FT no longer on the QT about wind power

Posted by jamie - 6 February 2008 at 3:26pm - Comments

You wouldn't necessarily expect the Financial Times, that bible of the corporate world and the money markets, to be a champion of environmental causes but they've been upping the ante on renewable energy, specifically wind power.

This week, they've been publishing a series of articles and news reports on the UK wind farm industry and they've been particularly critical of how various government policies, which were put in place to encourage the development of renewable energy industries, are actually having the opposite effect. It has been scathing about the renewables obligation, a mechanism which has all of us paying extra on our energy bills to subsidise new projects such as wind farms.

The editorial slant is more concerned about the bottom line than climate change, but that a newspaper more usually associated with the establishment is on the government's case about renewable energy is encouraging. Some of the articles are listed on their climate change index page (you'll need to register to read more than five stories), but here are some of my favourites from elsewhere on their site.

Bonanza for old wind farms as bottlenecks hit new turbines

UK plans 'too weak' to boost wind power

Warning on 'green' energy tariffs

The power of wind

Article tagged as: climate change, energy, financial times, renewable energy, wind power

Comments Commenting is now closed

You guys need to get real.

Our 21st century lifestyle demands a 24-hour uninterrupted energy supply. If the amount of wind power embedded in the network were to increase, so would the problem of maintaining voltage and frequency within legally required limits.

Renewable electricity generation, apart from hydro-electricity, has a serious problem of intermittency. Tides turn and winds rise and fall, along with their exploitable power.

The first equipment to suffer would be computers. Without a guaranteed supply, hospital patients will die, central heating systems cease to pump, fridges and freezers thaw and banking systems shut down. Even minor things like no television would cause a public outcry.

There is no option. Wind must be provided with an guaranteed backup, and it must be available within minutes. Only fossil fuel systems can provide this degree of flexibility and even they cannot start from cold without many hours' delay.

The consequence is that backups must be provided by a spinning reserve (spare capacity). This is simliar to a car being driven below its top speed but having some acceleration left for emergency manoeuvres. Some generators are run below peak output to provide instant 'acceleration' when an existing generator fails. Unfortunately this means that fossil-fuelled generators are less efficient when running below maximum generation thus emitting more CO2 per unit of generation than if otherwise.

The fossil and nuclear-fuelled Grid incorporates about 23% spinning reserve, which would insure against a major loss of generating capacity in the event of transmission line failure , accidents or terrorist sabotage. At present, wind generation is allowed to 'steal' from this spare capacity. Because wind provides only 0.25% of UK electricity, even total failure would leave over 22% cover for emergencies!

The utilisation of the existing spare capacity even now incurs an energy and carbon-emission cost, which is conveniently ignored by the wind industry.

The CO2 savings will be MUCH less than promised. The need for inefficient backup will pretty much negate all of the CO2 savings made by windpower. The IChemE say that fossil fuel has to be wasted and CO2 discharged into the atmosphere in order to accommodate wind generation into the system.

It is hard to believe that even 50% of the promised CO2 saving is achievable if this is so.

By happyuk - 10 February 2008 at 10:49pm

As for nuclear fission until the UK can dispose of the waste we already have we should not be thinking about a new generation. Which by the way will arrive too little too late to meet our climate change targets.

So until Nuclear fusion is up and running (likely to be 2050-60 hopefully) we should invest in the cheaper, more efficient, cleaner method of using renewables in conjunction with CHP in a decentralised grid reducing transmission losses and reducing bills (long term).

What happened to banning standby switches anyway? if all the appliances left on standby were turned off then we'd be able to shutdown a coal fired power station.

Jethro.

JetG. rescue diver extraordinaire.

By jethro - 24 April 2008 at 4:47pm

You guys need to get real. Our 21st century lifestyle demands a 24-hour uninterrupted energy supply. If the amount of wind power embedded in the network were to increase, so would the problem of maintaining voltage and frequency within legally required limits. Renewable electricity generation, apart from hydro-electricity, has a serious problem of intermittency. Tides turn and winds rise and fall, along with their exploitable power. The first equipment to suffer would be computers. Without a guaranteed supply, hospital patients will die, central heating systems cease to pump, fridges and freezers thaw and banking systems shut down. Even minor things like no television would cause a public outcry. There is no option. Wind must be provided with an guaranteed backup, and it must be available within minutes. Only fossil fuel systems can provide this degree of flexibility and even they cannot start from cold without many hours' delay. The consequence is that backups must be provided by a spinning reserve (spare capacity). This is simliar to a car being driven below its top speed but having some acceleration left for emergency manoeuvres. Some generators are run below peak output to provide instant 'acceleration' when an existing generator fails. Unfortunately this means that fossil-fuelled generators are less efficient when running below maximum generation thus emitting more CO2 per unit of generation than if otherwise. The fossil and nuclear-fuelled Grid incorporates about 23% spinning reserve, which would insure against a major loss of generating capacity in the event of transmission line failure , accidents or terrorist sabotage. At present, wind generation is allowed to 'steal' from this spare capacity. Because wind provides only 0.25% of UK electricity, even total failure would leave over 22% cover for emergencies! The utilisation of the existing spare capacity even now incurs an energy and carbon-emission cost, which is conveniently ignored by the wind industry. The CO2 savings will be MUCH less than promised. The need for inefficient backup will pretty much negate all of the CO2 savings made by windpower. The IChemE say that fossil fuel has to be wasted and CO2 discharged into the atmosphere in order to accommodate wind generation into the system. It is hard to believe that even 50% of the promised CO2 saving is achievable if this is so.

By happyuk - 10 February 2008 at 10:49pm

The problem with fossil fuels and nuclear is precisely that they are fossil fuels formed over millenia and will run out, oil prices are already increasing rapidly due to supply problems, similar with gas and coal although a century or twos worth of it remains do we really want to burn it and release billions of tons of greenhouse gases, sulphur and nitrogen dioxides etc? As for nuclear fission until the UK can dispose of the waste we already have we should not be thinking about a new generation. Which by the way will arrive too little too late to meet our climate change targets. So until Nuclear fusion is up and running (likely to be 2050-60 hopefully) we should invest in the cheaper, more efficient, cleaner method of using renewables in conjunction with CHP in a decentralised grid reducing transmission losses and reducing bills (long term). What happened to banning standby switches anyway? if all the appliances left on standby were turned off then we'd be able to shutdown a coal fired power station. Jethro. JetG. rescue diver extraordinaire.

By jethro - 24 April 2008 at 4:47pm