Wind-Farms, 400 extra turbines. (1 Viewer)

[prhodes]

Just watching BBC Springwatch - guy from the RSPB admitted four Hen Harriers have been killed by wind turbines. Terrible in my opinion.

 

[pratincol]

The lull continues.

11.40 am 4th Nov; Demand 41.6 GW, Wind 0.39 GW, 0.94% of demand.

Dire! After the almost windless days of October another two days of little wind energy.
How many more turbines would they need to achieve the target of 20% of demand?
When they say 20% is this the average based on optimum wind speed plus all the other renewable sources producing average output?

 

[Barred Wobbler]

When there's no wind, there's no wind, so throwing more turbines at it isn't the answer. All you would have is more turbines standing still with the thermal stations running at full tilt to take up the slack.

There must be a bit more wind in the country elsewhere today than there is where I live. It's dead calm and foggy again here, but the turbines nationally are currently producing slightly more than they were yesterday. Still very low.

Wind generation a few minutes ago was 1.49 GW, 3.9% of the slightly reduced 38 GW demand.

Regarding that 20% figure of our energy from renewables that we signed up to. It's not widely known, but it is widely reported if you look for it that we aren't signed up to 20% of our electricty generation by renewables, as is the general opinion. Oh, no. When Ed Milliband signed up to the Climate Change Act in 2008, that's what they thought he was signing up for.

If they'd read it more carefully they would have realised that he was signing up for 20% of our ENERGY usage to be provided by renewables. A totally different kettle of fish. When you consider that our total energy use includes transport and heating etc, which can't realistically be powered by renewables for the foreseeable future then they actually promised to generate a lot more than just 20% of our electricity from renewables if they are to meet their 20% of Energy target.

It gets worse. Since 2011, as reported in yesterday's Telegraph, our spare generating capacity has been run down, closed and destroyed as coal stations used up their permitted hours under the EU Large Combustion Plants Directive. In 2011/12 our spare generating capacity was 16.8% of demand. In 12/13 it was down to 8.6%. In 13/14 it was 5.9%. In 14/15 it was 4.1%.

Last winter (14/15) they were worrying about the real risk of blackouts and they set up the STOR system (see http://manicbeancounter.com/tag/stor-short-term-operating-reserve/ ) of emergency generators, whereby thousands of carbon-producing diesel generators have been set up in locations such as quarries and industrial parks to be fired up to produce premium-priced electricity in the event that there isn't enough wind to meet demand. You couldn't make it up, but the Government managed to.

Fortunately last winter was mild and we avoided a long spell of calm frosty weather and we also avoided blackouts.

However. This year, 2015/16 our spare generation capacity has been further reduced and it stands at only 1.2% of demand. This week hasn't been cold, but it has been calm. If it had been cold, then demand would have shot up and we would have been in trouble. If this winter is cold, then we will be in trouble.

Next year it gets even worse. In Spring 2016, Alex Salmond has promised that the largest coal generator in Scotland, Longannet, with an output of 2.4 GW is to close because it can't compete because of high carbon taxes and transmission costs to the rest of the UK. That's a big station, but Alex dreams of replacing it with wind, as he's also not in favour of replacing their nuclear stations al Hunterston and Torness. Cockenzie coal plant (1.2 GW) near Edinburgh closed in 2013 and is being demolished. See it go here; http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...hian-cockenzie-power-station-demolished-video

Yesterday that same Telegraph article reported that the Government is introducing panic measures to try to avoid blackouts. They are in a flat spin, because if the domestic lights go out the voters won't be happy. So they've had 'a cunning plan'.

To keep the home fires burning they are going to 'encourage' industry (our national wealth creators) to cut down electricity usage (as if they are reckless in that regard with businesses such as steel and aluminium already being closed through high energy costs). The 'encouragement' will add more to our electricity bills.

It's all here;

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...downs-force-National-Grid-to-issue-alert.html

Our governments of all shades and hues have been sleepwalking into an energy disaster for the past 15 years and more, despite warnings from engineers that they needed to invest in new thermal generation or face blackouts. They ignored the warnings, now the chickens are coming home to roost.

 

[lewis20126]

When there's no wind, there's no wind, so throwing more turbines at it isn't the answer. All you would have is more turbines standing still with the thermal stations running at full tilt to take up the slack.

There must be a bit more wind in the country elsewhere today than there is where I live. It's dead calm and foggy again here, but the turbines nationally are currently producing slightly more than they were yesterday. Still very low.

Wind generation a few minutes ago was 1.49 GW, 3.9% of the slightly reduced 38 GW demand.

Regarding that 20% figure of our energy from renewables that we signed up to. It's not widely known, but it is widely reported if you look for it that we aren't signed up to 20% of our electricty generation by renewables, as is the general opinion. Oh, no. When Ed Milliband signed up to the Climate Change Act in 2008, that's what they thought he was signing up for.

If they'd read it more carefully they would have realised that he was signing up for 20% of our ENERGY usage to be provided by renewables. A totally different kettle of fish. When you consider that our total energy use includes transport and heating etc, which can't realistically be powered by renewables for the foreseeable future then they actually promised to generate a lot more than just 20% of our electricity from renewables if they are to meet their 20% of Energy target.

It gets worse, since 2011, as reported in yesterday's Telegraph, our spare generating capacity has been run down, closed and destroyed as coal stations used up their permitted hours. In 2011/12 our spare generating capacity was 16.8% of demand. In 12/13 it was down to 8.6%. In 13/14 it was 5.9%. In 14/15 it was 4.1%.

Last winter (14/15) they were worrying about the real risk of blackouts and they set up the STOR system (see google) of emergency generators, whereby thousand of carbon-producing diesel generators have been set up in locations such as quarries and industrial parks to be fired up to produce premium-priced electricity in the event that there isn't enough wind to meed demand. You couldn't make it up, but the Government managed to.

Fortunately last winter was mild and we avoided a long spell of calm frosty weather and we also avoided blackouts.

However. This year, 2015/16 our spare generation capacity has been further reduced and it stands at only 1.2% of demand. This week hasn't been cold, but it has been calm. If it had been cold, then demand would have shot up and we would have been in trouble. If this winter is cold, then we will be in trouble.

Next year it gets even worse. In Spring 2016, Alex Salmond has promised that the largest coal generator in Scotland, Longannet, with an output of 2.4 GW is to close because it can't compete because of high carbon taxes and transmission costs to the rest of the UK. That's a big station, but Alex dreams of replacing it with wind, as he's also not in favour of replacing their nuclear stations al Hunterston and Torness. Cockenzie coal plant (1.2 GW) near Edinburgh closed in 2013 and is being demolished. See it go here; http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...hian-cockenzie-power-station-demolished-video

Yesterday that same Telegraph article reported that the Government is introducing panic measures to try to avoid blackouts. They are in a flat spin, because if the domestic lights go out the voters won't be happy. So they've had 'a cunning plan'.

To keep the home fires burning they are going to 'encourage' industry (our national wealth creators) to cut down electricity usage (as if they are reckless in that regard with businesses such as steel and aluminium already being closed through high energy costs). The 'encouragement' will add more to our electricity bills.

It's all here;

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...downs-force-National-Grid-to-issue-alert.html

Our governments of all shades and hues have been sleepwalking into an energy disaster for the past 15 years and more, despite warnings from engineers that they needed to invest in new thermal generation or face blackouts. They ignored the warnings, now the chickens are coming home to roost.

Good post, agree entirely - the medium term future looks grim indeed.

cheers, alan

 

[Barred Wobbler]

Thanks Alan.

Sometimes I wonder if around about 1998, I took a wrong turning and inadvertently followed a white rabbit carrying a large pocket watch down a rabbit hole, from which I haven't yet emerged.

Or maybe I'm just in a deep slumber, it's still 1998 and I'll wake up in the morning in a country with a semblance of a workable energy policy and still time for the people with power to listen to the alarm calls about the coming shortage of generation.

 

[pratincol]

If the SNP want to replace Longannet with Wind Turbines how many would they have to install to equal its output?Do you now how many they have already?

 

[Barred Wobbler]

If the SNP want to replace Longannet with Wind Turbines how many would they have to install to equal its output?Do you now how many they have already?

2.4 GW output of Longannet is equal to 1,200 2 MW turbines if they were operating flat out. But we know they don't. Wind turbines only produce about 26% of their nameplate capacity.

In addition Longannet isn't generating at 100% of its output all the time, because of maintenance, or shut-downs to allow wind turbines to take precedence.

I don't know what the on-time is for Longannet at present, and whatever it is that figure will be distorted by the reductions forced by giving wind precedence, but in the days when I was involved with such business it would be expected that a large coal plant, free from political interference would be on average producing 70% of its plated capacity.

So let's say that Longannet is capable of 70% of 2.4 GW, say 1.68 GW on average.

Let's apply the average 26% to the wind turbines for their average output. a 2 MW turbine therefore produces 0.52 MW on average.

So, on average, it would take 1,680/0.52 = 3,230 large wind turbines each over 400 feet tall, and covering a land take of about 300 square miles to produce what Longannet does.

All of this is nonsense, however, because it's only dealing with averages. As we've seen this week, when the wind is low, the entire UK fleet of twice that many turbines (6,579 with a nameplate capacity of 13.4 GW) has been producing less than that single thermal station can.

When the wind doesn't blow, the ship doesn't go.

The total installed capacity of Scotland's wind farms is 5131 MW onshore and 197 MW offshore, 5328 MW (5.33 GW) in total. Take 26% of that and you're left with 1,385 MW (1.38 GW), so every wind turbine in Scotland combined can't come close to putting out what Longannet does, and they've carpeted the Highlands and every other bit of high ground with them.

 

[pratincol]

Thanks-You are surely the 'go-to' man for anything about windfarms.

 

[Barred Wobbler]

You're welcome. A steady breeze this morning. The lull is over. 3.56 GW for 9.37% of demand. That's the highest it's been since last Saturday.

 

[pratincol]

Is there any reason a large solar panel cannot be placed at the foot of each wind turbine?
They would be linked to the grid and compared to a massive turbine they would be not be visually intrusive.
When the wind isn't blowing some energy would still be produced.

 

[Barred Wobbler]

Solar panels are of limited output, particularly at these latitudes. They will tell you that they generate even when the sun isn't shining, and that is true, as far as it goes. Anybody with a knowledge of photography would tell you about the effect of opening or closing a camera shutter by one stop. One stop doubles/halves the amount of light reaching the sensor. The difference between sunshine and moderate cloud is about two stops, so moderate cloud is only letting a quarter of the light in. Heavy cloud transmits even less light. The output from solar panels is affected by the same thing. You can take a photo in dull weather, you can generate electricity in dull weather, but only at a fraction of what you'd get in full sun.

One difference between photography and solar power is that you can take a photo at night, given a long enough exposure, you can't generate solar power at all once the sun hits the horizon. Maximum demand from now until March happens after sunset in the UK.

Another problem is that even large solar panels don't generate all that much electricity. The power of sunlight hitting the earth is only about 1kW per square metre, of which only some is recoverable, and that figure reduces the further north you are and on either side of mid-day. Ok for powering a kettle or heating some water if the sun is shining (I've had some cold showers on cloudy days in May in Turkey when our rental digs had solar hot water), but not much cop if you're trying to power a country. To equal the 2MW rating of the normal wind tower you'd need at least 2,000 square meters (and then some) of solar panels (and sunshine), supposing you could capture all the sunlight's power (which you can't).

Adding solar panels to wind farms in the UK would be like solving the problem of a poor and expensive generation solution by adding another even poorer and more expensive system to piggy-back it. Nice for harvesting subsidies for the land-owner, mind.

Extremadura in Spain is particularly sunny. I was driving there in early 2013 when I came across two adjacent solar farms, each taking up a lot of land. I stopped to take some photos and when I got back to the UK I did a bit of googling to find out more about this particular project. Surely it must have a significant output of electricity, I thought.

Not a bit of it.

Abertura 400 acres, 23.1 MW installed

Campo Lugar, 55 acres, 4.8MW installed. (Roughly the same installed capacity as only two wind turbines)

So land that could be growing stuff, an area of about the same as getting on for 500 football pitches only had an installed capacity of 28 MW, about the same as a wind farm with 14 turbines that would take up about 700 acres or so. The ouput capacity of solar is also subject to intermittency, just as wind is, due to variations in sunlight, cloud and day length.

In one of the sunniest parts of Europe solar farms are about as useful and take up a similar amount of room as wind. At 55° North, where we are generation would be even lower.

The size of these panels can be judged by the sheds and power pole in the first photo. Note that each panel is mounted on a rotating and tilting mount to maximise the amount of sunlight hitting the panel.

The second photo is Campo Lugar Solar Farm, the others are Abertura, just across the road from it. You can see them on Google earth at 39°12’57”N, 5°47’18”W

 

[Nutcracker]

@ Barred Wobbler - does the land between those panels have any bird or other wildlife value? Is the grass mown to lawn standards making it useless? Or is it grazed by sheep or similar?

 

[Barred Wobbler]

I've not seen grass being grazed around solar panels Michael, although you keep hearing claims from supporters that the land can be grazed. I don't know how true those claims are. If you look at the originals of my photos (not these reduced-quality web images) you can see sheep in the distance on one of them, but they are in separate enclosures, fenced out from the solar farm itself.

If you look at the density of the panels, there's a considerable shading effect behind them, which is what you should expect - the panels are after all supposed to be collecting the available sunlight, ie stopping it reaching the ground, although there is incident light striking the ground enough to support grass growth. The shading must reduce it to some extent.

That aside, these things are power stations and are surrounded by security fencing. I'd imagine that the power company would have reservations about shepherds coming in and out with their stock and also about the effect grazing sheep might have on any cabling they might come across. The grass in those photos (taken in late February) looks neatly trimmed - I'm guessing it's mowed to keep it under control and to reduce fire risk should the grass get too long and dried out later in the year. Evidence of this being machine-trimmed rather than sheep-grazed is the line of taller weed stems along the front edge of the trimmed area and the lack of tussocks on the trimmed area.

These are just guesses. I suppose the real answer is 'I don't know for certain'.

I do know that sheep are grazed under wind turbines - there is a much less intense use of land with wind farms than with solar panels where any spare ground is lost opportunity.

Regarding bird life, I'd guess that without undue disturbance at the wrong times the space between the panels would support ground birds such as larks and pipits, but there must be some degradation of plant life (and thence seed heads etc of wild flowers) through mowing for fire control as compared to adjacent Spanish pasture, which in my experience is rich in variety in comparison to our green deserts.

 

[Nutcracker]

Thanks! So likely not too good :-(

 

[pratincol]

Thanks for the information.It looks my idea of wind turbines combined with solar panels is a non-starter.
I wonder why I keep on reading about plans for solar farms around here-one of the dullest,cloudiest places in the UK.
When I made a comment in a local forum that it was perhaps a bit dull round here,I was told they still worked when it is cloudy.Well they do produce some power in these coditions but not enough to warrant building them.
It must something to do with subsidies and last minute applications before the government grants run out!
Mind you most seem to be rejected.
It has been a bit depressing reading these posts.
I had hoped green energy was the future, but there is a long way to go!
Wind and solar don't seem to be reliable or efficient-and they are going to utilise a lot of land
Tidal power isn't getting very far, and apart from Hydro Electric schemes, what else is on the horizon?
We passed a power station near Gretna which was powered by burning wood.
One of the sources of timber was from near Dornoch, where we were heading.This was still a six hour journey away!
The lorries coming from the opposite direction must have been burning a lot of fuel!

 

[Barred Wobbler]

It's all to do with the subsidies. Look no further than that.

Power stations burning wood is the latest insanity. The biggest power station in Britain, Drax in Yorkshire was built to burn the local coal. It has a capacity of 4 GW. The local pits are all but closed now, the last will go in the spring, but that makes no difference to Drax.

The government, wearing its cloak of green made available some very handsome subsidies for the burning of biofuels.

Drax has had two of its units converted from burning the energy-dense coal it was designed for to burning wood that contains only about a third of the energy per tonne. But where does all this wood come from? If you asked Joe in the street he'd probably tell you that it comes from trimmings from local forestry plantations, timber offcuts from builders' merchants and waste from chip-board plants, because that is the line that he was fed a few years ago by the BBC et al.

The reality isn't so cosy. Most of the wood burnt at Drax, like a lot of the coal that it burnt in recent years comes in from the docks, where it has been unloaded from large ships (a bit like the 11,000 tonne one whose cargo caught fire on the Tyne a few days ago http://www.shieldsgazette.com/news/...llets-in-port-of-tyne-1-7554167#axzz3qk2kwcnM ) .

These ships aren't full of timber offcuts, their cargo is wood pellets imported from places like the USA (Carolina, Virginia etc) and Canada where timber is being felled, often from native mixed forests, to be chipped (using energy) and dried (using more energy) and transported to various docks (more energy) before being loaded into ships to be carried three thousand miles across the Atlantic, unloaded in the UK, then transported to the power station, by road or rail (more and more energy).

This forest is then burnt partly to provide electricity for the UK, but more importantly for the power station, to provide a nice fat profit courtesy of non-fossil fuel subsidy schemes paid for by the Great British mug through his electricity bill surcharges. It pays them more to burn American forests than it does to burn coal. And Drax has a huge appetite. Its furnaces need feeding.

Like all of these 'green' schemes, biofuel comes not without immense hidden costs, which when you look into them all seem to be a cost to the environment we thought we were trying to save.

http://www.theguardian.com/sustaina...s-demand-for-wood-based-biofuels-grows-report


It's all a crock.

 

[Barred Wobbler]

A interesting and timely article published in the Telegraph by Charles Moore this evening. It's attracted a lot (over 1000) of comments - the vast majority of them rants that can be safely ignored (it is late on a Friday night) in the seven hours since it was published.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ear...will-put-the-lights-out-all-over-Britain.html

The article itself makes many valid points, many of which have already been touched on in this thread.

The article has one major error: Mr Moore says,

'Of electricity generated in Britain in 2014, 19 per cent came from renewables, the majority of that being wind.'

Once more plated capacity is being confused with actual output. It's doubtful whether there was a single instant in 2014 when 19% of our generation came from renewables, much less 19% for the whole year, but that figure for wind generation, the nameplate capacity, put forward by the wind industry is swallowed hook, line and sinker by the media as equating to the actual output, even in articles that are critical of the failure of wind to provide what it said it would do, such as this one.

Beware of 'facts' presented on TV and in the papers on the subject and remember always that the articles are written by people with no background in science or engineering. If in doubt, look it up.

 

[Trystan]

With regard to the solar panels, clearly grabbing land solely for the purpose of building something which is never going to be particularly efficient is a none starter(despite the fact that it's started).

That said, how many acres of warehouse roofs must there be up and down the country (and indeed the planet) where we could be meeting at least some of our energy needs with no further negative impact than the fact that those buildings are already there?

 

[Nutcracker]

That said, how many acres of warehouse roofs must there be up and down the country (and indeed the planet) where we could be meeting at least some of our energy needs with no further negative impact than the fact that those buildings are already there?

"Like" :t:

And also have a wind turbine on each corner?

 

[Barred Wobbler]

I give up.

Bye.