capacity factor from this data?
Jouni Valkonen jounivalko...@gmail.com wrote: It must be considered that windmills in Germany are quite old. And efficiency has improved quite significantly in recent years. The equipment wears out in 20 years and it is scrapped and replaced. Only the towers remain. Fortunately, the tower is the most expensive part, by far. The replacement equipment is the most efficient available, except that the older towers only support small turbines with short blades. In some cases the entire tower is replaced. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Would someone care to estimate actual wind capacity factor from this data?
In solving the baseload elex coal problem, I had to generate enough ammonia to photosynthetically fix all fossil fuel elex CO2 into algal biomass. One way I looked at was to carpet the Dakotas with wind energy generators to drive conventional water electrolysis to generate hydrogen for the Haber-Bosch process: http://diogenesinstitute.org/index.php/Template:Cost_to_Build_Ammonia_Synthesis_Wind_Generators_($) Yes, this doubles the electrical generation capacity of the US but the storage and transmission medium is ammonia and that's all used up producing algal biomass. You'll notice that if you're allowed to include industrial learning curve, the cost per installed watt comes in at around $3.50. On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 1:20 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Jouni Valkonen jounivalko...@gmail.com wrote: It must be considered that windmills in Germany are quite old. And efficiency has improved quite significantly in recent years. The equipment wears out in 20 years and it is scrapped and replaced. Only the towers remain. Fortunately, the tower is the most expensive part, by far. The replacement equipment is the most efficient available, except that the older towers only support small turbines with short blades. In some cases the entire tower is replaced. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Would someone care to estimate actual wind capacity factor from this data?
James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com wrote: In solving the baseload elex coal problem, I had to generate enough ammonia to photosynthetically fix all fossil fuel elex CO2 into algal biomass. An interesting hybrid approach. Things that sound complicated like this sometimes work surprisingly well. A hybrid automobile is a good example. At first glance you think it add steps from combustion to propulsion so it should be less efficient. It works because the step taken just before propulsion varies with speed, so it is more effective. Technology systems tend to get complicated, followed by a grand simplification, followed by another phase of increasing complexity. A classic example is piston aircraft engine giving way to the jet engine (a simplification -- at least in overall design), which then become more complicated as it grew larger and more efficient. Jet engines are now being simplified again for small aircraft, with a so-called one-piece turbine. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Would someone care to estimate actual wind capacity factor from this data?
On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 3:03 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: James Bowery jabow...@gmail.com wrote: In solving the baseload elex coal problem, I had to generate enough ammonia to photosynthetically fix all fossil fuel elex CO2 into algal biomass. An interesting hybrid approach. Things that sound complicated like this sometimes work surprisingly well. Well, in this case I ran into a problem: Long before I'd fixed the US elex CO2, I was generating many times the amount of protein that could be consumed by the world's population without producing gout. Of course, even earlier than that about half of all arable land in the world would have returned to its native state including most of the now-cultivated Amazon River Basin. Coal companies and the DoE don't care about solving the global nutrition problem let alone the resulting global extinction event going on.
Re: [Vo]:Would someone care to estimate actual wind capacity factor from this data?
The bulk of the new 2012 installations happened on Q4. This amounted total of 8380 MW new wind power. This would imply that the capacity factor in 2012 was near 0.3 what is usually rounded up into ⅓. Official: US Wind Power Accounted For 42% Of New Power Capacity In 2012, Beat Natural Gas http://cleantechnica.com/2013/01/31/us-wind-power/ Wind power is indeed coming in a gust, and and new wind is already cheaper than new coal power. The price of wind electricity in US is something between $50 to $80 per MWh what is quite competitive. There is still however a problem that when there are high winds, market price for electricity tend to be low due to high output of wind farms. Therefore small tariff would be good idea still to maintain. That decreases the risk of installing new windmills and thus accelerates the installation of new wind farms. There is however interesting to see that battery technology is evolving rapidly and the price point of batteries is nearly competitive. GE just introduced new smart windmills that has also a grid level battery installed, they will to be installed in Netherlands later this year. Rapidly evolving battery technology is also good news for electric cars and EVs could operate as great storage for fluctuating wind power output. Tesla will introduce on later this year new 120 kWh version of Model S. On daily driving usually 20 kWh is enough, therefore additional 100 kWh could be charged only during high winds or when full charge is needed. Also advanced blade materials are great. And carbon fibers could cut down the cost of windmills quite significantly, perhaps 30 %. Also ultra strong and ultra light graphene is coming and this could cut down the price even further. We already have tennis rackets that are reinforced with graphene! —Jouni On Feb 2, 2013, at 12:58 AM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: This is a little complicated. Honestly, too complicated for a spreadsheet or for my limited mathematical abilities. We have a moving target and two sets of numbers, one ending in December and the other in November. There are reportedly ~60,000 MW of wind turbines in the U.S. as of the end of 2012. Would someone care to estimate the actual capacity factor of these turbines? I would like to know approximately how much energy these turbines produced. Actual performance is usually estimated at 1/3 the nameplate capacity. In other words, 60,000 MW of turbines should produce 20,000 MW on average, which over 1 year adds up to 174,720 GWH (or thousand megawatt hours -- the EIA's preferred units). The number of wind turbines increases in spurts throughout the year as new turbines are installed and new wind farms are put on line. These MW quotes are for total number of installed turbines. Total power increases, though some old turbines are removed or upgraded. Output energy also increases. As follows: Year (start of year; January), total capacity MW, increase MW over previous year, energy from previous year in GWH (1000 MWH) 2013, 60,000 MW, 13,124 MW, 125,914 GWH 2012, 47,000 MW, 6,800 MW, 109,521 GWH 2011, 40,200 MW . . . In other words, in 2012, energy increased by 16,393 GWH. That was coming from more turbines than there were in 2011, but how many more? The numbers increased continuously, by a total of 19,924, but a turbine installed in October 2012 contributed practically nothing to the 2012 totals. You could say that the 60,000 MW of turbines should have produced 174,720 GWH in 2012, but they only produced 125,914 so the capacity is lower than claimed. But that is not true, because most of the 13,124 MW added that year was not there at the beginning. Would it be reasonable to say the average capacity in 2012 was halfway between 47,000 MW and 60,000 MW? 53,500 MW nameplate, or 17,833 MW with the fudge factor of 1/3? That would produce 155,789 GWH which is still considerably above the actual total of 125,914. Using that crude method of assuming the average was 53,500 nameplate, the capacity would be 27%, not 33%. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Would someone care to estimate actual wind capacity factor from this data?
On Feb 2, 2013, at 12:58 AM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: That would produce 155,789 GWH which is still considerably above the actual total of 125,914. Using that crude method of assuming the average was 53,500 nameplate, the capacity would be 27%, not 33%. I did more exact although still crude approximation using following formula: (47GW+(13.1GW−8.4GW)×.7)×.285×24h×366 = 125 900 GWh This formula considers that 8.4 GW was installed on Q4, therefore they are assumed to contribute less than 50 %. This means that capacity factor was near 0.285 what is quite good. Typically onshore capacity factor is near 0.25 whereas on offshore it might be above 0.4. —Jouni
Re: [Vo]:Would someone care to estimate actual wind capacity factor from this data?
Jouni Valkonen jounivalko...@gmail.com wrote: I did more exact although still crude approximation using following formula: (47GW+(13.1GW-8.4GW)×.7)×.285×24h×366 = 125 900 GWh This formula considers that 8.4 GW was installed on Q4 . . . Thanks! It is actually a little better because the IEA measured energy (MWh) from November to November, as I mentioned. Close to 29% I guess. I have not heard that offshore COP is as high as ~40% on average. No wonder they want to put so many in the North Sea. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Would someone care to estimate actual wind capacity factor from this data?
On Fri, Feb 1, 2013 at 8:52 PM, Jed Rothwell jedrothw...@gmail.com wrote: Close to 29% I guess. Optimistic: The Dutch national wind capacity factor is a dismal 0.186. The German wind capacity factor “is even more dismal at 0.167,” the article said. http://frontpagemag.com/2011/tait-trussell/wind-power-is-dying/ I would recommend using 20% in the calc.
Re: [Vo]:Would someone care to estimate actual wind capacity factor from this data?
The Brits put it at 15%: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1361316/250bn-wind-power-industry-greatest-scam-age.html#axzz2JhrhkNKt We really need someone like EEStor to make a better battery for grid leveling.
Re: [Vo]:Would someone care to estimate actual wind capacity factor from this data?
Again 16 to 20 %: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_Power_Sources
Re: [Vo]:Would someone care to estimate actual wind capacity factor from this data?
Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: Close to 29% I guess. Optimistic: The Dutch national wind capacity factor is a dismal 0.186. The German wind capacity factor “is even more dismal at 0.167,” the article said. This is not optimistic or pessimistic. This is actual performance data from the EIA. The number of turbines installed is known with precision, and I think the power companies keep track of electricity with precision, so this is actual average performance for the U.S. U.S. wind resources are better than European onshore ones. Turbines are only put in places with a lot of wind, and the U.S. has many prime locations still untapped. Opponents of wind have long held that actual performance is well below the nominal 1/3rd estimate that wind advocates use. This data shows performance really is about that good. Assuming the IEA data is good. It comes from power company sources. They have no reason to lie about it. - Jed
Re: [Vo]:Would someone care to estimate actual wind capacity factor from this data?
It is surprising that everyone hates German wind power expect germans them-self. Windmills are very popular in Germany and local politician must do unpopular decisions such as reducing the tariffs, because German grid infrastructure has hard time to handle the peak loads caused by windmills. We could speculate that wind power is significant factor for the competitiveness of German industry, because windmills have been pushing down the electricity price. Especially the high price of daytime electricity has been reduced due to day active wind and solar power. There are 32 GW solar power and 31 GW Wind power installed in Germany. Average electricity demand in Germany is 60 GW. I calculated for german capacity factor 19 % from 2011 data. There was on average 28 GW wind power installed during the year and total output was 46 500 GWh. Therefore I would assume that your sources used misleading data. It must be considered that windmills in Germany are quite old. And efficiency has improved quite significantly in recent years. Also today the installation of onshore windmills costs just €850 per kW although just few years ago the cost was €1200 per kW. Also the maintenance costs has been reduced by one third. —Jouni Terry Blanton hohlr...@gmail.com wrote: Close to 29% I guess. Optimistic: The Dutch national wind capacity factor is a dismal 0.186. The German wind capacity factor “is even more dismal at 0.167,” the article said.
