too much wind power

[blazespinnaker]

Re: too much wind power

2.) reducing the standard of living of the world's people to poverty level is not a workable nor desireable solution, either.

It depends on how you define "poverty". If by poverty you mean efficient cars, small houses, more transit then I'm all for it.

If by poverty you mean more eating food only within 100 miles (except for necessary foods for reasons of nutrition) .. then I'm all for it.

If by poverty you mean that everyone in the world needs to start living within their means, then I'm all for it.

If by poverty you mean we stop spending useless amounts of social resources on entertainment, then I'm all for it.

[we_are_toast]

Re: too much wind power

This is really a non-problem. There are so many solutions it's funny.

As the smart grid grows, and if we had an ounce of common sense we would have a government jobs program like the TVA to get it growing fast, the utilities will be able to easily switch in and out non constant loads (electric heat, air conditioning, electric car outlets...).

Pumping water as GRG55 suggests will be part of the solution, and of course electric cars as jimmygu3 suggests will be the monster capacitor.

Replacing 10% of the auto fleet with electric (10KwH/day) will easily be able to handle the output of 10,000 1MW wind turbines operating at 100% capacity 24 hrs/day. Smoothing smart grid fluctuations with this level of storage capacity is no more an issue than owning gold during upcoming poom.

[c1ue]

Re: too much wind power

As the smart grid grows, and if we had an ounce of common sense we would have a government jobs program like the TVA to get it growing fast, the utilities will be able to easily switch in and out non constant loads (electric heat, air conditioning, electric car outlets...).

The only way the utility can easiy switch in and out non-constant loads is if the smart meters actually turn off households at the utility's whim.

The magical thinking you espouse continues.

The FACT is that wind and solar energy are highly variable due to weather. This is perfectly understandable, but the reality is that this variability requires nuclear, natural gas, diesel, or coal backup.

With the sole exception of nuclear, all of the other options require significant startup and stopping cycles. These cycles - as you noted previously - are far more CO2 polluting as well as energy inefficient than even the same plant's full operating mode.

As the Danish and German examples show - the actual net impact of overall CO2 because of this effect is nil.

When you add in the massive amounts of subsidies that have been and are being deployed, the actual benefit is a straight tradeoff between feeling good and paying more, as opposed to doing good and paying more.

Blithely talking about building more dams to act as water storage - this too is magical thinking.

If there are knock-down, drag out fights over the delta smelt or salmon - just how will all these new dams be built? Where will they be placed? How many thousands of miles of new transmission grid must be emplaced in order to service these new dams - generally in uninhabited areas thousands of miles from any population center?

[Ghent12]

Re: too much wind power

It depends on how you define "poverty". If by poverty you mean efficient cars, small houses, more transit then I'm all for it.

If by poverty you mean more eating food only within 100 miles (except for necessary foods for reasons of nutrition) .. then I'm all for it.

If by poverty you mean that everyone in the world needs to start living within their means, then I'm all for it.

If by poverty you mean we stop spending useless amounts of social resources on entertainment, then I'm all for it.

What a drab and dull existence you propose. What constitutes a "useful amount" of social resources spent on entertainment?

You're telling me that you are in favor of taking away my crab legs, scallops, essentially all fruits, and essentially all drinks (alcoholic or otherwise). Excuse me, but that truly is undesirable and grotesque. That's an abomination to humanity. I don't want to live a brutal, short, tribal existence, nor should I be forced to by "well-meaning" people such as yourself, nor will I ever.

[Starving Steve]

Re: too much wind power

What you call, "magical thinking", I call "pot-head thinking" because pot-heads don't connect dots logically, nor do pot-heads reason solutions out carefully. All this pot-head thinking might work fine in after a rock concert, but such magical thinking is useless in solving real world problems such as the problem of providing affordable, plentiful, and reliable electric energy for the world's population.

And the pot-heads go on to post here with such terms as "smart grids", a term which is undefined and meaningless. Other pot-head terms: "10,000 x 1MW windmills". What does that mean, especially after transmission losses on an electrical grid?

Another question to ask: What does a "TVA project" mean now when there is no money left in the stimulus (or TARP programme) for a TVA project? The Fed is out of bullets. The stimulus money has all been squandered on bail-outs.

[we_are_toast]

Re: too much wind power

The only way the utility can easiy switch in and out non-constant loads is if the smart meters actually turn off households at the utility's whim.

The magical thinking you espouse continues.

Wrong again; it's here and it's happening now. Could we please keep the pseudo-science over on the climate change thread?

Would you let your electric company take control of your air-conditioner if it saved you money?

Arizona Public Service Co. will try to answer that question with a test project that will put customers' thermostats into the utility's hands.

The plan is one of several energy-saving strategies APS and other utilities are rolling out across the country to reduce peak energy demand, when utilities have to fire up extra power plants to supply electricity to customers.

By offering lower bills, utilities hope to entice enough customers into energy-saving programs to significantly reduce power demand.


...

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepu...ditioning.html

Our local power company, Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE), is offering a new program called Peak Rewards to residents in the mid-Atlantic region. Here’s the concept: you allow the utility to install a special programmable thermostat or outside switch on your A/C or Heatpump that gives them auxilary control over your system. In exchange, BGE gives you a one time credit of up to $200 on your bill, the free programmable thermostat, and the promise that as others join the program and reduce peak electrical demand, prices will fall.

As an added bonus, BGE says you’ll be helping the environment by reducing overall energy usage. If you don’t like the effects of the power cycling, you can opt out of the program at any time and the programmable thermostat is yours to keep. BGE claims that at their minimum participation level (what they call 50% participation), you likely won’t see very much change in your system’s performance.

The idea behind the plan is that BGE will have more control over the total load on the power grid at any given time. By cycling some houses off during peak hours, the utility can ensure less spikes to the power grid, meaning less overall electrical power generation is required (e.g., less powerplants are needed). Overall, more consistent power generation is cheaper and allows less basic fuels to be used. This, in turn, will drive prices down as demand for electricity declines.

http://www.oneprojectcloser.com/util...ner-heat-pump/

Hey Steve, I don't appreciate your name calling, and you shouldn't be doing it here at iTulip. You post some absolute nonsense here and I've let it ride. IF you have something intelligent to say here, please say it, but why don't you take the constant tree hugging, pot-head rants somewhere else.

[c1ue]

Re: too much wind power

Here’s the concept: you allow the utility to install a special programmable thermostat or outside switch on your A/C or Heatpump that gives them auxilary control over your system.

And indeed - as I noted the only way a 'smart meter' can actually control demand is if the utility turns off power to houses.

Would I accept this? No.

And how will the utility get people to 'volunteer'? By pricing strategies.

It is just another step towards 'separate but equal' facilities.

We don't actually discriminate against (insert demographic). It isn't our fault that the average wage of (insert demographic) is 50% lower. If they just worked harder they too could buy a spot in .

[ggirod]

Re: too much wind power

More than twenty years ago, peak electric pricing was used to allow businesses to save money by managing their peak demand. In large facilities, each 1/3 (typically) of air conditioning load would be shed 20 minutes out of an hour. The result was that in peak demand times a/c was less than wonderful but the business saved a fortune. ONE aspect of the smart grid is that similar controls for such things as water heaters and air conditioners can be implemented to manage peak demand. As an aside, off peak energy is amazingly cheap, so if you designed your home and system to optimize use of off peak energy, and could get the reduced rates, you would save lots of bucks.

Another, and probably more useful aspect is that further logic can be employed in the distribution of electricity within and between grids. So, possibly the excess wind power could pass through the grid to a neighbor and allow them not to have to buy other power. Obviously contracts would have to be changed for such to work.

IMHO a lot of criticism of wind power comes from the two problems. One is that only a small portion of available wind is being tapped. For example, if one considered the east coast and put wind turbines offshore from Maine to Florida, the installation would almost never have either substantial wind hitting all turbines or no wind on any turbines. At any given time, however, wind would be hitting a LOT of turbines, leveling the output and reducing supplemental generation costs. Choosing areas such as coasts and midwest areas from north to south could make pretty substantial contributions. The second problem is that the wind generation facilities are financed and operated independently. So, combined with the small geographical area, each wind source is disruptive to the status quo. Each operator needs to maximize their sale so tends to produce as much as possible whether there are customers nearby who need it. Or ... they cut back and lose revenue. Neither is very good.

So, if the facilities were large enough they would be more reliable and alternatively if numerous small facilities were integrated through smart logic in the overall grid (not just power meters in the homes) then the total contribution could be much more stable and reliable. Finally, I have noticed that the National Weather Service is rather good at predicting weather a day to a few days out. Just imagine a grid and power management operation adequate to predict output and plan the balanced output in advance. That is what a smart grid really is, and that is what a successful smart grid will be.

The same principle applies to the supplemental sources. A few large and really responsive natural gas generators could sell power at very high rates to keep the grid alive when wind fluctuations occur. Selling only into shortage, locating such a plant near one of the deep gas wells could enable wind power for a century or more before its supply ran out. The problem is to view the problem as a systems problem, not a quick shoot from the hip solution. When the powers that be accept something as efficient and disruptive as that is a matter for crystal balls to predict.

p.s. people like to point out grid losses as being a problem. Well, if the wire and associated equipment in the grid were big enough to handle somewhat more load and the control of the grid were smart enough to optimize the usage of the assets, then losses would be less important. Solving network distribution problems is not trivial but also not beyond the capability of our technology. Getting a distribution grid responsive enough to source and demand changes is the challenge.

[Starving Steve]

Re: too much wind power

Imagine a "smart electric-metre" outside my house, if I lived in the South or the South-West of the U.S, automatically hiking my electric charge for peak hours of consumption, when I need to consume electricity to power my air-conditioner and my stove? Or am I to eat supper at 3AM in Phoenix, Arizona and turn the central air-conditioner on at 5AM?

And some resent my term, "pot-head thinking"!

I am the slow-learner here, and I don't quite understand how a "smart electric-metre" here reduces peak-hour demand. The so-called, "smart metre" really makes life unbearable in hot or cold climates. Sorry, but I am not going to let "smart-metres" dictate how I am to live. Eating supper at 3AM and starting air-conditioning at 5AM is not the way I want to live, nor really the way anyone should have to live.

I guess if I were rich enough, I could move to a coastal location where perhaps fog keeps the afternoons cool. During winter, the sea might keep the nights mild enough to not heat the house. But those sites are bid-up now, and only the wealthy can afford a house in such locations.

And on the subject of wind power, i.e, those "10,000 x 1MW windmills" discussed above, what relevance are those windmills in Wyoming or North Dakota when the electric power is needed in Chicago or in Los Angeles? The losses due to transmission on the grid would make these windmills worthless. Ten-thousand windmills producing power on the Great Plains is lunacy.

"Professor, I need to stay after the bell because I need some help here with this kind of thinking."

Yes, Professor, we could put 10,000 x 1MW windmills in the L.A. Basin, but most of the time, the wind barely blows there. Except during the early autumn Santa Ana heat blasts, the wind barely is strong enough to move a leaf on a tree in the Los Angeles Basin. So thinking that windmills might someday produce power for electric cars in Southern California is again, lunacy. (Pot-head thinking)

Yes, Professor, the sea breeze does funnel through certain passes in the mountains north and east of Los Angeles, but putting 10,000 windmills in a few select locations, HOW? One windmill on top of the other? Please explain the details of this plan to me because I am lost.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: too much wind power

This is really a non-problem. There are so many solutions it's funny.

As the smart grid grows, and if we had an ounce of common sense we would have a government jobs program like the TVA to get it growing fast, the utilities will be able to easily switch in and out non constant loads (electric heat, air conditioning, electric car outlets...).

Pumping water as GRG55 suggests will be part of the solution, and of course electric cars as jimmygu3 suggests will be the monster capacitor.

Replacing 10% of the auto fleet with electric (10KwH/day) will easily be able to handle the output of 10,000 1MW wind turbines operating at 100% capacity 24 hrs/day. Smoothing smart grid fluctuations with this level of storage capacity is no more an issue than owning gold during upcoming poom.

You make a good point about EVs able to smooth out grid fluctuations, but they don't work both ways. They can serve as a large variable loads nicely -empty batteries can take huge power in for just a little while. Unfortunately, the DC batteries can't be sources back to the AC grid unless we consider high amp rating inverters, which are expensive and inefficient. If coupled with some smart grid concepts, EVs could become big loads the utility could turn on and off as it suits them.

If future PEVs settle on AC motors, there's hope that the inverter in the automoble may be able to feed power back to the grid as AC at 60 Hz or 50 Hz syncronized to the grid.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: too much wind power

Imagine a "smart electric-metre" outside my house, if I lived in the South or the South-West of the U.S, automatically hiking my electric charge for peak hours of consumption, when I need to consume electricity to power my air-conditioner and my stove? Or am I to eat supper at 3AM in Phoenix, Arizona and turn the central air-conditioner on at 5AM?

And some resent my term, "pot-head thinking"!

I am the slow-learner here, and I don't quite understand how a "smart electric-metre" here reduces peak-hour demand. The so-called, "smart metre" really makes life unbearable in hot or cold climates. Sorry, but I am not going to let "smart-metres" dictate how I am to live. Eating supper at 3AM and starting air-conditioning at 5AM is not the way I want to live, nor really the way anyone should have to live.

I guess if I were rich enough, I could move to a coastal location where perhaps fog keeps the afternoons cool. During winter, the sea might keep the nights mild enough to not heat the house. But those sites are bid-up now, and only the wealthy can afford a house in such locations.

You take the concept too far. Customers will retain control, but be able to grant the utility control over some appliances to the utility in exchange for a lower rate.

Most people won't decide to let the utility turn off their aquarium and kill all the expensive fish or the A/C to make them miserable.

Many will decide to let the utility control the dishwasher, clothes dryer, water heater, or EV charger in exchange for a lower monthly bill.

[Starving Steve]

Re: too much wind power

Oh yes, that electric vehicle: When could I charge that up? The sun is out in Phoenix, and I have yesterday's air-conditioning to do while I sleep. It's 5AM. My boss wants me at work at 8:30AM. Oh my goodness, and dishes have to be washed, plus the clothes!

The "smart-metre" jacked-up my electric rates last evening, so I just shut everything off and watched TV. And at 7AM, the smart-metre jacks-up my electric rate again for the morning peak-load. I'm exhausted, and I need to sleep.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: too much wind power

And indeed - as I noted the only way a 'smart meter' can actually control demand is if the utility turns off power to houses.

Would I accept this? No.

There are existing technical solutions that are much more elegant. The folks who design and sell industrial and automotive data buses have done a ton of good work and developed standards and devices for such things. One key element is the concept of the "device model" for things connected in a network.

The machine can tell the network what it is and how it works so the controller or peer can interact in a sensible way. A presure sensor can, by it's device model, let the rest of the network know that all it can do is report the pressure when requested. A million dollar labeling machine can tell the network that it is more sophisticated and able to take many commands about how it should be labeling and can report many things about what it is doing.

Using these existing schemes, the utility can control devices in your house and you can set permission levels and set limits on their behavior. You could choose to deny all access to the utility, or only let the utility delay your clothes dryer for a brief while, or set the refridgerator to stay on always.

The details are pretty overwhelming but the system can work in a very elegant and common-sense way. Most likely the data will ride on top of the power over the lines, or perhaps come in through cable or telephone lines.

[we_are_toast]

Re: too much wind power

You make a good point about EVs able to smooth out grid fluctuations, but they don't work both ways. They can serve as a large variable loads nicely -empty batteries can take huge power in for just a little while. Unfortunately, the DC batteries can't be sources back to the AC grid unless we consider high amp rating inverters, which are expensive and inefficient. If coupled with some smart grid concepts, EVs could become big loads the utility could turn on and off as it suits them.

If future PEVs settle on AC motors, there's hope that the inverter in the automoble may be able to feed power back to the grid as AC at 60 Hz or 50 Hz syncronized to the grid.

Very good point about the added expense of the inverter. I'm not sure, but I don't believe you would need a pure sine wave inverter, which is fairly expensive, you might be able to get by with a much cheaper, but less efficient square wave inverter.

Of course, all the people who have Solar Electric already installed, and the millions more who will be installing it soon enough, will already have a grid tied inverter in place, and a well designed electric car outlet will function perfectly well both ways. My guess would be these people will most likely be the 1st to get the electric car market going.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: too much wind power

Very good point about the added expense of the inverter. I'm not sure, but I don't believe you would need a pure sine wave inverter, which is fairly expensive, you might be able to get by with a much cheaper, but less efficient square wave inverter.

There are intermediate wave forms as well. I once owned an engineering design company and we designed inverters for a manufacturer on an ongoing basis. None of the solid state inverters (at least back then in the 1990s) created pure sine waves. The output section used high power FETs to rapidly switch power on and off under the control of a microprocessor, and had the biggest capacitors we coud stuff into the case. The result was a wave form that was a stair-stepped approximation of a sine wave with the sharp corners smeared round by the caps. Like anything electronic, the more money you were willing to spend on a faster microprocessor, the smaller the steps got and the better the wave form approximated a true sine wave.