Wind Power Exposed: The Renewable Energy Source is Expensive and Unreliable
Posted by admin, November 26th, 2008 - under Opinion.
Tags: Energy
THIS is not what President-elect Barack Obama’s energy and climate strategists would want to hear. It would be anathema to Al Gore and other assorted luminaries touting renewable energy sources which in one giant swoop will save the world from the “tyranny” of fossil fuels and mitigate global warming. And as if these were not big enough issues, oilman T. Boone Pickens’ grandiose plan for wind farms from Texas to Canada is supposed to bring about a replacement for the natural gas now used for power generation. That move will then lead to energy independence from foreign oil.
Too good to be true? Yes, and in fact it is a lot worse, according to Peter Glover and Michael Economides writing in the Energy Tribune. Their article continues:
Wind has been the cornerstone of almost all environmentalist and social engineering proclamations for more than three decades and has accelerated to a crescendo the last few years in both the United States and the European Union.
But Europe, getting a head start, has had to cope with the reality borne by experience and it is a pretty ugly picture.
Independent reports have consistently revealed an industry plagued by high construction and maintenance costs, highly volatile reliability and a voracious appetite for taxpayer subsidies. Such is the economic strain on taxpayer funds being poured into wind power by Europe’s early pioneers — Denmark, Germany and Spain – that all have recently been forced to scale back their investments.
As a result this summer, the U.K., under pressure to meet an ambitious E.U. climate target of 20 percent carbon dioxide cuts by 2020, assumed the mantle of world leader in wind power production. It did so as a direct consequence of the U.K. Government’s Renewables Obligations Certificate, a financial incentive scheme for power companies to build wind farms. Thus the U.K.’s wind operation provides the ideal case study — and one that provides the most complete conclusions.
The U.K. has all the natural advantages. It is the windiest country in Europe. It has one of the continent’s longest coastlines for the more productive (and less obtrusive) offshore farms. It has a long-established national power grid. In short, if wind power is less than successful in the U.K., its success is not guaranteed anywhere.
But wind infrastructure has come at a steep price. In fiscal year 2007-08 U.K. electricity customers were forced to pay a total of over $1 billion to the owners of wind turbines. That figure is due to rise to over $6 billion a year by 2020 given the government’s unprecedented plan to build a nationwide infrastructure with some 25 gigawatts of wind capacity, in a bid to shift away from fossil fuel use.
Ofgem, which regulates the U.K.’s electricity and gas markets, has already expressed its concern at the burgeoning tab being picked up by the British taxpayer which, they claim, is “grossly distorting the market” while hiding the real cost of wind power. In the past year alone, prices for electricity and natural gas in the U.K. have risen twice as fast as the European Union average according to figures released in November by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. While 15 percent energy price rises were experienced across the E.U., in the U.K. gas and electricity prices rose by a staggering 29.7 percent. Ofgem believes wind subsidy has been a prime factor and questions the logic when, for all the public investment, wind produces a mere 1.3 percent of the U.K.’s energy needs.
In May 2008, a report from Cambridge Energy Research Associates warned that an over-reliance on offshore wind farms to meet European renewable energy targets would further create supply problems and drive up investor costs. No taxpayer respite there. But worse news was to come.
In June, the most in-depth independent assessment yet of Britain’s expanding wind turbine industry was published. In the journal Energy Policy gas turbine expert Jim Oswald and his co-authors, came up with a series of damning conclusions: not only is wind power far more expensive and unreliable than previously thought, it cannot avoid using high levels of natural gas, which not only it will increase costs but in turn will mean far less of a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions than has been claimed.
Oswald’s report highlights the key issue of load factor, the actual power generated compared to the theoretical maximum, and how critical it is to the viability of the wind power industry. In 2006, according to U.K. government statistics, the average load factor for wind turbines across the U.K. was 27.4 percent. Thus a typical 2 megawatt turbine actually produced only 0.54 MW of power on an average day. The worst performing U.K. turbine had a load factor of just 7 percent. These figures reflect a poor return on investment. But this poor return is often obscured by the subsidy system that allows turbine operators and supporters to claim they can make a profit even when turbines operate at a very low load factors. So what’s the bottom line? British consumers are paying twice over for their electricity, funding its means of production and paying for its use as end users.
Variability is one of the chief criticisms levelled at wind power. When the wind drops or blows too hard, turbines stop spinning and you get no power. Wind turbine advocates have claimed that this can be avoided by the geographical spread of wind farms, perhaps by creating an international “supergrid.” But, as Oswald’s report makes clear, calm conditions not only prevail on a fairly regular basis, they often extend across the country with the same conditions being experienced as far away as France and Germany. Worse still, says Oswald, long periods of calm over recent decades occurred in the dead of winter when electricity demand is highest.
Periods of low wind means a need for pumped storage and essential back-up facilities. Oswald told The Register online news service that a realistically feasible U.K. pumped-storage base would only cope with one or two days of low winds at best. As regards back-up facilities, Oswald states the only feasible systems for the planned 25 gigawatt wind system would be one that relied equally on old-style natural gas turbines. As Oswald says however, the expense of a threefold wind, pump storage and gas turbine back-up solution “would be ridiculous.”
The problems don’t end there. The British report highlights what more and more wind farms would mean when it came to installing gas turbine back-ups. “Electricity operators will respond by installing lower-cost plant ($/kW) as high capital plant is not justified under low utilisation regimes.”
But cheap gas turbines are far less efficient than big, properly sized base-load turbines and will not be as resilient in coping with the heavy load cycling they would experience. Cheaper, less resilient plants will mean high maintenance costs and spare back-up gas turbines to replace broken ones that would suffer regular thermal stress cracking. And of course, the increasing use of gas for the turbines would have a detrimental effect on reducing carbon dioxide emission – always one of the chief factors behind the wind revolution.
Oswald’s report concludes also that the all this wear and tear will further stress the gas pipeline network and gas storage system. “High-efficiency base load plant is not designed or developed for load cycling,” says Oswald. Critically, most of the issues raised in the independent report have not been factored into the cost of wind calculations. With typical British understatement, Oswald concludes that claims for wind power are “unduly optimistic.”
We think they’ve been blown away.
Republished from the Energy Tribune with permission from Peter Glover.
The picture was taken near Port Lincoln, South Australia, by Jennifer Marohasy in May 2007.
I used to be a wind supporter until I looked into the figures.
I understand that Denmark has the highest wind farm ratio - around 20% of electricity production - yet since their installation not one coal fired plant has been decommissioned because they have to remain operating as a backup for when the wind dies. Unfortunately you can’t turn a coal power station on and off.
Apparently when the wind does blow the power generated is sold to the European Grid at a cheap rate.
And no one with a bit of common sense could not see this coming? Give me a break!!!
And while they out checking figures get these economists to check out the cost efficiencies of Solar as well.
Why is the tone of debate here invariably either alternative or fossil fuel - an artificial dichotomy.
Surely augmenting the grid with locally generated alternative energy production is useful in that it reduces the load on the fossil system? While Denmark may not have decommissioned a single coal-fired station, I presume they haven’t needed to commission any new ones either?
Burn, baby, burn.
Concerning capacity factor, power variability etc for AUSTRALIAN windfarms does anyone have actual figures?
Looking for these all I can find are “projected” figures which appear to br optomistic to say the least.
For example I have never seen a claimed capacity factor (actual power output/installed power output) less then 32% and as high as 40%. These figures seem to be much higher than say those achieved in the UK of about 25% - one of the windiest places on earth so I am told.
I have tried contacting the windfarm operators but nobody wants to declare such figures. I wonder why.
If the planet is facing a real and present danger fron anthropogenic CO2 why stuff about - just instal nuclear plants ASAP.
I’d agree with Slim and add that the tone of the article is rather angry and defensive (the “social engineering proclamations” phrase is a bit of a give away). As to its substance I’m sure there are plenty of others who could balance the claims. Overall though the authors offer no solutions to the known problems of generating power via fossil fuels or the ones they claim exist with wind power. So a bit of a waste of everybodys time really. But then it’s a bit like that around here, isn’t it?
Patrick B
“social engineering proclamations” is a give-away to … what, exactly ?
“As to its substance I’m sure there are plenty of others who could balance the claims. ” These are not claims - they are facts. Now balance them with other facts, not wishful thinking.
There are other choices. Try nuclear power - and before you explode like a firecracker, examine the actual use and spread of nuclear power across the globe. Again, use facts, not wishful thinking and unsubstantiated propaganda.
Then carefully examine the actual contribution of solar power (ie. the actual % of grid input) in the most advanced country for this - Germany. And then examine the actual % breakdown of Germany’s power supply technologies.
Since you won’t, of course, it’s pretty much a waste of time … I agree with that.
The important thing is to never let these leftist goons secure subsidies for any of their schemes. That way there will only be an appropriate amount of wind power where it is in fact cost-effective. There is an area off the coast of Maine that some people have discovered that is basically a cyclonic system during the entirety of the Winter. And its thought that enourmous amounts of wind-electricity can be generated there. So in some places it could be economic. But subsidies make even viable technologies a burden.
I’m not saying it’s either/or Slim - I’m just saying as an alternative power source they aren’t very efficient and require ongoing maintenance. I’ve spoken to US citizens who drive past wind farms regularly who tell me that half the units are out of action for repairs all the time.
I’m sure Louis has stood on the wharf at Derby or Wyndham and seen the emense tidal power yet they cancelled the proposed power stations this power is screaming out for as it’s consistent, it’s there everyday and you could probably run two aluminium smelters off it.
The coastal current that Nemo cruised down is another option we should be investigating because it’s consistent.
What you consider inefficient or unreliable is not relevant when you are talking about renewable energy resources - its not like you can waste the wind. The maintenance and reliability issues are important only insofar as they impact on the economics. I laughed when i saw the apparent criticism that wind turbines require ‘ongoing maintenance’, as though that wasn’t a consideration for coal fired power stations!
In Australia windfarms are cost effective with the help of MRET. MRET was giving about $40 per MWh for windfarms, and given the wholesale price of electricity was about $35-$40 per MWh, that means that wind energy in Australia, with its inefficiencies and maintenance requirements etc, is economic at $75-$80 per MWh.
In Australia, wind farms don’t typically get additional subsidies on top of MRET - there is just MRET. So if for whatever reason the wind turbines were less reliable than the developers thought, or less efficient, or more problematic, then you’d see all the wind farm owners losing enormous amounts of money and the Australian wind industry deteriorating - which isn’t happening. So that’s how much it costs - its a fact that is verified by the marketplace.
I think you’ll find that nuclear energy would have a challenging time trying to achieve that price in Australia (Ziggy Switkowski thinks it would be cheaper than that, but i’m pretty skeptical,especially for the first few) - even if nuclear can manage to compete economically with wind power in Australia, it will also need massive subsidies in order to compete with coal.
I’d be happy to see the option for nuclear power made permissible by the govt, but I am certain that you won’t see a nuclear power station in Australia even if the government were to remove its opposition to it, *unless* the government was actually pro-active in supporting it - not just with huge subsidies, but with guaranteed planning approval and all sorts of political concessions. If you want to build a 2gigawatt nuclear power plant which produces electricity at 1.5 to 2x the cost of wholesale electricity in this country, then i’ll leave you to do the math as to what kind of subsidy would be required for that to work.
There is a reason why wind power is so successful, and its not simply because of govt subsidies, though there is that of course. Its successful because it is commercially extremely mature, cheap as far as alternative energy goes, and is quick and modular to install…relative to a nuclear power station.
PS. Australia has about 800 MW of wind power, which I guestimate produces about 2,100 GWh per year. At a RECS price of $40 per MWH (it fluctuates a lot) that costs about $84million per year in RECS purchases by electricity retailers, who presumably fund that purchase by increasing prices. so thats about an extra $4 per year per Australian.
“What you consider inefficient or unreliable is not relevant when you are talking about renewable energy resources - its not like you can waste the wind.”
I agree but some are more or less efficient relevant to each other as the generator is a finite cost. Stacking a series of 2- 3 MW wind generators in rows in fluctuating wind is not exactly the most cost efficient system so far IMO.
There was a company in Maclean in northern NSW who developed the Aquinator http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/09/26/1096137100758.html but it appears it never received the necessary funding to continue yet the concept of tapping the consistent coastal currents appeared to be a good area to test IMO.