a discussion about wind

[dukealien]

Hope all is well in the great state of Texas,
Mark

The great state is in something of a state of suspended animation this week.  Various emergency plans and agencies are busying themselves, but it's always the hidden flaw that Murphy seizes upon:  one year it was the coal piles for generating plants (they froze, couldn't feed the boilers) and another it was frozen gas valves at the gas turbine generators.  But down at Comanche Peak they just keep splitting atoms like some people split logs... base load assured as long as the transformers  hold up.

[dukealien]

Spoke too soon - this instant poem from yesterday:

---

Folly,Folly


Our trouble here in Texas
isn’t like poor California’s
which shut down electric power
at its source just to avert
consumerism and in woods
to save trees from their path
to resurrection - fire.

No, in Texas we bought into wind
so hard when winter storms
come overspeeding fragile fans
we haven’t left enough of coal
and gas and nuclear to keep
our state from freezing.

[busker]

Spoke too soon - this instant poem from yesterday:

---

Folly,Folly


Our trouble here in Texas
isn’t like poor California’s
which shut down electric power
at its source just to avert
consumerism and in woods
to save trees from their path
to resurrection - fire.

No, in Texas we bought into wind
so hard when winter storms
come overspeeding fragile fans
we haven’t left enough of coal
and gas and nuclear to keep
our state from freezing.

It is well known that wind only accounts for 25% of Texas's energy output on average. But the % can dip across hours, and there is enough slack in the system to absorb this.
Eg from 21:30 of 11th Feb to 12 AM of 12th Feb last year, wind output dropped to 166 MW (average), and a nadir of 116 MW at 23:45. During this 2.75 hr period, wind produced between 4.6% and 8.4% of the energy demand. 
However, guess what, the grid did NOT collapse during this time, because there IS, in fact, enough gas and coal capacity in Texas to account for these very well known, always modelled, basic information to any power systems engineer, fluctuations in wind output.
Because there IS wind and gas capacity, even if the turbines remain frozen for a month, there should be no interruption in power. However, that has not happened because.....the gas and the coal plants tripped due to the weather too. So the issue is that Texas power plants were not adequately prepared for extreme cold conditions ie scrimped on winterising their equipment.

---

This time, from ERCOT: http://www.ercot.com/news/releases/show/225210

AUSTIN, TX, Feb. 15, 2021 – The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) entered emergency conditions and initiated rotating outages at 1:25 a.m. today.
About 10,500 MW of customer load was shed at the highest point. This is enough power to serve approximately two million homes.
Extreme weather conditions caused many generating units – across fuel types – to trip offline and become unavailable.
There is now over 30,000 MW of generation forced off the system

See that last line?

[busker]

Don’t just swallow whatever Fox News dishes out for you

[dukealien]

Don’t just swallow whatever Fox News dishes out for you

Not just Fox, of course.  There's blame to go around, but the main missing quantity is wind.  Blame attaches to decommissioning the other sources as if wind was reliable (it's 100% unreliable - when the wind doesn't blow, nothing).  Also not planning for a hundred-year cold wave, but that's when engineers start trotting out probabilities... which, when there are bodies, always fail to convince.

---

@Mark - Sorry about hijacking your thread.

[busker]

Don’t just swallow whatever Fox News dishes out for you

Not just Fox, of course.  There's blame to go around, but the main missing quantity is wind.  Blame attaches to decommissioning the other sources as if wind was reliable (it's 100% unreliable - when the wind doesn't blow, nothing).  Also not planning for a hundred-year cold wave, but that's when engineers start trotting out probabilities... which, when there are bodies, always fail to convince.

---

@Mark - Sorry about hijacking your thread.

Now you’re delving into irrelevancies.
Wind IS intermittent and therefore unreliable at a given point in time. 
The current event has nothing to do with that. The modelled availability of wind by ERCOT was 8 GW, of which 4 GW is offline. The modelled availability of nuclear and thermal was 75 GW, of which anywhere between 14 GW and 30 GW is offline.
Because valves and equipment are frozen - affecting gas.
Just read the ERCOT news releases and check out the capacity projections from Dec 2019 for this winter  go straight to the source.

[dukealien]

Don’t just swallow whatever Fox News dishes out for you

Not just Fox, of course.  There's blame to go around, but the main missing quantity is wind.  Blame attaches to decommissioning the other sources as if wind was reliable (it's 100% unreliable - when the wind doesn't blow, nothing).  Also not planning for a hundred-year cold wave, but that's when engineers start trotting out probabilities... which, when there are bodies, always fail to convince.

---

@Mark - Sorry about hijacking your thread.

Now you’re delving into irrelevancies.
Wind IS intermittent and therefore unreliable at a given point in time. 
The current event has nothing to do with that. The modelled availability of wind by ERCOT was 8 GW, of which 4 GW is offline. The modelled availability of nuclear and thermal was 75 GW, of which anywhere between 14 GW and 30 GW is offline.
Because valves and equipment are frozen - affecting gas.
Just read the ERCOT news releases and check out the capacity projections from Dec 2019 for this winter  go straight to the source.

I understand it's not just valves (for natural gas) - they're also being priced out by home heating gas, demand for which went nuts due to the hundred-year statewide cold wave. The tail of the distribution curve is wicked.

The other thing (and I'm just blue-skying here) is that with wind turbines, if one breaks (or, in this case, freezes) someone has to go to it and fix it. The same nominal capacity is a fraction of one conventional generating plant. This means wind turbines are labor- and time-intensive to maintain (and it's always outdoor work, in whatever weather's going). And after the ice melts, some will still be broken (including by the ice). I won't say wind power is a fashion accessory - that's harsh. But it's definitely not ready for prime time, particularly since it only looks competitive with gross and perverse government subsidies.

[busker]

Not just Fox, of course.  There's blame to go around, but the main missing quantity is wind.  Blame attaches to decommissioning the other sources as if wind was reliable (it's 100% unreliable - when the wind doesn't blow, nothing).  Also not planning for a hundred-year cold wave, but that's when engineers start trotting out probabilities... which, when there are bodies, always fail to convince.

---

@Mark - Sorry about hijacking your thread.

Now you’re delving into irrelevancies.
Wind IS intermittent and therefore unreliable at a given point in time. 
The current event has nothing to do with that. The modelled availability of wind by ERCOT was 8 GW, of which 4 GW is offline. The modelled availability of nuclear and thermal was 75 GW, of which anywhere between 14 GW and 30 GW is offline.
Because valves and equipment are frozen - affecting gas.
Just read the ERCOT news releases and check out the capacity projections from Dec 2019 for this winter  go straight to the source.

I understand it's not just valves (for natural gas) - they're also being priced out by home heating gas, demand for which went nuts due to the hundred-year statewide cold wave.  The tail of the distribution curve is wicked.

The other thing (and I'm just blue-skying here) is that with wind turbines, if one breaks (or, in this case, freezes) someone has to go to it and fix it.  The same nominal capacity is a fraction of one conventional generating plant.  This means wind turbines are labor- and time-intensive to maintain (and it's always outdoor work, in whatever weather's going).  And after the ice melts, some will still be broken (including by the ice).  I won't say wind power is a fashion accessory - that's harsh.  But it's definitely not ready for prime time, particularly since it only looks competitive with gross and perverse government subsidies.

The power rating of a wind turbine is just a mathematical abstraction that relates to a theoretical design speed. The power output can be varied by adjusting the hub height and of course placing the turbine is a windy area.
The power output of a natural has power plant is essentially a function of a design burn rate of the gas. The low capacity factor of a wind turbine does not mean that it is sitting idle the rest of the time eg we often hear “34%” as the capacity factor. It doesn’t mean that the turbine is sitting idle 66% of the time. In fact, it could be running 90% of the time, but at lower-than-design wind speeds. The trade off is between this lower output and the zero cost of wind compared to natural gas.
Wind turbines have a very low maintenance cost compared to natural gas so not sure where you’re getting your information from. The wear and tear on Gas turbine blades impinged upon by the products of Gas combustion at high temperature and pressure leads to 3x the O&M cost of wind turbines. The cost of having an electrician go out and fix something occasionally is small beer compared to the maintenance cost of a Gas turbine or even a CCGT plant

Finally, wind turbines are in fact viable without subsidies - just check the Lazard LCOE numbers (or you can work them out yourself given the time). But subsidising them does help accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels, which is a great thing.

[Tiger the Lion]

Admittedly, not as educated on the matter. Appears to be risk management. In most climates, wind turbines are equipped with de-icing systems. Not surprised those dollars could not be justified to Texas constituents. After all, it would take some sort of climate change or something for them ever to be needed.

[rowens]

What do you mean by capacity?

You see, there's a theme aggroing.

[dukealien]

There have been many stories now, all using different statistics.  Some try to defend and deflect in favor of wind turbines, some point out that even nuclear had a problem (feedwater valve froze at one plant).  The common thread seems to be mismanagement, proceeding from ideology or corruption (too much reliance on wind, but wind built on the cheap, but again also built by "connected" financiers who are, yes, subsidized heavily).  The system came unstuck (or nearly did) in a *weather* shock.  *Climate* only got into the act via ideology.

[busker]

There have been many stories now, all using different statistics.  Some try to defend and deflect in favor of wind turbines, some point out that even nuclear had a problem (feedwater valve froze at one plant).  The common thread seems to be mismanagement, proceeding from ideology or corruption (too much reliance on wind, but wind built on the cheap, but again also built by "connected" financiers who are, yes, subsidized heavily).  The system came unstuck (or nearly did) in a *weather* shock.  *Climate* only got into the act via ideology.

No. There aren't many stories, whichever way you would like to spin it. 

The predicted contribution (availability) of wind for February was around 7 GW, of which around 3-4 GW was out. The predicted contribution of thermal and nuclear was 74 GW, of which at least 14 GW was out. This is based on Ercot's announcements.
And no, not installing de-icing equipment was not limited to wind turbines, but to all power plants simply because Texas doesn't get this cold. The cost would be passed on to the consumers, since Texas is an isolated system.

No connection with so called subsidies given to wind turbines, but try better next time.

[dukealien]

There have been many stories now, all using different statistics.  Some try to defend and deflect in favor of wind turbines, some point out that even nuclear had a problem (feedwater valve froze at one plant).  The common thread seems to be mismanagement, proceeding from ideology or corruption (too much reliance on wind, but wind built on the cheap, but again also built by "connected" financiers who are, yes, subsidized heavily).  The system came unstuck (or nearly did) in a *weather* shock.  *Climate* only got into the act via ideology.

No. There aren't many stories, whichever way you would like to spin it. 

The predicted contribution (availability) of wind for February was around 7 GW, of which around 3-4 GW was out. The predicted contribution of thermal and nuclear was 74 GW, of which at least 14 GW was out. This is based on Ercot's announcements.
And no, not installing de-icing equipment was not limited to wind turbines, but to all power plants simply because Texas doesn't get this cold. The cost would be passed on to the consumers, since Texas is an isolated system.

No connection with so called subsidies given to wind turbines, but try better next time.

ERCOT's part of the problem.  Subsidies definitely figure in it.  End thread *snap*

[busker]

There have been many stories now, all using different statistics.  Some try to defend and deflect in favor of wind turbines, some point out that even nuclear had a problem (feedwater valve froze at one plant).  The common thread seems to be mismanagement, proceeding from ideology or corruption (too much reliance on wind, but wind built on the cheap, but again also built by "connected" financiers who are, yes, subsidized heavily).  The system came unstuck (or nearly did) in a *weather* shock.  *Climate* only got into the act via ideology.

No. There aren't many stories, whichever way you would like to spin it. 

The predicted contribution (availability) of wind for February was around 7 GW, of which around 3-4 GW was out. The predicted contribution of thermal and nuclear was 74 GW, of which at least 14 GW was out. This is based on Ercot's announcements.
And no, not installing de-icing equipment was not limited to wind turbines, but to all power plants simply because Texas doesn't get this cold. The cost would be passed on to the consumers, since Texas is an isolated system.

No connection with so called subsidies given to wind turbines, but try better next time.

ERCOT's part of the problem.  Subsidies definitely figure in it.  End thread *snap*

Naturally, you have no specific reasons as to why, and in what sense the system operator, whose task it is to manage real time demand and supply, is 'part of the problem'. 
What is part of the problem is people holding on to their opinions despite evidence to the contrary, just because they feel entitled to them.