92 comments on Why wind needs feed-in tariffs (and why it is not the enemy of nuclear)
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92 comments on Why wind needs feed-in tariffs (and why it is not the enemy of nuclear)
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For this *kind* of article I found it well balanced. It was not "anti" but "positive" on both wind and nuclear. I'm curious. Did you take into account actual cost for KWs based on Winds actual output or did you use faceplate capacity instead?
David Walters
left-atomics.blogspot.com
at this level of discussion I have to assume anyone writing is using actual production instead of nameplate capacity :) The chart at the top measures in MWhe.
Here is the actual production from 3 wind farms in Ontario for July 2006 (2007 numbers not out yet):
http://www.ieso.ca/imoweb/marketdata/genDisclosure.asp
GENERATOR DISCLOSURE REPORT - July 2006
Station Name
Station MCR
Capability Factor %
Capability Factor %
Energy Production (MWh)
Production Factor %
Type
Farm Limited Partnership
Development Corporation
For the total output wind is a mere 0.19%:
15%
More Turbines Needed
For Ontario to get to the target of 15% of total output would mean 78 TIMES more turbines than it has now. Two things become important then. The cost to get the number of turbines needed to get a viable output. And the time it would take to build them. At the current rate of construction it would take more than 100 years to build the turbines needed to get to 15%, to build in a more reasonable time would mean ramping up 10 to 20 TIMES the current rate of construction.
The costs and benifits in this article does not include the problems faced with wind spikes, and any efforts needed to smooth out the output.
I've been following the daily output from Wind, here is what I have so far:
We had a low pressure system move through on the higher outputs. Once a high pressure system settles in the output drops by 80-90%.
Additional info on Ontario's wind:
http://www.ieso.ca/imoweb/pubs/marketReports/ORO_Report-2007-2-2.pdf
Adding in the total Name Plate Capacity of 475 Mw into my chart:
The complete daily output from wind can be found here
http://www.ieso.ca/imoweb/pubs/marketReports/download/HourlyWindGen_2008...
I compiled the data from
http://www.ieso.ca/imoweb/pubs/marketReports/download/HourlyWindGen_2008...
To get the number of hits per hour for each percent of name plate for all the wind output from 1-Mar-06 to 26-feb-08, 17,473 measurements.
I get this graph
This shows clearly where the ouput from windturbines spends its time as a percent of the Name Plate. 30% of the hourly hits is above the 27% capacity factor. 70% of the time the hourly output is below 27%. 50% of the time the output is at 13% of Name Plate or less. 5% of the time there is no output at all. 90% of the hits are at or below 50% Name Plate.
David
I used a graph from the Economist, which is itself based on IEA work (dating back from 2004), simply to have a basis for discussion, and to show that current prices per kWh are roughly in the same range.
I've seen numerous studies with various estimates of prices for kWh from various sources, inclusing some that try to include carbon costs (increasing the cost of coal and gas) and balancing costs (increasing that of wind).
This one (from Emerging Energy Research) is probably pretty close to my own experience and estimates for the US (with Europe seeing wind more expensive and nuclear less):
My experience of actual projects I've financed is that wind power will typically cost 3-6c/kWh to produce before taking into account the return on capital (ie profit) - ie long term O&M and debt service costs, depending on wind conditions and the date of construction (recent projects tend to have seen prices increase, like all other technologies, due to commodity prices and supply chain bottlenecks).
EDF's costs at in the 2-3c/kWh for nuclear, but costs for new investment, based on private sector financing, are likely to be significantly higher.
Bonjour!
Une question, Jerome...
Do you know why solar thermal (CSP large scale) is almost never included in those studies ?
CSP seems to be very attractive in independent studies, and a worthwhile (if not totally necessary) addition to any future energy mix ?
Apologies, Jerome, in the course of a long thread I overlooked this reply to my question.
I do feel though that the use of 2004 data considerably understates windpower costs, and perhaps more importantly can falsely give the impression of a more-or-less smooth transition to lower costs.
My real objection though is to off-shore wind power, where costs seem ludicrous - £66bn for 33GW nameplate, around 10-11GW actual average hourly, and that does not include transmission lines, back-up and so on.