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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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jrwakefield on March 4, 2008 - 1:04pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

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

MONTHLY
GENERATOR DISCLOSURE REPORT - July 2006
Generating
Station Name		 Total
Station MCR		 Planned
Capability Factor %		 Total
Capability Factor %		 Actual
Energy Production (MWh)		 Actual
Production Factor %		 Zone Fuel
Type		 Ownership
PTBURWELL 99.0 100 100 12,234 17 West Wind Erie Shores Wind
Farm Limited Partnership
AMARANTH 68.0 100 97 10,332 20 Southwest Wind Canadian Hydro Developers, Inc.
KINGSBRIDGE 40.0 100 100 4,738 16 Southwest Wind EPCOR Power
Development Corporation

For the total output wind is a mere 0.19%:

  14,202,525   Total
  27,304 0.19% Wind
Required
15%		 2,130,379 78 Times
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:

MW % of Total
Feb-28 42 0.19%
Feb-29 325 1.53%
Mar-01 158 0.94%
Mar-02 330 1.95%
Mar-03 338 1.95%
Mar-04 78 0.37%

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%.

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jrwakefield on March 4, 2008 - 2:39pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Additional info on Ontario's wind:

http://www.ieso.ca/imoweb/pubs/marketReports/ORO_Report-2007-2-2.pdf

Wind
Approximately 475 MW of wind-powered generation is currently installed at five locations around the province, with several more projects to be completed within the next couple of years. By the end of 2009, approximately 630 MW of
new wind power facilities will be connected to the IESO-controlled grid while an additional 460 MW of embedded wind power generation is scheduled to come in service through the OPA’s Renewable Energy Standard Offer Program.
Wind power has demonstrated a positive contribution to overall energy supply, despite its intermittent operation. In fact, the annual wind contribution increased from 410 gigawatt hours (GWh) in 2006 to more than 920 GWh in
the first 11 months of 2007. The annual energy capacity factor for these wind farms for the period March 2006 through October 2007 averaged 27 per cent, with monthly average capacity factors reaching a monthly low of 14 per cent and a high of 43 per cent.

The intermittent nature of wind power will continue to pose challenges to the reliability of the system. The IESO is proactively engaged in addressing wind-power related operational and forecasting challenges through enhanced
stakeholdering activities. Since the last publication of the ORO, the IESO’s Wind Integration Standing Committee has developed recommendations and implemented decisions on priority operational and forecasting issues. Additionally,
it is exploring a new wind forecasting method and associated capacity contribution for use in resource adequacy models that support future Outlooks.

Adding in the total Name Plate Capacity of 475 Mw into my chart:

MW % Contribution % of name plate
Feb-28 42 0.19% 8.8%
Feb-29 325 1.53% 68.4%
Mar-01 158 0.94% 33.3%
Mar-02 330 1.95% 69.5%
Mar-03 338 1.95% 71.2%
Mar-04 78 0.37% 16.4%

The complete daily output from wind can be found here
http://www.ieso.ca/imoweb/pubs/marketReports/download/HourlyWindGen_2008...

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jrwakefield on March 4, 2008 - 3:15pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

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.

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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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