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Page added on June 22, 2013
Global Wind Energy Blows Away Old Expectations
Peter Sennekamp, media officer for the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) announced this week that wind energy will surpass the threshold of 300 gigawatts, or 300,000 megawatts at some point before the end of the calendar year. Total wind energy capacity reached 280 gigawatts by the end of last year, when a record 44 gigawatts were installed worldwide. The graphic below, courtesy of the Earth Policy Institute and Grist, shows how quickly wind energy installations have increased, especially in the last 5 years.
China led the way in 2012, adding over 13 gigawatts of wind energy. The added wind capacity was enough to officially surpass coal energy generation for the first time in the country’s history. China’s 12th Five-year plan – an energy policy published in January 2012 – set goals to strongly address concerns with pollution by the end of 2015. A 17% reduction in carbon intensity and installing enough renewable energy to comprise 11% of China’s primary energy demands from non-fossil sources were included in the plan.
Tata Power, India’s largest integrated power company, also announced to emphasize wind energy in their future plans. In late May, Tata released a statement they would add 150-200 megawatts every year moving forward as part of a long-term sustainability initiative for the country.
In addition, the Indian government is also beginning to embrace wind energy. While the bulk of their renewable energy plans remain focused on solar power, Phase II of the Jewaharial Nehru National Solar Mission will also include the introduction of an offshore wind energy department, where research will begin this year. Government research indicated that they accepted the new department because the cost effectiveness of pursuing offshore wind was comparable to conventional fossil fuel generation for the first time in India.
Offshore wind is nothing new. The first turbines were installed in 1991 in Denmark. Up until recently, however, installation costs and capacity prices have stunted their growth across the globe. The first offshore floating wind turbine for the United States officially debuted earlier in June off the coast of Maine. The Castine offshore wind project will be operated by the University of Maine, and it will be used to design and implement better offshore turbines in the future.
According to the US Department of Energy (DOE), the US has a massive potential to produce emission-free energy from wind turbines. Based on a recent report from Navigant Research for the DOE, by 2030 over 200,000 jobs and $70 billion worth of annual investments could be produced by offshore energy with enough resources and funding. As of now, the report shows 33 announced offshore wind projects in the US, with 9 of those being far enough ahead for installation in the next five years. So despite America’s reluctance to embrace offshore wind, expect considerable development in the next few years.
Kristopher Settle
Energy Curtailment Specialists, Inc.
17 Comments on "Global Wind Energy Blows Away Old Expectations"
Arthur on Sat, 22nd Jun 2013 7:53 pm
300 gigawatts = 300 standard fossil fuel based power stations.
Kenz300 on Sat, 22nd Jun 2013 8:26 pm
The transition to safe, clean alternative energy sources has begun.
PrestonSturges on Sat, 22nd Jun 2013 8:42 pm
Great news – now let’s see the amount of juice actually generated compared to capacity.
Norm on Sat, 22nd Jun 2013 11:29 pm
What Preston said. What is the real production? The article and the industry is another scam. The nameplate rating is far more than what’s produced cause wind blows unreliably. Factor of ten different. Wind sucks.
Arthur on Sun, 23rd Jun 2013 12:27 am
Wind sucks indeed, or blows, it’s just how you want to look at it, upstream or downatream. Point is, in the long run there is no alternative.
To answer Prestons question: 50%.
http://cleantechnica.com/2012/07/27/wind-turbine-net-capacity-factor-50-the-new-normal/
dashster on Sun, 23rd Jun 2013 3:19 am
@Arthur The article linked shows 43% off shore and 40.35% onshore.
Wind energy production is one bright light in an otherwise bleak picture. Now to figure out how to economically store it all so it can be parceled out when the wind isn’t blowing.
BillT on Sun, 23rd Jun 2013 3:41 am
Wind and solar is still a product of oil energy. When oil is gone, those will fade as maintenance and replacement will not be possible with renewables.
Don’t forget that it takes trucks and cranes to instal and maintain them. Roads/bridges for those vehicles to travel on. Maybe barges if they are off shore. The vehicles themselves. The factories to make them. The ores and rare earths need to be mined and shipped and the equipment to do that. Then there are all of the ‘support staff’ that need to be housed and fed. And farms to provide food.
The chain goes on and on, and ALL of it is required for either wind or solar to exist. They exist now on the inheritance of oil energy, and no other reason. They are not even net producers of energy if ALL of the chain is taken into account, as it has to be, after oil.
Mike on Sun, 23rd Jun 2013 4:39 am
Germany has cut by 50% black coal burning because of wind. Think of all that mercury and uranium NOT in their water supply!
Also, wind and solar have capped the price of energy during peak demand hours, saving Germany from ENRON style Price Fraud, cha-ching, Money in their pockets.
3) Wind production is so great that there is very little variation in wind production, the average power from wind is very stable. Sure, a single wind mill can be somewhat violative in energy production, but not 10,000.
Arthur on Sun, 23rd Jun 2013 5:44 am
“Wind and solar is still a product of oil energy. When oil is gone, those will fade as maintenance and replacement will not be possible with renewables.”
Sigh. You do not. Energy is energy. You can run a steel plant on electricity. You can run maintenance vans on electricity or large cranes on biofuel. Electricity is the highest mode of energy available. You can create windturbines and solar panels with energy from wind and solar.
Arthur on Sun, 23rd Jun 2013 8:48 am
The capacity factor referred to above is largely irrelevant. Relevant is the cost per kwh for wind.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_energy_can_one_wind_turbine_generate_in_one_day
“”One 1.8 MW wind turbine at a reasonable site would produce over 4,700 000 kWh of electricity each year, enough to meet the annual needs of over 1,000 households.” (the average household in the UK, with 2 parents and 2 children, uses approximately 5500 kWh of energy per year. -Strathclyde University statistic) ”
Postulating a write off period of 25 years (in reality the tower has a much longer life time), we are talking about roughly 5 million kwh * 25 = 125 million kwh. Market electricity prices in Holland: 20 euro cent. –> Total yield wind turbine: 25 million euro. Installing a 1.8 MW windturbine costs about 2 million euro. Calculate another million for connection and maintenance: 3 million euro. From this simple calculation it is obvious that wind energy is a ***GOLD MINE***, provided energy prices based on fossil are high enough.
Britain ruled the entire 19th century. Why? Because they were first in applying fossil fuel, giving them a head start in global economic competition. It will not be different with the application of alternative energy. Those who will be latest with implementing it, will be the real suckers, because they will have to achieve the transition within a situation of (financial) chaos. Now is the time to do it.
BillT on Sun, 23rd Jun 2013 3:13 pm
Arthur, you are blinded by your techie religion. You have faith that tech can do anything, but it cannot. It cannot build roads and bridges, smelt steel and make concrete, mine ores and make fertilizers, farming machinery, trucks, cranes, barges, thousands of miles of heavy cable, etc. How do you feed those thousands of people involved in making, installing, maintaining, and replacing these things? Build and maintain the factories? Move the materials around the continent that you need to manufacture them? After all, a cubic yard of concrete takes a barrel of oil to make. Each tire takes at least 7 gallons of oil, not moonshine, plus steel belting and laminates.
The chart of individual components for a wind generator alone would take a wall of fine print. Tens of thousands of individual components and steps, each taking energy input. No, you can call me what you want, but reality is that renewables are not renewable without oil input.
http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2011/12/machines-making-machines-making.html
Arthur on Sun, 23rd Jun 2013 4:46 pm
The question in this thread is not ‘techie religion’ but if energy from solar and wind can replace energy from fossil. The answer is: it can. With enough turbines and panels + a hydro storage system you can complete replace the old energy system. The question is, will we be able to get there. The answer must be: start investing and building now.
Finally you come up with a link that should prove that renewables do not produce net energy… let me see…
He throws solar, wind and biofuel in a heap. Biofuel is indeed useless from a eroei point of view, but you can still use limited amounts for large structures like cranes, necessary to install/maintain wind turbines. But nowhere does he challenge the eroei of wind=18 range or solar, now 7, a technology still under development.
“There is a massive infrastructure of mining, processing, manufacturing, fabricating, installation, transportation”
Uh yeah, so what? Irrelevant if you have the necessary energy from renewables. Everything you can do with fossil you can do with renewables, from an energy point of view.
Then the author comes with an environmental accident in Hungary to prove what?
Then he shows how aluminium is produced and that you need copper for renewables. Sure. Your point?
Half way the rethorical question: “did windturbines energy make this building and equipment”. Answer: not yet.
Finally some desaster pictures from Chernobyl and Fukushima, proving that nukes suck, not that renewables do not work.
It is an incoherent story. The counter argument is: put enough panels on roofs and enough turbines and at some point you can replace fossil 100%.
We erlier calculated that you need roughly the entire space of Spain with panels to complete replace ALL energy needs of the planet. That is a small part of the useless Sahara. In theory it can be done. Is it easy? No. Will we get there in time before the old society collapses? Good point, do not know, but waiting and further waste fossil fuel in our cars is certainly not going to help. I vagely remember that we need 1/4 of the remaining fossil fuel reserves for the transition. It is unlikely we can motivate society in time to actually make that fossil fuel investment. So are we heading for a crash? Probably, but I do not know how hard we are going to be hit, if there will be a die-off and where. But I do know that eventually, possible after a catastrophic population reduction, society will bottom out and that the potential is there for a society operating at a higher level than the 19th century, from a material/energetic point of view.
Jerry McManus on Sun, 23rd Jun 2013 6:39 pm
I am pleased to announce an epochal breakthrough in renewable energy generation.
Using advanced nano-technology a solar collector has been developed that surpasses current technology by orders of magnitude in measures of efficiency, both in energy production and use of materials.
Self assembled on-site using molecular nano-machines, the most advanced technology currently available for fabrication and assembly
100% recycled using only biodegradable materials, no toxic waste products
Assembled on-site using only available materials, including maximum efficiency use of available water supplies
Maximum collection area using advanced fractal geometry
Potential energy stored in cellular matrices for later use in maximum efficiency heat engines
Energy output tailored to multiple end-use scenarios using advanced molecular manufacture. High tensile fibers and even calorie dense carbohydrates can be assembled on-site with little or no waste by-products.
Watch for further announcements about this incredible breakthrough:
Terrestrial
Regenerative
Environmental
Energy
Or, if you prefer: TREE
John Kintree on Mon, 24th Jun 2013 3:15 am
Agreed that fossil fuels are required today to manufacture and install wind turbines. With an EROI of 18 for electricity produced from the wind turbines, what better use could be made of the fossil fuels that were used for this purpose?
BillT on Mon, 24th Jun 2013 4:18 am
Arthur, you are not seeing the whole picture, so I will not argue with you. If you are under 40, you will see that I am correct before you die.
You come from a postage stamp sized country, Denmark, that seems to be immune from the problems of the outside world. However, I think you will see otherwise soon. Very soon.
You are a socialist country that relies on a huge tax base to exist. Your per capita indebtedness is among the highest in the EU. You cannot print your way out of debt like the US can.
Your techie indoctrination has made you believe that tech can do anything. You will soon realize that it cannot. Usually, it only makes things worse.
PrestonSturges on Mon, 24th Jun 2013 5:16 am
Generating at 40% capacity is pretty good, realistically. What does Rush say – 12%?
Arthur on Mon, 24th Jun 2013 12:51 pm
“You come from a postage stamp sized country, Denmark”
Lol. After 16 months communication you still have not figured out that I am from Holland. That’s OK.
“Arthur, you are not seeing the whole picture, so I will not argue with you. ”
That is a peculiar statement for someone participating on an internet discussion forum. Sounds a bit like you are running out of arguments. You have decided that the world will go under and nothing is going to convince you otherwise. Fine with me.
After repreated requests from my side you finally come up with a link that should make it plausible that renewables do not work and have a net energy. But that blog merely throws solar, wind and biofuel on a heap and rambles on about Chernobyl and Fukushima and that you need ‘a lot’ of all sorts of stuff that presumably will not be around.
In my fourth post in this thread I give you a simple calculation why wind energy can be applied profitable. Try to refute that if you can. All the peak oil big shots like Heinberg advocate the exploitation of wind and solar and it is not easy to refute that. No, there is no energy Walhalla to be expected with wind and solar, but it is the best we have so far. So we should use it. We will not be driving with it, but we will keep our lights, fridge and IT- and communications stuff working.