The US-DOE is envisioning the US having at least 20% of its energy from IWTs by 2050. Most of these would be located in the Great Plains, where the good to excellent winds are.

 

The National Renewable Energy Laboratories, NRELs, have proposed High Voltage Direct Current, HVDC, lines from the Great Plains to the East Coast, where the people are. Those lines have much less line losses than AC lines, and can be buried, or on pylons, as needed, to satisfy NIMBY concerns.

 

Energy transmission facilities between North Germany and South Germany were not that important before the IWT build-out in North Germany and the PV solar system build-out in South Germany. As a result of these build-outs, there frequently is excess wind energy in the North and excess solar energy in the South.

 

Germany is planning to build HVDC lines from North Germany to South Germany. Because of NIMBY concerns, these lines are about 10 years overdue.

 

Germany has exported its variable wind energy to Poland, but Poland does not want it, because it upsets the grid, which is largely coal-based. Poland is building a big switch at the border to stop Germany’s variable energy exports.

 

Germany also exports a little of its variable energy at very low prices to the Netherlands. Fortunately, the Netherlands has a large capacity, MW, of CCGTs and OCGTs for balancing it.

 

Germany already practices curtailment of wind energy production, but IWT owners, a politically well-connected group, have complained about losing revenues.

 

About 22,000 MW of Germany’s 32,800 MW of PV solar systems (end 2012) are in South Germany. On a sunny summer day, from about 0 MW at 6 AM, the PV solar output increases to about 16,000 MW at noon, and back down to about 0 MW at 6 PM. This creates major disturbances on the grid and, as PV solar panels cannot be turned off, Germany has to export the energy as much as possible.

 

Germany has been exporting the excess energy to France and the Czech Republic at very low prices, after subsidizing it at 30 – 60 eurocent/kWh. France has a significant hydro capacity for balancing part of the excess energy, but the Czech Republic is building a big switch. Any excess energy not wanted gets grounded!!!

http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/89476/wind-energy-co2-emissions-are-overstated

 

Maine Wind Energy: All US IWT owners connected to the grid have to report their quarterly outputs, MWh, to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC. The data is posted on the FERC website, and, with some effort, can be deciphered.

 

Below are some numbers regarding the much less than expected results of the Maine ridge line IWTs for the past 12 months.

 

Mars Hill, 42 MW, CF = 0.353; uniquely favorable winds due to topography.

Stetson I, 57 MW, CF = 0.254

Stetson II, 26 MW, CF = 0.227

Kibby Mtn 132 MW, CF = 0.238

Rollins, 60 MW, CF = 0.238

Record Hill, 50.5 MW, CF = 0.197

 

The Maine weighted average CF = (42 x 0.353 + 57 x 0.254 + 26 x 0.227 + 132 x 0.238 + 60 x 0.238 + 50.5 x 0.197)/(42 + 57 + 26 + 132 + 60 + 50.5) = 0.247

 

Note: CF reduction due to aging is not yet a major factor, as all these IWTs were installed in the past 5 years.

 

Remember, the developers told Maine regulators their IWT projects would have CFs of 0.32 or greater, to more easily obtain bank financing, federal and state subsidies and “Certificate of Public Good” approvals. The lesser ACTUAL CFs are likely due to:

 

– Winds entering 373-ft diameter rotors varying in speed AND direction under all conditions; less so offshore, more so, if arriving from irregular upstream terrain.

– Turbine performance curves being based on idealized conditions, i.e., uniform wind vectors perpendicularly entering rotors; those curves are poor predictors of ACTUAL CFs.

– Wind testing towers using anemometers about 8 inch in diameter; an inadequate way to predict what a 373-ft diameter rotor might do.

– CFs declining due to aging IWTs having increased maintenance outages.

 

The net effect of all factors shows up as ACTUAL CFs being much less than estimated by IWT project developers.

 

Either regulators:

 

– did not ask the right questions on their own (likely due to a lack of due diligence and power systems knowledge), or

– ignored/brushed aside the engineering professionals, who gave them testimony or advised them what to ask, or

– received invalid/deceptive answers from subsidy-chasing IWT project developers and promoters, or

– kowtowed to wind energy-favoring politicians allied with wind energy oligarchs, i.e., not hinder IWT build-outs.

 

Because of subsidy-chasing by IWT project developers, and politicians wanting to be seen as doing something about climate change and global warming, the vetting process of proposed IWT projects by boards of political appointees is much compromised, which is creating distrust and division among the lay public.

 

Worldwide Wind Energy: Below are the averaged CFs in some widely-dispersed geographical areas for the 2006 – 2011 period.

 

Germany, onshore, CF = 0.187

Denmark, including offshore, CF = 0.251; a high value due to greater offshore CFs.

The Netherlands, CF = 0.228

The US, CF = 0.289; a high value due to excellent winds in the Great Plains.

Texas, CF = 0.225

Ireland, CF = 0.283; Ireland and Scotland have the best winds in Europe.

New York State, CF = 0.249

 

Vermont Wind Energy: It should be obvious to the VT-PSB and other government entities, when IWT project developers make claims of CFs of 0.32 or greater, these claims should be discounted to at most 0.25, based on ACTUAL PRODUCTION RESULTS. Failure to do this is malfeasance of a public trust, which has legal consequences. See related post on wind turbines in Vermont.

Energy Collective

13 Comments on "Energy From Wind Turbines Actually Less Than Estimated"

BillT on Fri, 11th Jan 2013 3:35 am 



Greed. Nothing new here.

Less than projected efficiency. Nothing new here either.

This idea of ‘renewable/clean’ energy is a joke. One being pushed by those who can profit by it before the real news gets out. The real news? PV & wind is a net loss of energy over the equipment’s lifetime. That is why you never see any real research and report on total energy input for each system.

It may be practical for individual homes off the grid with a battery storage system, but a waste for any other purpose. Industrial/commercial systems are too erratic without a storage method that works.

Arthur on Fri, 11th Jan 2013 1:53 pm 



I assume CF to be ‘capacity factor’, according wikipedia:

“The net capacity factor of a power plant is the ratio of the actual output of a power plant over a period of time and its potential output if it had operated at full nameplate capacity the entire time. To calculate the capacity factor, take the total amount of energy the plant produced during a period of time and divide by the amount of energy the plant would have produced at full capacity. Capacity factors vary greatly depending on the type of fuel that is used and the design of the plant. The capacity factor should not be confused with the availability factor, capacity credit (firm capacity) or with efficiency.”

Not sure if this is an interesting statistic. More interesting is to see the financial return on investment of windenergy:

http://deepresource.wordpress.com/2012/12/08/cash-cow-wind-energy/

Summary: invest 2 million in a windturbine on a good location in Europe and expect to harvest 45 million in revenues by selling the electricity over a period of 25 years against 2013 prices. During the past decade it looked as if farmers in northern Germany were more concerned milking their windturbines (due to feed in tariffs) than their cows.

And when time progresses expect the advantage of wind power to become ever more pronounced as carbon based electricity prices will skyrocket.

Arthur on Fri, 11th Jan 2013 1:55 pm 



“PV & wind is a net loss of energy over the equipment’s lifetime.”

BS.

EROEI is typically around 10-15, which in practice is as good as 100.

BillT on Fri, 11th Jan 2013 2:42 pm 



Nope, it is not. Not one study includes the energy to make the machine and equipment needed to mine, etc. the materials for any ‘renewable’. If it did, they would prove to be impossible without oil energy. You will NOT mine, refine, process, machine, assemble, instal, maintain, and replace any ‘renewable’ using only the net energy from those ‘renewable’ sources. It is a net loss. Not gain.

Kenz300 on Fri, 11th Jan 2013 3:23 pm 



The cost of oil, coal and nuclear keeps rising and their environmental damage continues to grow…

The cost of wind and solar keeps dropping as efficiency improves…

Climate Change is real. It is time to transition to safe, clean alternative forms of energy.

Arthur on Fri, 11th Jan 2013 3:48 pm 



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_returned_on_energy_invested

Refers to Danish study, arriving at EROEI values for wind of 20, which nicely and unsurprisingly matches with the financial figures I gave in my first post of 22.5 (money and energy are obviously strongly correlated).

So you really think that these Danish researchers did not take into account the energy needed to build the machines to built the turbines? I do not know either way. Next question: is it important? Once I have a hamer, I can drive a million nails into wood with it, implying that the energy needed to produce the hammer dwarfs in comparrison with the energy needed to use the hamer and drive the nails in the wood. Let’s assume these Danes did not take into account the energy necessary to built the steel mill. Once that infrastructure is built, how many windturbines can you built with it. I bet thousands, if not hundreds of thousands.

But I do not believe that researchers did not take into account these considerations. I would assume that studies exist that give reasonable accurate figures for the energy necessary to produce a ton of steel, that includes all aspects, starting from mining.

Another thing… I wonder how much mining does in fact still take place, probably a lot. But what about the future, if the world runs out of resources and car factories and shipyards will largely have vanished? There will be a lot of iron and steel abover the ground that can and will be recycled. I recently sold my old car for 100 euro to a junkyard. The guy with the towing truck told me that every single part of it will be recycled, no piece metal is ever thrown away. These hundreds of millions of cars that soon will be obsolete will provide for the steel that can be used for building wind turbines. No mining necessary. You can **drive** your steel to the blast furnace.lol

EROEI 20 it is. At least. In fact it is more, since the foundation and tower have a life span that is much longer than the usual 25 years used in calculations. In Holland we have windmills from 1630, still functioning. The Eiffel tower is 120 years old and will last another 1-2 centuries. The only thing that needs maintenance/replacement after 25 years is the gearbox, shaft, bearings, dynamo and probably the rotor blades.

econ101 on Fri, 11th Jan 2013 5:09 pm 



Your EROEI is certainly a false figure. There is no standard to calculating EROEI and the measure is totally discredited. Germany is scaling back subsidies to solar/wind and they are on the decline. Bllt has it exactly right about these energy sources. They are inefficient, very expensive and must be highly subsidized to exist. A power grid can absorb some of these irregular inputs but they are finding out the more you add the more inefficient they become. They are best used as a leveler for huge gas turbines but this of course would limit their application and reduce the available subsidy opportunities for those in line to collect government payments for installing these cash hogs.

Arthur on Fri, 11th Jan 2013 6:13 pm 



“Your EROEI is certainly a false figure.”

So what is your figure, backed up by a link/study?

“Germany is scaling back subsidies to solar/wind and they are on the decline.”

Are you going to suggest that the German government discovered a new study discrediting this EROI 20 value? Of course not. You know why? Because the grid cannot handle it anymore, indeed. Supply is intermittent, no surprises here. What it takes is a European Supergrid with a ‘batterypack’ in Norway and Spitsbergen. You know what, they are working on it:

http://tinyurl.com/aopecyt

“They are inefficient, very expensive and must be highly subsidized to exist.”

They must be subsidized because this is a new technology. Every western human being with a high IQ must be subsidized for 25 years before he becomes productive. Oh, and renewables are all we got in the long term. This is a peak-oil forum, remember. So what do you suggest? 750 million westerners moving to the Philipines, hide under the table and wait until the world comes apart at the seams?

“They are best used as a leveler for huge gas turbines”

Sure. Peak gas 2025-2030. And then what?

Arthur on Sat, 12th Jan 2013 12:14 pm 



Posted this very on-topic link earlier in a different thread as well, proving that windenergy has a positive net energy balance, and as such is useful once carbon fuel runs out:

http://www.wind-works.org/articles/EnergyBalanceofWindTurbines.html

Econ101 on Sat, 12th Jan 2013 5:34 pm 



They must be subsidized because it is a boondoggle. They are spending far more than they ever anticipated as they try to rig up a convoluted process that will even waste a whole lot of natural gas in their attempts to store this expensive, intermittent and unreliable power from these sources by making a deadly greenhouse gas that will certainly fry this world according to climate alarmists.

Econ101 on Sat, 12th Jan 2013 5:42 pm 



Arthur, carbon fuels won’t run out at least over the next several generations. These alternatives have been around longer than the internal combustion engine. They haven’t been adopted because they are vastly less efficient and far more expensive to employ. Their disadvantages cannot be overcome by an economy of scale. As a result the huge government handouts to these industries will only serve to make our power grid less efficient, more expensive and less reliable.

econ101 on Sun, 13th Jan 2013 12:05 am 



Arthur, My figures are the ongoing profitability of the energy producers and the ever growing value of the output gained from using the oil resources.

Net energy is a false concept. One of its major flaws is the assumption that energy is easily substituted and interchangeable. For instance the energy used in fracking. How else would these inputs be used to benefit society more? How do those energy resources interchange with the energy you need to run your computer?

Also, within the concept of eroei lies the idea that energy is a zero sum game. If you use it here you dont have it there. There is no evidence that this is true. Energy is at least for now unlimited. We have enough to do everything we want and still have huge surpluses both above ground wating to be used and below waiting to be developed.

If you are still on board with eorei you must realize there is no standard on what inputs to include while calculating the result. Is the gas the cab used to get the lawyer to the permit meeting for the new well an energy input? Who knows, who knows what was included, excluded or made up in those eroei calculations that always seem to prove exactly what we know is not true. Wind generators are not an efficient way to produce electricy no matter what the claimed eroei is.

Arthur on Sun, 13th Jan 2013 11:39 am 



It is irrelevant if oil companies are highly profitable *NOW* and renewables are not or less. We are living in world with material infrastructure designed for carbon fuel. But what about tomorrow? Where is your strategic vision? Putting all the cards on a commodity that will run out during our lifetime and will likely start to decline in this decade is not a vision, but short-sighted brinkmanship. ‘My’ vision:
– ASPO peakoil curve for conventional oil, even the IEA agrees
– peak gas 2025-2030
– peak coal/uranium similar
– unconventional/shale: huge wild card, but very problematic environmentally; better not short of die-off
– thorium, big wild card, but no substantial introduction for the coming 20 years

Remedy: fast introduction of wind and solar, this is happening first and foremost in Europe. Germany is now even cutting expansion because grid cannot keep up. They need new power lines and mountain storage basins.

Talking about profitability, Norway is the richest country in the world, with 100% hydro. Denmark is second, with zero resources and 50% electricity from wind. So wind cannot be that much of a break on income.

Energy is indeed unlimited but not in its carbon shape, which is slowly running out, so we must change course.