Wind power's not intermittent, honest!

[goslow]

Ah, but Danish CO2 from the electricity sector seems to be on a downward trend, though I have so far limited access to data.

Overall CO2 emissions are related particularly to heating, you know DK is a bit cold sometimes! Still they manage to have a bit less per capita carbon emissions than the UK.

A better analogue of mpg for a wind turbine is the efficiency of converting the wind energy. I've read this is around the same as for thermal power stations (30-40%) but without the waste heat.

A more reasonable, but not perfect analogue for load factor is annual mileage compared to what could be done at top speed if one were to drive all year round! Except that if a windfarm was a car, the fuel would be free and non-polluting!

Load factor for windfarms to me seems to be just about the windiness of the site, and also we had a nice explanation from RC (I think) that it can be affected if you choose the wrong kind of turbine.

[An Inspector Calls]

A better analogue of mpg for a wind turbine is the efficiency of converting the wind energy. I've read this is around the same as for thermal power stations (30-40%) but without the waste heat.

I wasn't putting forward mpg as an analogue for capacity factor, only trying to illustrate how senseless the assertion that capacity factor is an unimportant measure of windmill (or any other renewable energy) performance.

Capacity factor relates to the availability of the fuel cycle. In a FF plant it's usually 1, as you said. RC's feebly trying to claim that the Dagenham windmills are performing poorly (i.e. low capacity factor) because they're the wrong type. In fact, most windmills have a very similar wind speed/loading curve: the designers try to get the windmill to full power with the lowest possible wind speed; above that wind speed they sit at full power as windspeed rises, and then they trip when it's too windy. Dagenham hasn't got enough wind (fuel) so the capacity factor's lower than usual.

Doesn't matter: Joe Public's got the message! They know wind's unreliable.

[goslow]

Sorry, might be getting confused here between capacity factor and load factor, are they separate things? FF plant have load factors 50-80%, are you talking also about capacity credit?

To me, load factor is certainly useful, to compare windfarms and wind sites. Its obviously preferable to place a turbine where it will go round a lot more! But if we rule out some of the prettier parts that happen also to be the most windy, I'm accepting that we'll have some turbines with e.g. load factor < 20%.

I'm not an expert in turbines so if one person says there are different sorts, I see no reason to disbelieve that.

Anyway, Joe Public is being misled by all this propaganda from the likes of REF and the Daily Mail. We need to get the facts out there, the good and not so good. I don't think wind is unreliable, but neither is it easy/straightforward. Neither is any other option.

[An Inspector Calls]

Anyway, Joe Public is being misled by all this propaganda from the likes of REF and the Daily Mail. We need to get the facts out there, the good and not so good. I don't think wind is unreliable, but neither is it easy/straightforward. Neither is any other option.

REF tends to publish articles which are either entirely factual or analyses of facts; can't speak for the Daily Mail.

I'm quite happy for the facts about renewables to emerge. It would be useful if the BWEA and the AWEA could help with that process.

[goslow]

REF are classic spin merchants. Rather remind me of the No2AV campaign! Their very name is an exercise in media manipulation.

BWEA seem ok to me, do you have any examples of dodgy statements from them? Don't know about AWEA.

[An Inspector Calls]

I'd like to see examples where you think REF has distorted the truth or not been factual. Do you have any?

I see nothing bogus in their title. They are behind certain renewable initiatives, for example small hydro. But their criticism of wind is founded on their assessment and belief that wind is an expensive and unreliable technology.

BWEA

Well I remember the halcyon days in the early 00s when they were pushing myths such as

The variability of the wind is not a problem. It's always windy somewhere in the UK, so when there's no wind in Cornwall, there'll be wind in Scotland. And the average power from wind will be steady and uniform.

The wind generation pattern is a good match for the daily load curve we have in the UK: the highest winds occur during the day when industry is at work. (What a cracker that was!)

Capacity factor is not a problem. All generators have times when they're off load and wind is just like all the other generators. (Still current in the wind farming camp).


Most of this rubbish has been squashed.

The AWEA? Well I'm not sure of their history in respect of the above (I expect it's similar) but as a present-day taster, here's their response to the Bentek report:
http://www.awea.org/newsroom/realstorie ... ssions.pdf

It opens immediately by completely ignoring what Bentek had done and making use of previous simple dispatch modelling rather than real data. Here's the opening of the Bentek response to AWEA:

• Prior studies utilize a dispatch model approach which inherently guesses which power plants react to wind generation. Our research, utilizing data directly from the Environmental Protection Agency, analyzes what actually happened on the power systems. No guessing involved, just straight facts provided by the Government’s Clean Air Act.

I just love the last paragraph of AWEA:

For example, the government- and grid operator-conducted Eastern Wind Integration and Transmission Study (EWITS) found that obtaining 20% of our electricity from wind energy would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 25% relative to our baseline electricity mix, while obtaining 30% of our electricity from wind would reduce emissions by 37%.

Note the linearity of their hypothesis which follows from the continued allegiance to modelling and not data. And the neat avoidance of the capacity factor issue. The main sentence should really say:

installing 60% of our electricity generation capacity as wind generation would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 25% relative to our baseline electricity mix, while installing 90% of our electricity from wind would reduce emissions by 37%

[Bandidoz]

I'd like to see examples where you think REF has distorted the truth or not been factual. Do you have any?

I see nothing bogus in their title. They are behind certain renewable initiatives, for example small hydro. But their criticism of wind is founded on their assessment and belief that wind is an expensive and unreliable technology.

Last time I looked (which was a few years ago now) they had only bothered to "collect evidence" (bmreports) on wind and not the other renewables. They used that data to release an article to the Telegraph about the "poor" capacity factor from some wind sites - unwittingly demonstrating that the larger turbines have better capacity factor (although this point is only apparent if you look at the data).

http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/forum/vie ... php?t=6180

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... icity.html

The foundation's report found some real "turkeys" in lowland England – some attached to the offices of high profile companies. Worst of all is the turbine close to the M25 at Kings Langley, Herts at the HQ of Renewable Energy Systems, the green energy division of Robert McAlpine group.

- classic example - this is a relatively small turbine, not brilliantly sited, so it would be expected to have a poor CF

Looking again at the REF site - looks as though that data is gone. There are smatterings of it around if you can be bothered to look, but it doesn't hold the data it once did.

[biffvernon]

Oh for heaven's sake, get real.

it (REF)is now regarded by those working within the renewable energy industry as the dominant voice in the UK campaigning against wind farms and some other forms of low carbon energy.

http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/feature ... foundation

[goslow]

I did say spin, not "not being factual". Not the same thing. So they can cherry pick some data and make a big soundbite to suit their agenda. The use of Renewable Energy Foundation as a name lends artificial credibility - I even heard them quoted as "a renewable energy industry body" in a planning meeting!

I'd have to go to the BWEA original statements from a few years ago to see what I really think. To me, some of these points are maybe pushing it, but not completely wrong either! I am happy to accept if some early claims have been found to be not so solid (from over-enthusaistic non-engineers?), but that does not negate the value of wind energy as a whole.

The AWEA are suggesting that wind energy has the effect of making it necessary to turn of the less flexible coal stations in favour of more flexible gas. Hence, the % reduction of carbon emissions is larger than the % increase of wind. I have no idea of the validity of this claim, but its an interesting idea! Maybe one more relevant to the USA - here we displaced coal by gas already anyway.

[An Inspector Calls]

Bandidoz
Just what article are you criticising here? There's no direct reference to the REF paper at all.

The quote:

The foundation's report found some real "turkeys" in lowland England – some attached to the offices of high profile companies. Worst of all is the turbine close to the M25 at Kings Langley, Herts at the HQ of Renewable Energy Systems, the green energy division of Robert McAlpine group.

is

• (a) factually correct, and
  (b) not from the REF. It's the Telegraph

I assume you're looking at the REF tabulation of wind farm data? Who knows? But if so, that's purely factual and based on Ofge data

Biffvernon:
REF campaigning against wind? Well, as I said:

But their criticism of wind is founded on their assessment and belief that wind is an expensive and unreliable technology.

So what. You know it, I know it, we all know it. I'll make a guess at the position of your reference BusinessGreen.

But show me examples of REF's factual distortions!"

Goslow:
You may have said spin. I said factual.

REF tends to publish articles which are either entirely factual or analyses of facts

[An Inspector Calls]

Thanks for that - just what I wanted.

That Renewable Energy Foundation data is really great. Fascinating. It's good to know that the turbines I can see from my bedroom window have a load factor well over 30%.

[Bandidoz]

There's no direct reference to the REF paper at all.

Yes - I don't have that to hand. I'm pretty sure I did read it a few years ago, and it was not the case that the REF provided a simple paper of objective data to which the Telegraph applied a biased view.

If I had ever thought that I would be asked to provide evidence of it on this site then I would have saved a copy...

The quote:

The foundation's report found some real "turkeys" in lowland England – some attached to the offices of high profile companies. Worst of all is the turbine close to the M25 at Kings Langley, Herts at the HQ of Renewable Energy Systems, the green energy division of Robert McAlpine group.

is

• (a) factually correct, and
  (b) not from the REF. It's the Telegraph

The point is the spin that's applied to it; it's painted by the article as being a really bad performer, whereas the data on the whole demonstrated that bigger turbines have better CF - but this aspect of the data was not reported. Hence the bias and intention to mislead (in both the original REF article and the Telegraph report).

Moreover, if you look at the articles on the REF site, you'll find that most of them focus on wind power's limitations, along with making ridiculous claims such as "a heavy investment in onshore wind will stifle investment in other renewable sources".

[biffvernon]

Thanks for that - just what I wanted.

That Renewable Energy Foundation data is really great. Fascinating. It's good to know that the turbines I can see from my bedroom window have a load factor well over 30%.

You had to go back to Thu Jan 10, 2008 9:40 pm for that quote - and then presented it out of context. The thread was this one: http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/forum/vie ... hp?p=52894

You missed, deliberately or not, the irony in my post. That thread was pointing out the evil intent of REF and my post was deeply ironic, pointing out that their data, in this particular case was not only wrong but wrong in what was, from REF's perspective, wrong in the wrong direction. The Wind turbines near my house do not, of course, have a load factor of well over 30%

Let's just all be absolutely clear. REF is an anti-windfarm organization and An Inspector Calls is here to troll an anti-windfarm agenda. I try to avoid 'feeding the trolls' and only responded this time because I object strongly to being quoted out of context. Sadly, this site's admin are still not taking a firm line on trolls. PowerSwitch is diminished as a result.

[An Inspector Calls]

I'm struggly to understand your argument here:

The point is the spin that's applied to it; it's painted by the article as being a really bad performer, whereas the data on the whole demonstrated that bigger turbines have better CF - but this aspect of the data was not reported. Hence the bias and intention to mislead (in both the original REF article and the Telegraph report).

The spin in your link was painted by the Telegraph. No demonstration that that spin was sourced by REF in any way.

You say the REF report observed: "bigger turbines have better CF " (did it really? I've never seen any REF report based on windmill size), but then you claim that there's bias in 'what REF did' - just what did REF, not the Telegraph, do? They report the CF of little [sic] turbines and big [sic] turbines . . . what's the bias?

Just to put you out of your misery, I assume the article was one of these three which are still on the REF site but have moved (hence the link failures):
http://www.ref.org.uk/uk-renewable-energy-data
http://www.ref.org.uk/images/PDFs/wind. ... w.2008.pdf
http://www.ref.org.uk/images/PDFs/REDs1 ... 0%20v1.pdf
From memory they'll be only three articles REF was pushing at the time. (No use of the word turkey a la Trelegraph in all three). All three articles are almost entirely reports of the data (esp. the last one), with simple analysis of the data applied to the 2006 and 2007 reports. No qualitative observations of performance for specific sites - the Telegraph did that. The large (last) article has, obviously, been updated since 2006 with later data.

[An Inspector Calls]

Let's just all be absolutely clear. REF is an anti-windfarm organization and An Inspector Calls is here to troll an anti-windfarm agenda. I try to avoid 'feeding the trolls' and only responded this time because I object strongly to being quoted out of context. Sadly, this site's admin are still not taking a firm line on trolls. PowerSwitch is diminished as a result.

No, the reference was entirely in context because Bandidoz had made explicit reference to the thread. Bandidoz was the person who dug back to 2008 and created the context, not me.

I'll accept I have an anti-windfarm agenda. That's because I consider them to be an expensive, unreliable method of generating electricity.

You have a pro windfarm agenda.

The Powerswitch sub-header for this section of threads is

Can Wind Power meet the energy needs of Britain in the 21st century or is it just a lot of overblown hype?

How does my debating the point make my posts off-topic (troll)? How does this debate diminish Powerswitch?

(PS Loved your reference to load factor aka capacity factor).