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Reality check: Orders for wind turbines to fall by 93%

November 8, 2010

Reality and common sense are returning to dampen the mad rush to wind power. The fact that connecting intermittent power sources to the grid is a source of dangerous instabilities and that intermittent power sources do not actually contribute to any secure generating capacity are bringing a “cap” into play. Following the drop of orders in the US, the UK is also expecting sharp reductions in installations.

From The Guardian:

Britain recently overtook Denmark to become the world’s largest offshore windfarm player, implying the tripling of capacity in the next two years. But new projects will dry up in 2013. Only 90 megawatts (MW) of newly installed capacity, which is enough to supply 30,000 homes when the wind blows, is being forecast compared with 1,368Mw the year before. Analysts are forecasting a 93% drop in the installation of new offshore windfarms in 2013 compared with the previous year. As orders for cables, foundations and other equipment are typically made two to three years ahead of the project being completed, the slowdown will start to bite among UK suppliers next year.

There are other extra projects on the drawing board which are supposed to fill this gap. But planning problems, difficulties securing finance and cost overruns on existing projects mean that these plans could be scaled back. Swedish firm Vattenfall said last month that it would not take up the option of expanding its Thanet windfarm – the largest offshore project in the world – blaming problems securing access to the grid.

The availability of bank finance for offshore projects – at least twice as costly as onshore windfarms – has still not returned to pre-credit crunch levels. Now there are only 10-14 banks actively lending, compared with almost 40 before 2008, each lending about half what they were lending before.

Just a few days ago Reuters reported:

The wind energy industry continues to struggle and Vestas Wind is confirming what General Electric is seeing… weak demand. GE went so far as to say the US wind energy market has collapsed. Vestas hasn’t made similar claims, but their actions speak much louder than words.

The company is cutting 3000 jobs and shutting plants due to shrinking power demand, rising component costs and uncertain US policy. While the company posted a smaller than expected loss in 3rd quarter profits, they indicated that the European wind energy market won’t live up to expectations either. Shares of Vestas were down nearly 10 percent Tuesday despite beating analyst earnings estimates and trading very close to the 2008 lows.


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US wind power installations down by 72%

November 1, 2010

The New York Times

 

broken wind turbine: image thetechherald.com

 

In July, the American Wind Energy Association reported that it was having a lousy year. It appears the third quarter of 2010 wasn’t much better.

According to an analysis released on Friday, the trade group reports having its slowest quarter since 2007, adding just 395 megawatts of wind power capacity. For the year to date, new installations were down 72 percent.

Natural gas, the chief fossil-fuel competitor to renewable sources of electricity, is also dirt cheap these days, making wind power a tougher sell for cost-conscious utilities and state regulators. Despite lots of talk on Capitol Hill about the hazards of fossil fuels, their contribution to climate change and the need for broad, long-term supports for the renewables industry, legislators have failed to reach agreement on what that might look like.

But then the lobbying  gets going

“If federal policymakers do not act quickly to provide investment certainty through a Renewable Electricity Standard, and longer-term tax policy like our competitors enjoy,” Denise Bode, the chief executive of the wind association, said in a prepared statement, “the U.S. wind industry will continue to stall out.”

Elizabeth Salerno, director of industry data and analysis with the American Wind Energy Association, said in a phone call that state-level policies have helped. Roughly 30 states have mandatory targets for diversifying their energy portfolios with more renewable power. “They’ve been doing a great job leading the effort to get renewables installed over the past decade,” Ms. Salerno said.

The trade group reported some interesting developments — including Oregon’s emergence as the leader in new wind installations for the third quarter, eclipsing Texas, which has long held the top slot. The reason, the group suggests, is that Texas has hit a transmission wall and is trying to sort out how to get its west Texas wind resources to the load centers in the center of the state.

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Posted in Energy, Environment, US, Wind power | 3 Comments »

Sweden: Opposition to wind power grows

October 30, 2010

Freely translated from Ny Teknik:

Opposition to wind power is now so extensive that it can be compared with nuclear public opinion as it was more than 30 years ago. Now opponents are kicking-off a campaign with the slogan “Wind power – no thanks.”

 

Wind Power - No Thanks

 

With 20 000 registered members and a symbol reminiscent of the 80’s symbol “Nuclear power – no thanks’, the Association for Swedish Landscape Protection is growing steadily as is the opposition to wind power.
“You can definitely compare today’s opinion with the movement against nuclear power, “said Karin Hammarlund, a researcher in landscape analysis at SLU, to the newspaper “Miljörapporten”
But there is one important difference between the protests against nuclear power and the resistance to wind power, says Karen Hammarlund.
“What is causing concern is not wind power technology in itself but how it affects the landscape and social structures”.
According to Elisabeth von Brömsen, chairman of  Swedish Countryside Protection, the resistance movement has this year gained about a thousand new members, both private individuals and associations.

It is beginning to get through, I think, that with the existing nuclear and hydro power available in Sweden, the role for intermittent wind power is marginal and primarily as an exercise in the following of  “fashion”. It has little to contribute to either generation capacity or transmission security. And it is expensive.

But the nuclear renaissance is continuing steadily anyway and history will probably show the “wind story” to be little more than a diversion from common sense for a decade or two.

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Rain and lack of wind hit UK renewable generation

October 1, 2010

The Guardian reports that

The UK has suffered a second fall in renewable energy production this year, raising concern about the more than £1bn support the industry receives each year from taxpayers.

Wind turbine accident

Lower than expected wind speeds and rainfall led to a 12% fall in renewable electricity generated between April and June, compared to the same period in 2009. This setback follows a smaller but still notable decline between January and March, again compared to last year.

The DECC admits that “The intermittent nature of wind means that we do need alternative back-up generation, for when wind speeds drop” but should have added that alternative capacity is also necessary when it blows too hard and when it is too cold and when the foundations are cracking and …

Seasonal power generation can contribute marginally to energy needs but cannot provide base-load power generation.

Wind is not always as benign as it is made out. The “Summary of Wind Turbine Accident Data to 31 December 2008” reports 41 worker fatalities.

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Renewable Realities

September 16, 2010
Modern wind energy plant in rural scenery.

Image via Wikipedia

Renewable energy sources – when they have become commercial – have their part to play. Engineers and scientists have made remarkable progress in the development of concepts, materials, systems and technologies. But the exaggerations and distortions regarding the possibilities follow a political agenda. Fundamentals and common sense are discarded in the fervour – almost religious – of “environmentalism” and “global warming” and subsidy scams. The realities of what renewables can offer is far from the rosy perceptions that prevail.

It is worth just reminding ourselves of the fundamental constraints which apply:

Generating Capacity: Wind and solar capacity require full back-up capacity but hydro power does not.

  • Wind power is intermittent and cannot be predicted. Therefore generating capacity needs cannot rely on wind power capacity and 100% back-up in the form of alternate capacity is always needed. Since electrical power cannot be stored, wind power cannot follow load needs. Any variation in wind power produced must be compensated for by changing the power generated by some other plant in order to follow load. Wind power cannot be despatched.
  • Solar power (thermal or photovoltaic) is intermittent not only between day and night and between winter and summer but also during the hours of sunshine due to clouds, rain and dust storms. Some little storage of thermal energy (molten salts for example) is possible but storage of electrical power in batteries or the like is not
    Solar Array récupéré de http://en.wikipedia.or...

    Image via Wikipedia

    feasible.

    Solar plant capacity must also be backed up by alternate generating capacity and since this falls to zero every night, the back up required is also around 100% (with some variation due to the particular night time load profile). Because thermal storage can be available some load changing during daylight hours is feasible.

  • Hybrid solar thermal – fossil fuel plants can ensure continuous operation and eliminate the back up capacity.
  • The lifetime of components in a solar thermal plant is drastically affected by the enforced cycling caused by daily starts and stops. (Material fatigue and creep considerations are determined by thermal cycling).
  • Hydro power plants are dependent upon seasonal water levels in reservoirs for large plant or on variations of water flow in smaller run-of-the-river plants. Large plants are nearly always used for base load power (when in-season) and can also be used for power storage of surplus power from other plants if equipped with a pumped-storage facility. Hydro power plants are always included within the generating capacity base and require no back up capacity. However a grid’s load changing needs (to follow load) must usually be provided for by other types of plant (gas or coal).

Availability and capacity factor:

  • Wind power is available only when the wind blows above a minimum value (around 4 m/s) and below a maximum value (around 25 m/s). It cannot operate in gusting conditions. For safety considerations ice formation on turbine blades must be avoided and this gives a minimum ambient temperature for operation as well. Though wind turbine machinery may be available to operate for over 90% of time, the wind or weather conditions are the limiting factor and a wind turbine – dependent on siting – can usually generate power for not more than about 40 -50%  of a year. But it is not possible to predict when it will be in operation and at what load. The resultant capacity factor for a wind turbine is around 20% (i.e. a wind power plant only generates about 20% of its rated capacity on an annual basis).
  • Solar thermal plants  without storage can operate for about an annual average of 8 -9 hours per day. With thermal storage they can operate for about 14 or 15 hours per day and where the solar field is used to augment a fossil fuel plant continuous operation is possible. Without storage, a solar thermal plant has a capacity factor of around 20% which can be increased with thermal storage to about 40%. Currently the cost of thermal storage adds about 75% to the cost of a solar thermal plant.
  • Solar photovoltaic plants cannot use any form of energy storage and therefore have a capacity factor of around 20%
  • Large hydro plants running at base-load have capacity factors well above 80% (in-season).
  • Small run-of-the-river hydro plants can have capacity factors ranging from 30% in seasonal flows and over 80% in perennial flows.



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Wind Turbine blades a security threat?

August 31, 2010

Wind turbines are not without their problems –they are expensive, have to be shut down for strong winds, don’t like freezing weather, need back-up, weaken the grid they are connected in to, are dangerous to transport, can be very noisy and can be dangerous for large birds.

In addition it seems they pose a threat to the military.

The New York Times reports that Dr. Dorothy Robyn, deputy under secretary of defense, has declared that wind turbines pose an unacceptable risk to national security and military training in some areas–because  moving turbine blades can cause “blackout zones” where planes disappear from radar. And in certain cases,  turbine blades are indistinguishable from approaching planes.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/08/19/timestopics/windpower_395.jpg

Moving turbine blades can be indistinguishable from airplanes on many radar systems, and they can even cause blackout zones in which planes disappear from radar entirely. Clusters of wind turbines, which can reach as high as 400 feet, look very similar to storm activity on weather radar, making it harder for air traffic controllers to give accurate weather information to pilots.

Although the military says no serious incidents have yet occurred because of the interference, the wind turbines pose an unacceptable risk to training, testing and national security in certain regions, Dr. Dorothy Robyn, deputy under secretary of defense, recently told a House Armed Services subcommittee.

In 2009, about 9,000 megawatts of proposed wind projects were abandoned or delayed because of radar concerns raised by the military and the Federal Aviation Administration, according to a member survey by the American Wind Energy Association. That is nearly as much as the amount of wind capacity that was actually built in the same year, the trade group says.

As a result of the military’s opposition, Horizon Wind Energy recently withdrew three project applications in the area. AES Wind Generation said it found out in May, after nine years of planning, that the military had objections to its proposal to build a 82.5-megawatt, 33-turbine wind farm.

Wind Power apart from its cost and technical issues is not as benign as it might seem.


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Wind Power Sector struggles

August 21, 2010

Wind Power is still a long way from being commercial and is  still critically dependent upon subsidies. Austerity packages resulting from the financial crisis have sharply reduced subsidy programs and there have been a spate of cancelled and delayed projects. There is also some disillusionment evident as wind turbines demonstrated their weaknesses during the last cold winter when many had to be shut down in Europe for fear of ice on the turbine blades. The requirement for back-up power and the instability they add to the grid has not helped either. The Spanish support for renewables has dried up as the financial crisis has hit hard.

An injection of realism and common sense to the the use of renewable energy is long overdue. Wind and Solar and tidal and geothermal energies all have their place but they will not – and cannot – provide the base load power generation that coal, nuclear and hydro power have provided.

The FT reports that shares in Vestas Wind Systems lost more than a fifth of their value on Wednesday after the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturer slumped to its second consecutive quarterly loss and cut its profit guidance for the year.

image: http://www.pcdistrict.com/modules/productcatalog/product_images/132027-Windmill-3D-Screensaver.jpg

image. http://37signals.com/svn/images/dutch_windmill.jpg

Vestas warned that some expected orders from Europe and the US had been delayed as banks take longer to approve financing and deficit-laden governments review their support for wind power. Analysts highlighted regulatory uncertainty in Spain, which recently cut subsidies for renewable energy as part of its fiscal austerity programme, and the US, where legislation to promote clean energy has stalled on Capitol Hill. Low natural gas prices, caused in part by the surge in supplies from newly exploited US shale gas reserves, was another factor deterring investment in more costly renewable energy, analysts said.

New wind power installation in the US declined by more than two-thirds in the first half and fell below new coal power capacity for the first time in five years.

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