On Mar 7, 2009, at 7:37 AM, Stephen A. Lawrence quoted:
Starting in October 2009, a fine of 1.7 Krona (0.23 Euros) per kWh
could
be imposed on windmill operators in the Kingdom who deliver current to
the grid when it's not needed, notably at night;
This is nonsensical. Windmills should (must?) have voltage regulators
that prevent supplying above the maximum allowable line voltage. If
so, then they can not supply current unless the demand actually
exists, and likely such demand even exists locally, so is more
efficiently supplied by the local windmill power source.
The problem most likely is perhaps the utility has too large a base
load supply, coal or nuclear, which is unresponsive to load changes.
If sufficient power storage for solar and wind is added as more
windmills are added then the base load will have to reduced even
further, eventually eliminated altogether - but isn't that a good
goal? Coal boilers can handle power reductions efficiently, it just
takes a while, some hours.
Perhaps the real problem is one of accounting, or international
contracts for base load power. (I didn't read the article because I
didn't want to subscribe.)
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
