wind turbines

[bill k]

has anybody out there any experience of wind turbines? We are soon to have 12 of these things built near to our house.

any comments please

[Pierre ZFP]

There was quite a chat about this a year ago

http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/819775/ShowPost.aspx

I'm still to be convinced that they actually produce anything like a useful amount of electricity for the capital cost and maintenance,  and just watch them turning when there is no wind - what's that all about?

 

[Val_2]

From a large enquiry and study we did on council it appears that you should live 300m or less close to a machine, your TV reception will be greatly interferred with and you can suffer a lot of mechanical noise nuisance. Anyone renting land for the eaoliennes to be built on will gain financially. Our scheme got turned down by the way because some small environmental group got involved and did not like the threat to the coastal wildlife and flora.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

[quote user="Pierre ZFP"]

There was quite a chat about this a year ago

http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/819775/ShowPost.aspx

I'm still to be convinced that they actually produce anything like a useful amount of electricity for the capital cost and maintenance,  and just watch them turning when there is no wind - what's that all about?

 

[/quote]

Ah - but there might be wind up there where the blades are. When "they" were doing a survey with a view to siting a few in our commune they stuck a manometer 60m up in the air rather than measuring close to the ground to check that it would be a good place to build turbines. They concluded that it was and we are getting seven.

I have to say they made a very plausable case at the enquiry and no-one saw fit to object. This placidity might have something to do with the location of the turbines being 4km from the village, however.

[powerdesal]

What an absolute waste of time, effort and money. "Green" confidence tricks rule OK.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

[quote user="powerdesal"]What an absolute waste of time, effort and money. "Green" confidence tricks rule OK.

[/quote]

Oh I don't know. It kept us all amused for a while. And it provides employment.

[Patmobile]

[quote user="powerdesal"]What an absolute waste of time, effort and money. "Green" confidence tricks rule OK.
[/quote]

I've sailed more than 25,000 nautical miles without any other power but the wind.  To do the same, at the same average speed, in an economcal diesel engine powered boat of similar size, would have meant burning a minimum of 2500 gallons of fuel.

Before the industrial revolution there were thousands of wind powered mills all over Europe.  Nobody complained they were ugly, killed lots of birds (!), altered the route of the jetstream (!!) - I've actually heard all these ludicrous claims - or criticised them on the grounds that the claims made for their efficiency were greatly exaggerated.

I don't believe that mankind's activities have ever caused any change in the Earth's climate, and I believe they probably never will.  To think otherwise is greatly to overestimate the importance of  we puny creatures and hugely underestimate the power of the natural forces to which we are all subject.  But, there's no question that burning fossil fuel is polluting our environment, and that we can't go on doing it forever, so why not use wind power when and where it is possible to do so? .

Patrick        

  

[Maricopa]

[quote user="Patmobile"]

[quote user="powerdesal"]What an absolute waste of time, effort and money. "Green" confidence tricks rule OK.
[/quote]

I've sailed more than 25,000 nautical miles without any other power but the wind.  To do the same, at the same average speed, in an economcal diesel engine powered boat of similar size, would have meant burning a minimum of 2500 gallons of fuel.

Before the industrial revolution there were thousands of wind powered mills all over Europe.  Nobody complained they were ugly, killed lots of birds (!), altered the route of the jetstream (!!) - I've actually heard all these ludicrous claims - or criticised them on the grounds that the claims made for their efficiency were greatly exaggerated.

I don't believe that mankind's activities have ever caused any change in the Earth's climate, and I believe they probably never will.  To think otherwise is greatly to overestimate the importance of  we puny creatures and hugely underestimate the power of the natural forces to which we are all subject.  But, there's no question that burning fossil fuel is polluting our environment, and that we can't go on doing it forever, so why not use wind power when and where it is possible to do so? .

Patrick     [/quote]

 

Hear, hear.  Personally I find there is something quite beautiful about watching the blades spin, indicating that a natural element is providing somebody somewhere with energy from an entirely renewable source. 

[Marym2]

We have 6 near our house ( Meneac) cannot see them all, and as for hearing them, I drove underneath one in the summer and did not hear it, well suprised!  There could be more put up (after the local debate) but so far do not impinge on my space. Would not like them too close as to spoil our veiw (one of the reasons for buying in France) but as we are in a dip it should not affect us.

[Pierre ZFP]

 I was driving back from Frankfurt this morning through Rhineland-Pflatz which has hundreds of wind turbines.  A beautiful day, not a breath of wind and there were a good number of the windmills turning.  I was curious as at one point there was a chiminy near one with the smoke going straight up for several hundred metres.  I stopped to take a better look and sure enough, the blades of the turbine were feathered for minimum resistence to the wind.  In other words, these were definitely being driven by electricity and not the wind.  Is this a way of  dumping 'excess' power from the grid?  I've always thought that power balancing must be a nightmare with random, unpredictable things like wind power in the equation.  Windmills are great for polder dams and grinding corn but power generation? - nah, use tidal, at least you know when you will get it and how much.

[Gluestick]

Have to agree, Pierre

We have been infested with gaggles of the damned things: luckily, we can only see a bit of one from the front and nothing from the rear.

I fear that once amortisation of sunk capital cost at the front end plus maintenance costs and finally the huge capital costs of replacing the bits subject to the elements are concerned are factored into the dynamic, there will be no real payback.

Of course, at present, both the farmers who rent the space and the commune are all receiving chunks of cash!

Which eminates from yet another EU grant................

Whjilst I agree with Patmobile (I have to, really, otherwise he'll come round and beat me over the head with his trusty three iron!![6]), about wind power and atmospheric pollution - I don't buy-in to the currently intense drivel about climate change, carbon footprints etc since it has no proven scientific base: if in doubt, read Michael Crichton's book "State of Fear" and read what he says on his website: http://www.michaelcrichton.net/books.html 

The addendum, footnotes and bibliograpy alone are worth the price of the book, for those who would like to develop core knowledge and understand the realities.

The final problem with these things is who is going to pay to take 'em down, eventually?

 

[powerdesal]

[quote user="Pierre ZFP"] I was driving back from Frankfurt this morning through Rhineland-Pflatz which has hundreds of wind turbines.  A beautiful day, not a breath of wind and there were a good number of the windmills turning.  I was curious as at one point there was a chiminy near one with the smoke going straight up for several hundred metres.  I stopped to take a better look and sure enough, the blades of the turbine were feathered for minimum resistence to the wind.  In other words, these were definitely being driven by electricity and not the wind.  Is this a way of  dumping 'excess' power from the grid?  I've always thought that power balancing must be a nightmare with random, unpredictable things like wind power in the equation.  Windmills are great for polder dams and grinding corn but power generation? - nah, use tidal, at least you know when you will get it and how much.[/quote]

Thats not the way "excess" power is dumped. If generation exceeds demand, the system frequency rises and the frequency control of the generators reduces the output to maintain the required system frequency, vice versa as demand increases. Its a contant dynamic control function.

Power system load balancing is a matter of load (demand) forcasting, economic generation selection etc etc.

Unpredictability  of generation can to a large extent be mitigated by governor "droop" settings and frequency response curves.

The only benefit of wind power is the reduction of fuel use on existing thermal or GT plant, this is pretty damn fractional and it has to be remembered that, in the gas of gas turbine generation, part load running is much less efficient than full load running although a necessary "evil" given the normal variation in demand over a period of time. Wind turbines cannot replace other generation plant which still has to be available for when the wind doesn't blow or blows too much. Wind turbines have a relatively narrow "window" of operational wind speed.

I suppose its theoretically possible that wind turbine generators could be motored as synchronous condensers for reactive power (voltage control), but in that case I would expect the incorporation of a self synchronising slipping clutch to eliminate the power required to motor the feathered blades.

The proliferation of wind turbines is a "sop" to the green perceptions. They make people feel good but are, in lifecycle terms, a non cost effective product, except for the manufacturers who get lots of dosh for them.

edit, missed a bracket [:(]

[Pierre ZFP]

I didn't reply before as it took some time for the consequences of what you said to sink in my poor brain. I think you explained this once before but it didn't sink in then either. I know a bit about Lec trickery but this power generation and distribution stuff is out of my league. Anyway, if I have this right, the wind turbines, in the right conditions, will generate x megawatts at a pretty poor 20% efficiency.  This power can come at any time of the day or night in unpredictable amounts (weather forcasting is better than it used to be but it's still trying to model a non-linear chaotic world).  So, the result of this 'extra' power is that the thermal power stations have to throttle back a bit , thereby using less fuel BUT they are now working at less than optimum efficiency and therefore using more fuel per watt generated. 

Gluestick:  Yes I read that Michael Crichton book and he went up in my estimation fron 'a teller of good tales' to an author who really researches his subject.  A good book and very thought provoking on climate change. 

I still think fusion power is the way to go but how far is that away?

[Gluestick]

Crichton is an excellent thought-provoking writer, Pierre; and of course, he is a scientist as well, thus his books tend to enjoy an argument based on science, rather than convenient theory, well larded with poetic license!

Fine, he's not a Climate Change expert; but since there actually aren't any, that's hardly surprising.

Positive power output fusion won't occur, in my view, until the major corporations involved in oil and gas and utility operation realise how "past the sell by date" their product offering really is and defensively, start investing humungous wads of capital in the research areas which they ought to have been doing years ago.

Back to Theodore Levitt and the "What Business Are We In?" question: and the inescapable answer to Big Oil and Gas is the energy biz, not the oil and gas biz!

Excepting they haven't yet realised this and operate their vested interests as a cosy global cabal, aided and abetted by governments who ought to know better.

 

 

[powerdesal]

[quote user="Pierre ZFP"]

I didn't reply before as it took some time for the consequences of what you said to sink in my poor brain. I think you explained this once before but it didn't sink in then either. I know a bit about Lec trickery but this power generation and distribution stuff is out of my league. Anyway, if I have this right, the wind turbines, in the right conditions, will generate x megawatts at a pretty poor 20% efficiency.  This power can come at any time of the day or night in unpredictable amounts (weather forcasting is better than it used to be but it's still trying to model a non-linear chaotic world).  So, the result of this 'extra' power is that the thermal power stations have to throttle back a bit , thereby using less fuel BUT they are now working at less than optimum efficiency and therefore using more fuel per watt generated. 

[/quote]

In simplistic terms - yes. The loss of efficiency applies particularly to gas turbine power plants because best efficiency is at full load. There is also the fact that most gas turbine plants are combined cycle co generation plants where the gas turbine exhaust passes through a heat recovery boiler, producing steam which is used to drive a steam turbine. This is for maximum utilisation of all the heat available in the fuel. If the GT generation is reduced, the "waste heat" is reduced, the steam output is reduced and the steam turbine output is reduced. This last reduction can be mitigated by supplementary firing into the boiler to maintain steam output, obviously this is not particularly cost effective.

Power system control is not quite a black art but it is quite complex and, to some extent, requires "educated guesswork" regarding demand management. Its better than it was in the past due to high speed computer analysis of trends but factors such as forcasted weather, TV programming, major sports events, strikes, public holidays, plant maintenance planning, merit order running etc need to be factored in as all affect the actual demand on the system versus availability. Another variable such as likely wind speeds in various areas is just another "B" factor. Surprisingly enough (to some) such events as the Rugby WC on Saturday will not particularly affect demand during the match, but, at full time, imagine the effect of many millions of households "putting the kettle on", say 10 million x 2 kw kettles all being switched on at virtually the same time (or more even), the extra MW have to be available as "spinning spare" across the system to enable the frequency drop to be compensated for. Similarly, on average, they will all switch off at the same time, thus rejecting a large load and leading to a rising frequency. The effect is not as much of a problem on a very large interconnected system which is considered as an infinite busbar because the load change is generally a small percentage of the total generation available on the bars. On a small "island" system (such as the one here) it can be quite significant.

Enough, no one really wants a lecture on Power Systems, I can see the glazed eyes and yawns from here.[geek]