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THE Wind Power Thread pt 3 (merged)

Discussions of conventional and alternative energy production technologies.

Re: THE Wind Power Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby Newfie » Sun 14 May 2017, 21:24:03

Outcast,
It was meant to be a metaphor for our human condition, playing off of Tanadas prior comment. Our infrastructure, (knees or the Earths biocapacity) is being stressed by the size of load (pounds or number of humans) it is being asked to support.

The obvious logical solution is to reduce the load (pounds or population) however unlikely that may be to succede for the reasons you state.
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Re: THE Wind Power Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby Newfie » Mon 15 May 2017, 21:41:44

Ah, but is the vast majority of us that you describe. Not some THEM, TPTB,Mor 1%.
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Re: THE Wind Power Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Mon 22 May 2017, 15:04:34

Big news!!! From our cohort Cloggie:

First US offshore wind farm began producing electricity earlier this month:

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017 ... wind-farm/

And here are some details about that first offshore wind farm that they might have forgotten to mention in the video:

So why all the local resistance delaying the project for many years? And apparently the basis for the lawsuits wasn’t over ruining the view but that the locals would be FORCED to pay more for the electricity then they were currently: Deepwater signed an agreement with National Grid to sell the power from the wind farm off Block Island, at an initial price of 24.4¢/kW·h.

“The permitting process for the project has been highly controversial, with the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission (RIPUC) initially rejecting the agreement price with National Grid as being excessive to Rhode Island’s electricity rate payers. However the state law concerning the “commercial reasonability” of contract pricing was changed. After continuing controversy and appeals, the Rhode Island Supreme Court ruled in July 2011 to uphold the RIPUC decision. Opponents of the project raised issue about the contract pricing with FERC in August 2012, but FERC in October of the same year issued a decision that they would not act on the complaints. On May 11, 2015 a new complaint was filed with FERC alleging that the power purchase agreement with National Grid violates the Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act of 1978 and further alleging that the RIPUC violated the Federal Power Act and the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

And why is it operating now: in July 2016 FERC issued the final order forcing the RI consumers to pay the 24.4¢/kW·h rate. Which is 40% higher then average rate for all sectors in the state…17.05¢. So there’s the great future of offshore winds farms along the east cost: economic to develop if local consumers are forced to pay much higher prices then they are currently.

That’s certainly something to brag about...NOT. BTW the electric rate average for all sectors in Texas is 8.63¢. And for industrial users… 5.5¢. I imagine that’s one reason so many industries are relocating to Texas

BTW here's a comparison between that offshore farm and an onshore one on the coast:

Imagine how much more wind power if they were spending the same money putting turbines on the coast. Like one of the biggest in the country on the S Texas shoreline. The 30 MW offshore east coast capacity compared our wind farm on the coast (operating for more then 6 years now) makes the east coast project look puny: The Papalote Creek Wind Farm in San Patricio County is an array of 196 wind turbines that can produce 380 MW of power. And how do the locals like having it “ruin the views”: The wind farm has added more than $500 million in value to the property tax base of San Patricio County and local school districts.

Those 380 MW cost $460 million to install onshore coastal Texas vs. $300 million to install those 30 MW offshore Rhode Island. Not that it was ever a real contest…but I think Texas won:

The Papalote Creek project provides enough clean wind power to supply about 114,000 homes while avoiding more than 684,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions and saving half of a billion gallons of fresh water every year compared with a conventional fossil fuel plant. A fossil fuel plant that would been built to meet our booming demand had this wind farm not been built.
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Re: THE Wind Power Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Wed 24 May 2017, 00:04:35

And a bit more details as to why the Rhode Island public utility commission and state politicians had to FORCE the local consumers to accept the higher rates that justified what seems to be an uneconomic offshore wind farm:

"The other issue is the high price of power generated.
Right now, National Grid pays Deepwater Wind 24 cents per kilowatt hour {currently 17¢} generated. That price goes up annually, landing at nearly 48 cents per kilowatt hour in 20 years. The average price of electricity right now in New England is 16 cents per kilowatt hour.

But project officials say comparing the future price of offshore wind to the current average is misleading, since it too will increase with time, especially as coal and nuclear plants are decommissioned."

And that last statement is 100% bullsh*t. First, 95% of RI electricity is generated by burning NG. And back when inflation adjusted NG prices were 3X the current level electric rates weren't even close to the 24¢ currently being charged let alone 48¢. And according to locals the permit was approved remarkably fast. Perhaps having a former PUC commission quit and go to work the following year for the law firm representing the wind farm investors helped a tad. LOL.
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Re: THE Wind Power Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby Newfie » Fri 03 Nov 2017, 20:01:38

Came across this about wind turbines and hurricane. Seems like they don’t do so good force 3 or above.

I always wonder who pays for the fixes and who pays to have them removed at their end of life. Which is what? 30 years?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3295275/
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Re: THE Wind Power Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Fri 03 Nov 2017, 20:46:06

Newfie wrote:Came across this about wind turbines and hurricane. Seems like they don’t do so good force 3 or above.

I always wonder who pays for the fixes and who pays to have them removed at their end of life. Which is what? 30 years?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3295275/

Even the best designs will have their limits and major hurricanes will exceed them. But if we scatter all our coastlines with wind turbines only a small fraction of them will get damaged in any given year so it becomes just a predictable cost of doing business.
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Re: THE Wind Power Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby NWMossBack » Sat 04 Nov 2017, 00:25:07

The standard assumption for onshore wind turbine lifespans is 20 years, but I read a recent study a few months ago that suggested that the optimum economic lifespan is closer to 15 years. That puts a bit of a damper on the EROEI assumptions for the technology.

Another under appreciated problem with solar panels and wind turbines is the poor quality of power produced. People understand that it is intermittent and not dispatchable, but another system reliability problem is poor voltage and frequency support compared to standard generators. And a wind turbine has no black start (i.e. boot strap) capability; you have to have a live grid to connect to before a wind turbine can generate power. The current grid penetration limit for wind and solar is around 10% to 15% each, or around 25% total if reliability is to be maintained. Wider use of solar might be possible by breaking up the grid into micro grids that are more easily managed for voltage and frequency control, but that approach would not work well for wind turbines.
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Re: THE Wind Power Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby Newfie » Sat 04 Nov 2017, 13:15:50

Vt
There are economic reasons for density. It keeps the land connection costs down. Spread them out and they become much more expensive with many more connecting links drive maintenance up and reliability down

Then it also impacts a much larger area.

O free lunch as usual.
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Re: THE Wind Power Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby Newfie » Sat 04 Nov 2017, 13:22:02

NWMossback
Are removal and restoration costs included in the total life cost assessments? They should be. IMHO they should b required to have a set aside fund for their removal, if not removal and replacement.
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Re: THE Wind Power Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Sat 04 Nov 2017, 13:31:10

NW - Interesting issues...thanks. I wonder if in addition to dealing with the intermittent problem the E.ON grid scale battery system being built in Texas would also overcome the problems you mention? Feeding the grid from the battery system should normalize the output...I think.

"Sept. 5, 2017 - E.ON today began construction on its Texas Waves energy storage projects co-located at the existing E.ON Pyron and Inadale wind farms in West Texas. Texas Waves consists of two 9.9 megawatt (MW) short duration energy storage projects using lithium-ion battery technology and will be an integral part of the wind farm facilities near Roscoe, Texas."

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-release ... 14081.html
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Re: THE Wind Power Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby ROCKMAN » Sat 04 Nov 2017, 13:41:32

Newfie - "There are economic reasons for density. It keeps the land connection costs down." Maybe in west Texas but along out coastline there is continuous grid availability. And now thinking about our west Texas wind farms: they are already connected by lines running hundreds of miles. And along those power lines are hundreds of thousands of acres suitable for more wind farms. That's the nature of our west Texas: hundreds of miles in any direction and there ain't nothing but 8" tall grass and thin herds of cattle. LOL.
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Re: THE Wind Power Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Sat 04 Nov 2017, 13:58:50

Newfie wrote:Vt
There are economic reasons for density. It keeps the land connection costs down. Spread them out and they become much more expensive with many more connecting links drive maintenance up and reliability down

Then it also impacts a much larger area.

O free lunch as usual.

Your taking my term scattered too literally. The wind farms would of course be as dense as the engineering requires but the farms would be spread out from Florida to Maine so no storm would be likely to devastate more then one or two wind farms a year.
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Re: THE Wind Power Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby NWMossBack » Sat 04 Nov 2017, 21:45:44

Rock - Storage addresses the issue of intermittency and dispatchability but not necessarily the other two power quality issues of voltage and frequency support. Of course that's just an engineering problem, but right now the grid is designed to have a stable base load of rotating machines with very high inertia. Stable frequency and voltage are inherent in the design of the things, and the technology is very mature (over 100 years). The battery power from storage schemes would be fed into the grid via massive solid state inverters, which could in theory be designed to supply voltage and frequency support, but this is uncharted territory at that scale. Also the generally accepted EROEI numbers for wind (around 5) and solar PV (around 3) do not include the enormously complex task of DC storage, conversion to AC, and redesigning much of the grid to support that change. Ever since the 2003 east coast blackout a major effort has been under way to improve grid reliability for a grid based on large rotating machines - solid state devices throws a major curve ball into that effort.
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Re: THE Wind Power Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby Newfie » Sat 04 Nov 2017, 21:48:34

Rock,
We were talking about wind farms in the ocean.

VT
Quite possibly, the problem of discussing this way, never really know for sure what the other guy means. Gotta guess and assume.
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Re: THE Wind Power Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby NWMossBack » Sat 04 Nov 2017, 21:49:26

Newfie - I don't know how the end of life work fits in to EROEI, but I would guess the scrap value is a positive number. There are rare earth elements as well as copper, electronics, aluminum, etc.
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Re: THE Wind Power Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby kublikhan » Sat 04 Nov 2017, 22:38:06

NWMossBack wrote:Rock - Storage addresses the issue of intermittency and dispatchability but not necessarily the other two power quality issues of voltage and frequency support. Of course that's just an engineering problem, but right now the grid is designed to have a stable base load of rotating machines with very high inertia. Stable frequency and voltage are inherent in the design of the things, and the technology is very mature (over 100 years). The battery power from storage schemes would be fed into the grid via massive solid state inverters, which could in theory be designed to supply voltage and frequency support, but this is uncharted territory at that scale. Also the generally accepted EROEI numbers for wind (around 5) and solar PV (around 3) do not include the enormously complex task of DC storage, conversion to AC, and redesigning much of the grid to support that change. Ever since the 2003 east coast blackout a major effort has been under way to improve grid reliability for a grid based on large rotating machines - solid state devices throws a major curve ball into that effort.
It seems to me that storage addresses the issue of voltage and frequency support even better than the issues of intermittency and dispatchability. The pay is better and storage responds faster than traditional sources. The grid is already starting to feel the loss of primary frequency regulation from all those large rotating machines going offline. Thus the growing interest in the secondary frequency regulation market.

Energy storage is a good option for frequency response, a storage trade group will tell the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission this month. Markets would be less efficient and "system costs greater than necessary if resource owners are mandated to provide frequency response service from generators more suited to provide energy and capacity.” Requiring generators to provide frequency response could produce an oversupply of frequency response headroom, imposing additional system costs. The group noted that many generators are not well suited to provide frequency response because doing so can lower operational efficiency, which will eventually result in higher system costs. Additionally, requiring all generators to provide frequency response would fail to create a market signal.

On the other hand, energy storage, particularly batteries, are well suited to provide frequency response, ESA said. They are fast responding and do not lose efficiency by needing to reserve headroom. In its comments, ESA cited studies by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas that found 1 MW of fast responding resources could be substituted for 2 MW of primary frequency response resources during some system conditions.

Primary frequency response should not be confused with frequency response, which could also be called secondary frequency response. Primary frequency response is an automatic, nearly instantaneous response by generators to deviations in frequency. Frequency regulation is a second line of defense in balancing the grid — at least in organized wholesale power markets, it is provided as a paid service.

Not designed to address storage
For purposes of primary frequency response, frequency deviations are measured by metrics such as “droop” and “deadband.” If a generator trips offline or a large load leaves the grid, frequency can drop enough to create instability and even cascading blackouts. Generators and motors with large, heavy rotors add inertia to the grid and can help dampen the effect of dips in frequency, and many generators have mechanical or electrical governors that can help return frequency to balance. But the spread of variable speed motors, the retirement of baseload, synchronous generating stations, and the proliferation of non-synchronous electrically connected variable energy resources such as wind and solar power has resulted in a “significant decline in frequency response in the Eastern and Western Interconnections,” FERC’s NOPR states.
Energy storage good option for frequency response

Short Acting Storage
With more intermittent generation, fast-responding energy storage is becoming essential to maintaining grid reliability. PJM Interconnection was the first system operator in the U.S. to take advantage of FERC Order 755, which recognizes the value provided by resources that deliver fast-responding and accurate frequency regulation service. PJM offered higher payments for fast-responding assets, such as batteries, flywheels and other quick-acting load control systems, compared to the fossil power plants that have traditionally performed the ramping up and ramping down to help stabilize frequency across the grid.

There's now about 110 MW of fast-responding assets online in the PJM frequency regulation market, with another 100 MW or so in the pipeline.
Batteries and flywheels can ramp to full power virtually instantaneously, so they respond faster to grid operator signals than coal or gas peaker plants, but they cannot last as long. Their fast response means batteries actually provide some real competition – but only to peaker plants.
Fast-Responding Energy Storage Digs Into Frequency Regulation Market

Then there's the possiblity that the renewables themselves might be able to participate in frequency regulation:

Secondary frequency regulation, where participating generators track a power signal sent by the ISO over tens of minutes, is an area of growing interest. Recent work has shown that wind turbines can effectively provide secondary frequency regulation by reducing their operating power production setpoint to allow turbines to increase production levels while following the regulation signal.

These results provide important insights into the possible strengths and limitations of the proposed approach to wind farm control for frequency regulation. First, these results suggest that wind farms may be better suited to act as a quickly responding resource for grid regulation services. The consistently passing composite performance score for the RegD signals indicates that these controlled wind farms are able to provide this service reliably. Further work, however, is needed to improve the performance of the method in providing slower regulation services. The lower RegA scores are partially explained by the controlled wind farm’s inability to provide prolonged periods of up-regulation.
Wind farms providing secondary frequency regulation

Last summer, First Solar and California grid operator CAISO ran a set of tests to show that utility-scale solar PV, instead of being a disruptive influence on the power grid, could actually help stabilize it. Over a series of days in August, First Solar slightly curtailed power output at a 300-megawatt solar farm in California, enabled its array of inverters, and plugged into CAISO’s system. It then orchestrated the plant’s output to follow CAISO’s automatic generation control (AGC) signals, respond to its frequency regulation commands, and use inverters for voltage regulation, power factor regulation and reactive power control.

The results, according to a report released last week, showed that First Solar was able to meet, and sometimes exceed, the frequency regulation response usually provided by natural-gas-fired peaker plants. First Solar was also able to provide inverter-based services throughout the day -- and possibly even at night.

It turned in a respectable performance matching CAISO’s wholesale market price signals -- even when clouds appeared on the afternoon of the second day of testing, reducing First Solar’s capacity to shift its load.

All told, the data from CAISO, First Solar and the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) indicates that a utility-scale solar farm, equipped with standard inverters and software controls, can serve to smooth out grid fluctuations from the solar itself or from other sources.
First Solar Proves That PV Plants Can Rival Frequency Response Services From Natural Gas Peakers

Back in 2015 KJ posted about using inverters from residential Solar PV to provide voltage and frequency regulation services:
How Rooftop Solar Can Stabilize the Grid
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Re: THE Wind Power Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby NWMossBack » Sun 05 Nov 2017, 00:20:45

Kublikhan - As I said, it's just an engineering problem but using batteries and inverters or solar panels and inverters for frequency response is not proven technology at the scale that is needed - of course there are trade groups who will tout their ability to provide just about anything people are willing to spend money on. Also as your link noted, there is an inherent stability due to inertia with a large rotating machine that is not true of solid state devices. Something that supplies a service as an inherent characteristic will always have an advantage over a solution that does not. And don't forget the added complexity of the schemes being discussed in those links. Complexity should generally be considered a negative characteristic when evaluating reliability. And cost.
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Re: THE Wind Power Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby Newfie » Sun 05 Nov 2017, 08:47:28

NWMossBack wrote:Newfie - I don't know how the end of life work fits in to EROEI, but I would guess the scrap value is a positive number. There are rare earth elements as well as copper, electronics, aluminum, etc.


I wAs thinking more along the lines of the blades, towers and those zMASSIVE FOUNDATIONS. Or is it just assumed they will be abandoned in place.
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Re: THE Wind Power Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby vtsnowedin » Sun 05 Nov 2017, 10:38:12

Even in salt water a reinforced concrete base built properly today should last about 100 years with minimal maintenance.During that time it could hold three or four towers that were each rehabbed a couple of times during their useful life. You can expect that everything of value as recycled material will be stripped from each turbine when they are removed from service.
I would also expect that most bases would also have a tide flow underwater turbine attached that would give a predictable addition to the total output.
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Re: THE Wind Power Thread pt 3 (merged)

Unread postby Newfie » Sun 05 Nov 2017, 11:07:04

So 100 years maximum? If you say so, it over the years I’ve been involved in various project which had I deal with much younger foundations. A recent one is about 30 years old. And where in the contract requirements is it written they design 100 year foundations and how do you enforce that?

Then what, abandon in place?

For alternative energy to be SUSTAINABLE it needs to produce enough excess energy to replicate itself indefinitely. Are there any calculations that show this?
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