Future Energy Sources 1.4 Wind Power

MANDATORY RENEWABLE ENERGY – THE ENERGY EVOLUTION –R11

In order to insure energy and economic independence as well as better economic growth without being blackmailed by foreign countries, our country, the United States of America's Utilization of Energy sources must change.

"Energy drives our entire economy." We must protect it. "Let's face it, without energy the whole economy and economic society we have set up would come to a halt. So you want to have control over such an important resource that you need for your society and your economy." The American way of life is not negotiable.

Our continued dependence on fossil fuels could and will lead to catastrophic consequences.

The federal, state and local government should implement a mandatory renewable energy installation program for residential and commercial property on new construction and remodeling projects with the use of energy efficient material, mechanical systems, appliances, lighting, etc. The source of energy must by renewable energy such as Solar-Photovoltaic, Geothermal, Wind, Biofuels, Ocean-Tidal, etc. including utilizing water from lakes, rivers and oceans to circulate in cooling towers to produce air conditioning and the utilization of proper landscaping to reduce energy consumption. (Sales tax on renewable energy products should be reduced or eliminated)

The implementation of mandatory renewable energy could be done on a gradual scale over the next 10 years. At the end of the 10 year period all construction and energy use in the structures throughout the United States must be 100% powered by renewable energy. (This can be done by amending building code)

In addition, the governments must impose laws, rules and regulations whereby the utility companies must comply with a fair "NET METERING" (the buying of excess generation from the consumer at market price), including the promotion of research and production of "renewable energy technology" with various long term incentives and grants. The various foundations in existence should be used to contribute to this cause.

A mandatory time table should also be established for the automobile industry to gradually produce an automobile powered by renewable energy. The American automobile industry is surely capable of accomplishing this task. As an inducement to buy hybrid automobiles (sales tax should be reduced or eliminated on American manufactured automobiles).

This is a way to expedite our energy independence and economic growth. (This will also create a substantial amount of new jobs). It will take maximum effort and a relentless pursuit of the private, commercial and industrial government sectors commitment to renewable energy – energy generation (wind, solar, hydro, biofuels, geothermal, energy storage (fuel cells, advance batteries), energy infrastructure (management, transmission) and energy efficiency (lighting, sensors, automation, conservation) (rainwater harvesting, water conservation) (energy and natural resources conservation) in order to achieve our energy independence.

"To succeed, you have to believe in something with such a passion that it becomes a reality."

Jay Draiman, Energy Consultant

Northridge, CA. 91325

Jan. 28, 2007

P.S. I have a very deep belief in America's capabilities. Within the next 10 years we can accomplish our energy independence, if we as a nation truly set our goals to accomplish this.

I happen to believe that we can do it. In another crisis--the one in 1942--President Franklin D. Roosevelt said this country would build 60,000 [50,000] military aircraft. By 1943, production in that program had reached 125,000 aircraft annually. They did it then. We can do it now.

The American people resilience and determination to retain the way of life is unconquerable and we as a nation will succeed in this endeavor of Energy Independence.

Solar energy is the source of all energy on the earth (excepting volcanic geothermal). Wind, wave and fossil fuels all get their energy from the sun. Fossil fuels are only a battery which will eventually run out. The sooner we can exploit all forms of Solar energy (cost effectively or not against dubiously cheap FFs) the better off we will all be. If the battery runs out first, the survivors will all be living like in the 18th century again.

Every new home built should come with a solar package. A 1.5 kW per bedroom is a good rule of thumb. The formula 1.5 X's 5 hrs per day X's 30 days will produce about 225 kWh per bedroom monthly. This peak production period will offset 17 to 2

4 cents per kWh with a potential of $160 per month or about $60,000 over the 30-year mortgage period for a three-bedroom home. It is economically feasible at the current energy price and the interest portion of the loan is deductible. Why not?

Title 24 has been mandated forcing developers to build energy efficient homes. Their bull-headedness put them in that position and now they see that Title 24 works with little added cost. Solar should also be mandated and if the developer designs a home that solar is impossible to do then they should pay an equivalent mitigation fee allowing others to put solar on in place of their negligence. (Installation should be paid "performance based")

Installation of renewable energy and its performance should be paid to the installer and manufacturer based on "performance based" (that means they are held accountable for the performance of the product - that includes the automobile industry). This will gain the trust and confidence of the end-user to proceed with such a project; it will also prove to the public that it is a viable avenue of energy conservation.

Installing renewable energy system on your home or business increases the value of the property and provides a marketing advantage.

Nations of the world should unite and join together in a cohesive effort to develop and implement MANDATORY RENEWABLE ENERGY for the sake of humankind and future generations.

Jay Draiman

Northridge, CA 91325

Email: renewableenergy2@msn.com

The problem with Electricity is not its Production but its TRANSPORT.Last week in France 40 0r 50000 homes were left without electricity because the snow has broken the horrible looking electric lines. Beside Photovoltaic pannels there are vertical axes small wind turbine suited for home roof mounting. In general when there is no Sun there is Wind and vice -Versa. This wind Generator is made by "Gual industries" look it up in Google beside there is one finnish manufacturer with very high unrealistic prices. these generator run with winds between 2 meter and 60 meter per second. Socrate Hatoum

In eastern Australia the problem we have is that the wind generally settles down to almost calm within an hour or two of sunset. The photovoltaic cells have gone to bed and we are back to relying on the grid.

Just to make it more interesting our state governments are keen to sell our Power Stations. I suspect that this is because they don't wish to be exposed to the political pressure that will result when the price starts to rise to cover the cost of the pollution treatments required to address the global warming concerns of the voters.

Hi Jay, Its interesting that it always comes down to the same thing. If someone cannot implement a change based on economics, they will want to mandate it by government fiat, as if a mandate will cause it to be a correct solution. I looked into such a system recently and found that,with current costs, a home energy system utilizing either solar or wind costs about $15-25K. Such a cost will take about 40 years to pay off from energy savings, again at current utility rates. Additionally, I have the lost opportunity cost of that money for the same 40 years since I have to pay for the system up front. Lastly, I doubt that the system will last long enough to pay for itself. Since, as a business person, I look for an investment to pay off in two years at most, I don't see how such a proposal makes any economic sense. I find it amazing that people think that the government can do what the market cannot. Certainly my observations of government mandated actions haven't made me sanguine of success.

Paul

"Its interesting that it always comes down to the same thing. If someone cannot implement a change based on economics, they will want to mandate it by government fiat, as if a mandate will cause it to be a correct solution."

To counter this I would ask are we truly paying the real cost of fossil fuels? What we pay dose not take into account the damage that burning these fuels has on the environment. The true cost is unknown and ultimately born by those that can leas afford. For example the Pacific Islanders that will loose their homes when the se level rises due to the developed nations burning fossil fuels.

If we were made to pay the total cost of fossil fuels they would be so uneconomic that we would never have used them in the first place. One estimate puts the annual cost of global at US$350 billion dollars by 2010. If this were added to the cost we are currently paying for fossil fuels they would be scrapped tomorrow.

So you see fossil fuels are already being subsidized so why should we not level the playing field and either pay the true cost of fossil fuels or subsidize renewal energy sources?

I wonder if we have ever "paid the true cost" of anything - even stone-age man raking for roots would have disturbed some other life form.

The costs of reducing emissions will be spread - in part - among us engineers, as we will be kept in jobs devising ways to keep the byproducts of human existance out of the atmosphere.

Is the reason for the sudden change in government attitudes more to do with providing employment, rather than stopping the inevitable evolution of the planet - and indeed the whole solar system.

The "powers that be" have realised that their continued migration of manufacturing to the developing nations has left a void which cannot be sutained by the service industries, so needs other means of keeping a base income. As was proven in the cold war, putting money into weapons is not a sustainable way to treat an economy.

"I wonder if we have ever "paid the true cost" of anything - even stone-age man raking for roots would have disturbed some other life form."

Over the past few decades there had been an accountant driven shift to a user pays environment. Just look at all the things that you now pay for individually that were once lumped together as part of a total cost. The concept behind this is that by paying for only what we use we pay less but I have reservations and think a lot of so called accounting practices are flawed and end up costing us more in the long run.

However having said that since we seem to be insisting on a user pays for actual costs system then it makes sense that the cost of the damage to the environment be included in the cost of the fossil fuels. After all that seems to be what all the politicians and accountants have been trying to push on us with everything else.

Personally I feel the overly pedantic attitude that all users must pay for everything they use is a flawed and impractical concept that ends up costing everybody more not less. I have seen the concept cause serious damage to several businesses over the years but this is anecdotal evidence and proving my beliefs is more than likely impossible.

"I have seen the concept cause serious damage to several businesses over the years but this is anecdotal evidence and proving my beliefs is more than likely impossible."

Just look in the accountants' pay packets! There are many more accountants and lawyers attached to businesses now, so that all "blame" can be legally apportioned.

The same does not apply in the developing world - yet - so this is another reason our products are more expensive.

Calculating real cost is an accounting function. Accounting is basically the process where someone lies and another person swears to it. Cost accounting is at best a perverse art and certainly no activity for a gentlemen. Here in the U.S. we have made $700 toilet seats, $300 hammers and spent millions training people who never got the training. Call me cynical, but my suspision is that we really didn't spend the money as advertised. It went somewhere else and we will never know the truth. What is becomming clear is that much of the climatic research that is being done is funded by grant money. What is also clear is that grant money is driving conclusions that will get the researchers more grant money. eg. If they find out there is no climate change problem, there will be no more grant money to address the non-existent problem causing the researcher, by elegant necessity, to find a different line of work. Several reports have been issued concerning the mythic problems of the Pacific Islanders. So far, at least, no disaster has occurred. Indeed the person reporting has found no significant change to report. Obviously he/she didn't have a grant to protect. For my part, I would rather we spent the money we are using for the climate debate on children starving in Africa, AIDs, TB or any other place where help is needed. Best regards and thanks for the effort you put into your blogs

paul horgan

Culver City, CA

"Several reports have been issued concerning the mythic problems of the Pacific Islanders. So far, at least, no disaster has occurred."

This reminds me of the joke about the bloke that claimed he could jump of the tallest building in the world and without any equipment land safely. They set him up with a radio transceiver and as he hurtled towards the ground at a bone shattering speed he was asked how is it going? To which he replied,

"So far so good"

Today wind energy has much higher cost than fuel heated power plants.

There are different figures how much more so let us take the mean which is near a factor of 4. (3 to 5 more likely 5).

So if the oil price will be at 200$per barrel the biggest wind energy generators will be an investment of interest.

This has to be interpreted: nobody knows today if estimated maintenance cost is as low as calculated.

Recently there was one big plant blown down by high winds in Germany, others blocked to standstill by partially fractured concrete structures.

The German government is pushing the development with consumers money by forcing the electric companies to buy the electricity at 55c per KWh.

So this is wasting money: burn your wealth to prove your ideas.

Marine power plants:

The situation at this moment is an overcrowding of suitable places on land and a general turn towards offshore places.

This is requiring much bigger installations: water level to generator house has reached 100 meters, water level to basement will be down 50meters. And nobody knows about the storms there how to survive: wind velocities up to 150km/h (88mph) are not uncommon. And sometimes there are "killer-waves" (nobody knows how often but estimated once a year with crests 30m high. These have smashed big ships and oil drilling platforms so why not windpowerplants).

Actual problem is a dispute about the connection to the power grid: nobody wants to pay for the cabling (20 to 40km is big money).

So I would not invest in wind energy.

RHABE

"Recently there was one big plant blown down by high winds in Germany, others blocked to standstill by partially fractured concrete structures.

nobody knows about the storms there how to survive: wind velocities up to 150km/h (88mph) are not uncommon. And sometimes there are "killer-waves" (nobody knows how often but estimated once a year with crests 30m high. These have smashed big ships and oil drilling platforms so why not windpowerplants)."

All of these are engineering challenges and as so with proper research and good engineering practices can be solved. Just because a wind farm in Germany was damage due to high winds that were not engineered for doesn't mean that all wind farms are engineered this poorly.

Yes we may need to adjust our worst in 100 year figures due to global warming but these are technical problems that can be engineered for.

"Recently there was one big plant blown down by high winds in Germany, others blocked to standstill by partially fractured concrete structures.

nobody knows about the storms there how to survive: wind velocities up to 150km/h (88mph) are not uncommon. And sometimes there are "killer-waves" (nobody knows how often but estimated once a year with crests 30m high. These have smashed big ships and oil drilling platforms so why not windpowerplants)."

Wind generators will have to withstand 120 mph winds (gusts may approach 150-160 mph) off the coast of North Carolina, USA. Land based number can easily be seen above 110-120 mph.

It appears this may require some type of "insurance" program, ie risk management ... either "self" or "pooled" insurance.

The second concern with coastal wind farms is global warming. How will mean sea level change over the next 2 centuries?

I raise these points not as a criticism ... but as simply problems to be solved!

All the technologoes mentioned are financially viable, but only just. Opec arn't stupid, they turn on and off the tap to maximise profits yet keeping these alternitave technologies off the market. What is needed is political will and unfortunately this has to come from the America government who up until now are in bed with the oil companies.

Renewables alone are probably not answer. However, at present we cannot say for sure, due to an industry in it's infancy not getting the financial support it deserves.

I hate to say it, but maybe nuclear is answer, for the next 50 years at least. I say this only because this is the only option narrow minded politicians are putting on the table at present.

Ecconimist would say I am mad but, if the oil ran out in the morning, I don't think it would not be as disasterous as people make out. Technologies are out there, we would survive, necessity is the mother of invention after all.

"Ecconimist would say I am mad but, if the oil ran out in the morning, I don't think it would not be as disasterous as people make out. Technologies are out there, we would survive, necessity is the mother of invention after all."

It is reasonable to assume that "necessity is the mother of invention", however, the rate and magnitude of change are the critical points of concern.

In the proposed step change from "oil to no oil" in a VERY short time does not allow ENERGY (and time) to execute revisions of the infrastructure to operate in the NO OIL environment/society ....

Moral:
KEEP YOUR BICYCLE DRY AND MAINTAINED!
GET TO KNOW A FEW OF FARMERS!

IT IS ALL IN THE PLANNING AND EXECUTION!

Currently there are many flaws with wind turbines - the biggest being the constant fluctuation of power, and the need for base load from other sources.

By the time these problems are sorted out, and the main population starts turning to the new technologies, not just a few early adopters, the oil companies will also have less reserves.

They will then start buying up the most successful renewables companies, as there will be profit to be made - others having financed the R&D.

Hi masu. I agree that we should be looking at alternative energy scources, I have been doing it for 30 plus years, but I have to admit that in the begining I was doing it to cut down on my energy bills. But, I have one very big beef about this. Here in the UK we are all told to cut down on using fossil fuels, great if you can, and I suppose that one day we in the UK will all be getting our energy needs from alternative scources, even greater still. But what about the rest of the world? We in the west have had the pleasure of cheap and easy to aquire energy from fossil fuels for 250 years! Now with the emergance of India and China as up and coming super industrial powers, are we to deny them the same pleasure? I don't think so! Within the next decade, China alone will have the power to dictate over us about how our future will be, remember, China has a quarter of the worlds population, and they are just entering their industrial revolution. Alternative energy scources will become the politics of the future, but only here in the west. If every person in the UK, Europe and The USA were to get their energy from renewable scources, it would still not counter-balance the polution from fossil fuel energy that the eastern countries produce. And I for one, am not going to tell the Chinese peasant not to burn coal to keep warm in the winter or for warm water to wash in, that would be hypocracy on my part. By all means, let's all use renewable energy scources to counter global warming, but, dictate to others, no way!

You have some made good points regarding current uses and apparent trends in China, but if you check Google for domestic wind turbines, the cheapest come from China!

They will have the benefit of all our progress obver the past few hundred years, and I am sure that they will pick and chose options which are best suited to their needs - probably more so than here in the West, where burocracy stifles any innovation until the big companies realise it could be profitable.

I agree with you 100%.

All developed countries on the globe are dependant on fossil fuels and the oil companies have got us by the short and curlies, not to mention padding the pockets of politicians be they liberal, conservative, democrats or communist. Most of the wars on earth have been fought because of resources, greed and profit. Some countries have an aggressive foreign policy that actively tries to control and monopolize resources at any cost. That aggressive attitude has come back to bite them in the ass and now they make wars to fight the so called terrorists without acknowledging that they are the architects of their own demise.

Did you know that Shell/ British Petroleum is not only one of the top ten oil companies in the world. They are also the largest manufacturer of photo voltaic solar cell in the world. So much for controlling their own interests by having their hand on the oil supply nozzle and manufacturing solar cells at the same time.

China and India are emerging giants who have been abused, manipulated, controlled by the western world for centuries and now the're taking control of their own destiny. The western world has been using their cheap labour and moving production offshore for decades. Meanwhile we lose employment and our economy in the Americas suffers . We need to develop better technologies that will replace fossil fuels and provide assured R&D and jobs If we wish to retain our lifestyles.

Political will is required so voice your opinions and protest if need be to make your point. If you were in China any critisizm of the CCP would put you in jail or forced work camps where they manufacture goods for the foreign market. The Chinese Communist Party is like legalised Mafia, who make their own laws and rules as the moment strikes at their whim. The CCP want to stay in power at any cost (like most political factions ) and peoples lives have little worth. After all there are around 1.4 billion of them, they can always make more.

Laserlover

"

"By all means, let's all use renewable energy scources to counter global warming, but, dictate to others, no way!"

You have brought up a very valid point. Do we have the right to deny others access to what we have taken for granted?

Personally I believe we do not and that makes the problem so much harder to solve and any rise in sea level or heating of the atmosphere will not respect political boundaries. Put bluntly anybody can stuff it for all of us.

The only solution I see is that we not only need to develop and use technologies that do not harm the environment but they need to be economically viable for everybody and that includes China and India.

Australia has entered into an agreement to work with China in the production of clean coal technology for the generation of electricity and if this works it could be a huge step in the right direction.

Ultimately the world can't afford two billion plus people being as energy glutinous as the developed nations have been to date. We must lead by example and offer a helping hand to everybody regardless of where the are or what they believe. Global warming is a global problem and an arbitrary line drawn on a map has absolutely no significance, the solution must therefore be unrestricted by political margins.

Masu, just a short comment. I believe that, with a rising world population and greater energy demands we all will be short of energy. We will not have,world wide, the standard of living we are currently enjoying when this happens. The answer is predictabale and unpleasent, WAR! Global warming is a smoke screen to cover the continuing power struggle (in both senses) between the have and have not nations. Make no mistake, whoever controls the world's power, will control the world. The Oil sheiks are just now getting the point, as their supplies dwindle. Watch prices go up as they begin to get the point more sharply. The Chinese just demonstrated the ability to knock down objects in space. What does this portend? I fear the world will get a lot more dangerous in the near future.

All them negative waves!!

China had to prove its technology, in the same way that the US did with the moon landings - a warning to the rest of the world that China can defend itself.

The continual shift of manufacturing to these Eastern countries will lead to a reduction - in relative terms - of western affluence. When all design and development moves too, that is when the pinch will be felt.

China has vast reserves of oil and coal, as yet untapped: but it would not be wise for any nation - or group of nations - to consider invading China, and China has no need to cause a conflict while in is in the most powerful position.

Control of world energy must be diversified, so no single entity can have a monopoly. Use as little nuclear power as possible, as eventually that will be privatised, and then the problems would really start.

I think most of the points have been addressed in the posts above, so I'll talk about eyesore. I would like to see giant wind turbines spinning clean rather than coal-fired plants belching their ugly black smoke into the air that I breath. That's not to say that all coal-fired plants belch ugly black smoke, because they can be made to run clean if required. And that's also not to say that those graceful turbines are all that green considering the amount of electricty it takes to make the steel required to stand those blades up above the ground.

Wind power has it's pros and cons, but it does and will continue to play a part in the overall energy picture. That picture is going to include a mix of wind, hydro, photovoltaics, solar-thermal, nuclear, and the burning of carbon products for heat. I think we can all agree that the hydrocarbons will likely one day run out, so by reducing our dependence on them now their end will come as less of a shock.

Hi Masu,

you are right about engineering challenges that can be met easily if known.

So it will take some time but certainly there will be a solution that can suvive strongest storms and highest waves. But this will add to cost of energy and so the todays estimates are far from realistic.

So I believe that wind power is a modern engineering and politicians toy but not a good investment - neither for private nor government money.

Apart from this is research and development - this should be funded to evaluate the possibilities.

RHABE

As the cost of fossil fuels increases so the competitiveness of alternative energy sources becomes far more viable. Increased research and economies of scale will also help.

In between time we have a lot of very old equipment that is very energy inefficient. Wouldn't it make sense to encourage owners to up date their equipment? This could be done by just doubling the cost of power for equipment over 10 years old.

Ten years is a common depreciation right of age that accountants use for taxation purposes here in Australia.

Hi BlueAussieBoy. I have just read a new government report here in the UK. This report states that if we put a widmill on or near our house that generates electricity, thus reducing our carbon emissions, then the property will increase in value and the owner will have to pay more property tax each year, it is called council tax. It has been calculated that anyone with such a wind generator will save about £100 per year on energy bills, but that would be eaten up by this tax. Our government here have been persuading everybody to buy such equipment, plus solar panels to help stop global warming over the last 3 or 4 years, and many have. The reason being, that everybody has been made to feel guilty. Since this government came to power 10 years ago we have seen a doubling of this hated council tax, and now we have had enough. We find ourselves in a no-win situation, so what do most people in the UK think about this situation now. Well I can tell you, we will carry on belching out carbon dioxide untill the cows come home, and stuff the government.

Hi RHABE. Wind power is a modern engineering and politicians toy, but not a good investment? Try telling that to the Dutch, they have been using wind power for the last 800 years plus, to pump water from their polders to reclaim land. In fact, about 30% of Holland is reclaimed land, and these old windmills of the last 400 years are still working, doing the job they were constructed for in the first place.

hi Scapolie

just seeing a windmill doesn't say "wind is the solution" , try this in the middle-east or Africa where you can hardly find a 30miles/hour wind for 3 months , those fans need a strong heavy winds most of the year to operate them ,we can't find that any where

pumping water is not like generating power to light up a city

we need a confident sheep high efficient way with low cost its not that simple

As I read through the the blog there was one constant: will it pay back?

Actually it will never pay back.

With the actual state of technology and equipment usage a wind turbine will never pay back.

When the big players would start entering the market, pushing for real serie production things can change. (and will)

Actual wind turbines are high tech equipment, designed to be as effective as possible with the wind. They are not designed for manufacturing.

The blades are real high tech composite structures, that require moulds that can only be used 200 times (average number). When someone would design a blade that can be made with a standard injection moulding process, the cost of the blade could be reduced to 10% or less. the effectiveness of the blade would be reduced to approx 80%. The same with the generators and all the rest.

What we need is a change in mentality: we are used to consume power when we want, all installations are organised to produce continuously. When we would switch over to alternative power generation based on renewable sources, there will be moments that power is failing. It must be the users choice to decide whether he wants to have power on dead moments or not. (or he wants to pay extra for electricity when the wind settles and sun goes down)

A simple exercise: take a vertical turbine (blades have the same speed over the whole length so they can be made by Al extrusion), it requires no special equipment to align the turbine with the wind. Equip it with a permanent magnet generator (a kind of brushless DC motor) and use the power that comes out to fill a battery rack and to heat a water tank. The battery can supply power for the electrical apparatus and the heat in the tank can be used to heat your house and warm domestic water. The installation is simple, requires no engineer to be set up and maintained and can be made in high volume, with the possibility to combine the different parts. Thus: price would go down and it will be used.

When you would be able to connect an electric car to the wind turbine it would be charged to go on for the next 100km next day. Do I need 230V 50Hz for this? No

What we need is not criticism to tear down all solutions, we don't need eye catching huge solutions (the bigger the better?): we need to get on with it and do it individually.

Gwen

"The blades are real high tech composite structures, that require moulds that can only be used 200 times (average number). When someone would design a blade that can be made with a standard injection moulding process, the cost of the blade could be reduced to 10% or less. the effectiveness of the blade would be reduced to approx 80%."

OR, devise a new way to mass produce the most suitable design. One reason for the current moulds being short-life is that the designs are still evolving, and once an optimum has been reached, mass production can begin in earnest.

"What we need is a change in mentality: we are used to consume power when we want, all installations are organised to produce continuously. When we would switch over to alternative power generation based on renewable sources, there will be moments that power is failing."

OR, the change in mentality is with the system designers. People want a product to use when they have the need, so devise a method of storing the harnessed energy, not connecting direct to the grid. This would save much more, as it would rdeuce the need for base load.

I agree with the rest of your points, but remember that the amount of energy captured is proportional to the area swept by the blades, so a small unit will prvide much less than one even slightly larger. (and you could'nt drive very far on still days)

You are right on your remarks, the reason to go higher is also to be found in the need for wind speed.

My idea is a windmill, installable by a team of two man on 4h. (using a special equipped truck that can be loaded with 2 units) (I've installed cellular units in this time frame)

This would enable to install a lot of small low height turbines over the whole country.

A turbine on 18m height is also not disturbing for the environment and typically the vertical versions are less noisy.

Cars are also evolving each day, this does not take away the series production to be there. A mould has also a limited life and when technique evolves the improvements will be introduced in the next mould/generation.

After all, what I lack is money to start. When someone is interested I can work out the idea.

"What we need is a change in mentality: we are used to consume power when we want, all installations are organised to produce continuously."

I don't know what it is like in the rest of the world but in Australia we have had a 2 tariff system for billing electricity. For normal peak and on demand power you pay the normal rate but you can elect to use off peak power overnight for a reduced rate. The lower tariff usually applies between 23:00 and 06:00 and the discount is around 75%. Normally this power is used to heat water but there is no limitations on what it can be used for or how much of it you can use. If you used it to power an electric car it would certainly have a considerable effect on the break even equation.

Do other countries and electricity supply authorities around the world offer a similar discount or is this a uniquely Australian concept?

Yes the system is existing in the rest of the world.

We have three different billing tariff's:

1. full charge : small consumers and daytime usage

2. night charge: between 21:00 and 07:00 and the weekend

3. exclusive night/heater usage: this is a tariff for a special circuit that is launched from the distributor to regulate the power consumptions (and the resulting voltage) It can only be used to heat up accumulation systems.

Price differences are not that big (max discount will be approx 65%)

But why is this system installed? To be able to spread the consumption: you will start your dishwasher and laundry dryer when the cost is low, enabling the power company to use constant power generation systems (as steam driven generators). How the steam is made is a different story. (here it is nuclear)

When we would swap to renewable sources, this system can tilt and turn over completely as the power availability will then be huge in daytime. (PV and other sun driven mechanisms) Typical wind farms have the day night difference problem. there will be a need for storage. I would choose for local domestic storage, filling driven by the energy distributor so that they can regulate the voltage again. These systems will have a serious complexity.

Agreed. What is needed is to diversify so as to produce a mix of energy sources, each one appropriate for its intended use. It is not appropriate to switch off a fossil power station beacuse a wind station is now on-line. Wind, and other renewables, can reduce the need. Substitution is not a priority. Complementation is.

first of all the efficiency is so low and we need a wild area to do this 'it will coast too much'

how many fans do you need to light 'Tokyo' up and how much does it cost

i think we should depend on dams 'for an environmental sol.' and nuclear reactors "believe my it does less damage than burning fuel'

second , u can't find strong winds to turn this giant fans any where

Hi jon. Dams are out of the question in a lot of areas, but, more impertantly dams are not such a good idea either because of the environmental damage they do to the surounding area where they are placed! A Norwegian survey done in the early 1980s discovered this one. What the Norwegians discovered was, that the fauna and flora changed dramatically within 5km of the artificial lake that was the result of the dam. Another thing that they discovered was that such large surface areas of water upset the the weather balance within 100km of the reservoir. One can argue that natural lakes do the same thing, but since these natural lakes were formed, many thousands of years ago in a lot of cases, the environment has slowly returned to a natural balance.

The efficiency of wind power in not neccessarily low, just easily measurable!

How much energy is used finding and preparing nuclear fuel? Can an economy support the massive investment required for these plants?

In Scotland, there are currently two nuclear reactors shut for safety reasons, an a large coal station is also at a standstill, so there is no slack in the system - we might still get power cuts if the weather deteriorates. Small countries, especially, cannot afford to rely on nuclear energy. There needs to be diversity, and each generator must be small enough for individual effects of shut-down not to affect the supply.

I agree that some of the current turbines are too lage for their current use. This does not mean that they will not be more useful in the future.

how many fans do you need to light 'Tokyo' up and how much does it cost

This is the typical change in mentality: is it really needed that we have these billboards? Electricity is way to cheap there.

And electricity is not the only concern: we need heat and power for cars and transportation.

Energy density of flowing air

if you calculate the energy inside a moving stream of a fluid with a density of air at sea level and a velocity of 5meter per second or 18km per hour you result in 62W per square meter of area.

this is rising with the third power of the velocity but we don't have really high velocities in normal winds and the existing installations are not storm resistant.

This will require 17square meter per kilowatt or 17 million squaremeter per gigawatt - that is installed in one big thermal powerplant designed to produce electricity - regardless if heated by coal, oil, gas or nuclear. (Losses neglected)

We are reaching slowly an area of 10thousand squaremeter in big windgenerators. (In reality we are well below but in planning.)

But where to put these 2000 big towers 150m high and rotorcircle of 130m diameter?

We will not have a significant share of our needed energy produced in this way. It helps, ok.

But: it consumes our financial resources so that we cannot educate our youngsters with sufficient quality to be good scientists, engineers, technicians and other valuable and wanted professionals any more.

This is spending all money for the moment and not looking to future as pretended!

This is equivalent to building pyramids in ancient Egypt or castles and monasteries in 15th to 19th century Spain and Portugal and neglecting infrastructure and engineering (and forests and agrculture) to provide needed material.

We have to go other ways else we will no longer have the possibility to do so.

RHABE

Do you know what a 1 gigawatt nuclear power plant costs?

Did you ever try to calculate how many m² of wind power you can install with this money? And our children can still play in the fields where those power towers are installed.

What I try to explain is that a smaller wind turbine, designed for cost and manufacturing would only cost a fraction of the high tech equipment we are installing now.

This idea is the force of the Asiatic companies: stop developing at a certain point and start production. It will bring in new money to continue the development of the next generation.

A major home improvement materials store chain in the UK is currently (oops, sorry for the pun) offering a domestic electricity-generating wind turbine off the shelf and with professional installation for <£1500 Sterling all-in. Its purpose is to put energy from the home into the grid when available home energy exceeds home demand, thereby making the watt-hour meter run backwards. Of course, when the converse is true, the watt-hour meter runs slower than it would without the wind turbine installation.

As more and more are installed, the dependency on major generation facilities will drop away.

Domestic electricity is approaching £0.10 Sterling per kWh, including taxes, on some tariffs. A wind turbine is becoming a marginally attractive investment for some users, particularly those who want to amortise the installation over many years and for those who can capitalise the turbine to increase the value of the home.

Most homes owners are not in a position to consider the value of a 1GW power station. A domestic wind turbine is an easier proposition.

Dear Gwen Stouthuysen and others,

1Gigawatt powerplant is much cheaper than 1 Gigawatt in windpower installations.

Windpower is cheaper (per installed KW) if few and big installations are planned.

This is true regardless the fact that there are many small sized compared to few bigsized.

Additionally you have to provide fast response fuelfired power stations to fill the gaps when there is slow or no wind. These are normally gasturbines - the worst in fueleconomy. Only if there is hydropower storage possible this is a much better alternative.

I understand the fears of the dangers of nuclear power - I would prefer these to be located inside some massive mountains but this brings massive cooling problems.

The biggest danger from nuclear use is the reprocessing of used fuel rods thie we should abandone as we need this only for plutonium production and this we do not need definitively.

We should not put our taxpayers money into commercial windpower plants, we should do development to see how good and cheap this is possible.

We should put our state money into education: look at Finland or Switzerland how they organise and finance education from age of 3 to PHD.

This is missing everywhere else in northern western civilisation.

So if we stay with our today spending our children would not care where to play as there will be no money for any basic life. We need optimum education for as many as possible, we actually make worse the situation from year to year.

RHABE

Does your calculation take into account all the costs - including mining of fuel, maintenance and - most importantly for nuclear - decommissioning costs? The French produce their electricity at such cheap rates as the decommissioning of their plant is (supposed to be) paid for by the government.

Maintenance of nuclear sites requires shutdown of the whole plant - the maintenance of small (by comparison) wind turbines is not noticed, as they are most unlikely to all be shut down simultaneously.

Also, the bigger the turbine, the less time it will be operational, so medium sized units can produce more power in a year than an oversized one.

Greetings GM1964!

I've often wondered what the costs would be for the demolition of a nuclear power plant. Australia has just shut down its first reactor (Hifar) and is planning a 10 year dismantling/decommissioning process. That has to be expensive and is bound to be complicated by the asbestos insulation and radioactive waste.

Additional on going cost must also be incurred in storing the radioactive waste. If a suitable storage area can be found it must surely be monitored to ensure that it remains in a safe condition. We can't just park it somewhere and drive away can we? That looks to me like an ongoing cost for a half-life or two.

With regard to steam turbines what size do you consider large and how often do they need shutting down for maintenance?

I had always considered large steam turbines to be much more efficient and reliable due to blade tip clearances' being of similar dimensions to smaller turbines but with a much bigger swept areas.

The largest steam turbines that I know of in Australia are 660 Mw used for power generation in NSW. (New South Wales) These are not very exciting machines, they come up to speed, come on load and just sit there for twelve to eighteen months. Boring, a bit of variation in load but boring and reliable.

Marine steam turbines are much more exciting all that horse power and one hand on the throttle control valve.

Magic.

It was actually wind turbines I was referring to: power available being proportional to the swept area, but wind speeds need to be higher for the larger ones to cut in.

Check the specs of the domestic turbines in this link:

http://www.peoplechina.cn/en/Product.asp?BigClassName=Wind%20generator

The industrial turbines usually use two generators, one a quarter of the size of the main one. The small one operates ~75% of the time, the main generator only ~10%

"I've often wondered what the costs would be for the demolition of a nuclear power plant.

I don't know about the cost of decommissioning but I did a quick guesstimate of the cost looking after the waste and not allowing for inflation, equipment and depreciation it works out at roughly half a trillion dollars per reactor. When we discuss the nuclear power in a later thread I will show all the calculations but the figure is conservative.

Australia has just shut down its first reactor (Hifar) and is planning a 10 year dismantling/decommissioning process. That has to be expensive and is bound to be complicated by the asbestos insulation and radioactive waste."

The HIFAR reactor is purely a research reactor and was never used to produce power as is its replacement. One of its main uses has been to produce radioisotopes for use in nuclear medicine and unfortunately there is no other solution to having a reactor to produce these isotopes so Australia needs at least the one reactor we have.

It is also not common knowledge that there was a second reactor Moata the Lucas Heights facility. This reactor was shut down in the 1990 and has already been decommissioned so we are not in untested waters here.

Hi Rhabe,

I don't know where you live but paid schools of high quality are normal in Europe.

Here everyone is going to school from his 2.5 year (kindergarten) up till he is 18y.

Those who want (and are smart) can get a master degree, although there is starting a discussion whether the second master degree needs to be paid by the government.

the same happens when you arrive in a hospital, they first help you and then they wonder who is going to pay the bill. (which makes hospitals a problem point in the economic chain)

I'm still not convinced whether the wind turbine is really getting cheaper when is is getting bigger. It will depend on where you want to put it: offshore you will be right as big foundations are needed and there will be few differences between the sizes.

In populated areas, where you don't have to deal with the grid connection, a large volume solution is having more success. Look to cars, nobody could believe that everyone would ride a car until Ford changed the production method. Same thing with cellular phones: it was ** expensive until someone had the idea to change the system so that everyone could afford one, everyone bought a phone and the companies are making big money.

When you make chocolate, you don't go to the shop for the ingredients for one bar, and when it is sold you go again for the ingredients. NO you make a batch and store it.

The actual designs for windmills force the producer to work blade / blade. A smaller type, could get rid of this limitation and enable for high volume productions at low cost/unit.

"In populated areas, where you don't have to deal with the grid connection, a large volume solution is having more success."

I think the solution requires both the grid and self generation systems like mass produced wind turbines. The idea is that every house has some sort of generating capacity that is suitable to that location and feeds any excess power to the grid making up deficiencies in other arias.

The thing that is needed the most is a system to allow small power generators to synchronize their generation with the grid and this is where the mass production really comes in. Every house would need one of these units so standardization and price are a critical factor.

The more houses connected to the grid, the wider the area and the more diverse the different technologies used to generate the power the better. It's based on the idea of not putting all your eggs in one basket.

Dear Gwen.Stouthuysen and others,

I live near you in Germany but I see how the quality and the funding of our education is going down continuously so I doubt if there will be any good education remaining in some decades?

I was at school from 49 to 62 and since then I have had an eye on the developments and I see other countries do much better than most europeans and north americans.

I am now (since 26 years) in a university and German universities get 20% of the funding (state) money that Swiss universities get.

And most children do not get a place at kindergarten and this is expensive.

So I think this is the real danger - not energy nor carbondioxide.

Have a look what Konrad Lorenz postulated as the 8 deadly sins of westen civilisation, some of this is really happeninmg.

Have a look why other cultures broke down (not the small ones Jared Diamond wrote about).

Back to wind turbines:

It is not useful to compare wind generators to cars as cars have to carry 1 to 4 persons and wind generators have to produce electricity as cheap as possible.

Compare to oil tankers: in the 50ies a 50.000 ton tanker was a big one, today the big tankers are 500.000 tons.

In the 70ies a 10m diameter windgenerator was a big one today a 100m diameter is a big one.

This development (or evolution) is not driven by nonsense but by economy:

the bigger size is more economical per Kilowatt.

Any size has to survive the next (20years) storms and have maintenance cheap enough and government funding still existing. This may change the story a little bit.

You never can order mass production by government this will never work.

Producing blade by blade is the only solution that is reasonable today as blade length is approaching 60m !

The inside can be inspected by men upright walking - how to do this in mass production?

As we do not have very many places where to place these generators we have to be careful with wasting too many sites to too small wind-turbines. And going to the sea will require additional 20 to 40 km cabling to be made and financed (no longer copper, but aluminum high voltage, high reliability, and longlive cable is expensive too.

May be tomorrow we are grateful if the climate is a little bit warmer than today as it is likely that energy will be more expensive than today.

Rhabe

Hi RHABE,

You are right on education: our only option for the future is to give our children the education they are entitled to. (For me it is the best way to avoid war)

I was last week at Enercon in Magdeburg, discussing with them some difficulties they have with the production of the turbine blades. (56m long)

It is a magnificent technology and superb state of the art piece, but as you clearly mentioned: impossible to make on large scale.

Look at an engine, the beauty of the block and the precision of its manufacturing. And look than at the price of this: it can't be more than € 2000,-, I'm sometimes even wondering what is the biggest cost in car production: human power, transport or advertising.

Take a look at the modern horizontal turbines and compare them with the vertical types: smaller and more build to be installed at any location.

Here in Belgium we like to add lighting poles to all our roads. (you have to do something to be bright) A small 10m² vertical turbine could easily be added to these poles, supplying energy to the grid. Efficacy will be lower than those 10.000m² versions, but the cost of ownership and installation will be drastically going down. As the size of the parts are decent, it can be transported by a normal truck and made with mass production processes.

Hi Gwen,

" I'm sometimes even wondering what is the biggest cost in car production" - A far as components go, the single most costly is the floorpan, as the machinery needed to produce it is very complex. This is why so many vehicles share platforms.

The construction of these giant blades is more like building aircraft wings - have you visited Boeing's factory?

Hallo Gwen.Stouthuysen and others,

unfortunately our children do not get the best possible education nor a really good one.

The situation was much easyer in the 60ies and 70ies and I cannot believe that rich countries do no longer have money for education but for wasting taxpayers money in unlimited funding of not at all competitive wind and biofuel and other ridiculous energy sources.

Including the insane law that requires burning of food (plant oil) in motors that is produced at 2,41E per Liter if real cost is calculated.

?Did you resolve the Enercon questions?, if not I am almost sure that I can find asolution. <rhabe(at)onlinehome.de>

If you look at prices it is a matter of fact that big plants are much cheaper in the Euro per Kilowatt rating.

If you look at production prices for high volume production as cars the production cost is 20 to 35% of the sales price.

Installing new production lines every 5 years (latest) will be a big chunk, sales and marketing will be up to 20%, overhead will be 10 to 20 more %, then there is development of new articles to be calculated with 1% (likely to be out of business soon) to more than 10%, in extreme fields up to 30%, shareholders have to get some money too.

The verical wind turbines need much more (costly) material per covered air cross-section so these are a good idea to play with but not a good investment.

What should be done in modern designs to get a better performance is to add winglets as in modern aircraft or the structure of birds wings at the tips where the feathers divide the wing into typically 5 isolated tips if used in not too high velocity.

And the surface shall get a structure to lower airdrag.

Rhabe

Including the insane law that requires burning of food (plant oil) in motors that is produced at 2,41E per Liter if real cost is calculated.

Do you realize that we are not paying the true cost for fossil fuels? The cost of the damage that these fuels is doing to the environment is not included it the price we pay for them. What we are doing is subsidizing the current price with future expenditure on repairing the damage they are doing to our environment.

If you look at prices it is a matter of fact that big plants are much cheaper in the Euro per Kilowatt rating.

This is very true but larger plants have serious scalability problems. For example a 30 Mw generator can't operate efficiently at an output of 5 Mw. The uneven distribution of consumption over the day results in these large plants running at highly inefficient levels during periods of low demand. It is the total efficiency over the whole day that we need to look at not just during periods of peak demand.

What should be done in modern designs to get a better performance is to add winglets as in modern aircraft or the structure of birds wings at the tips where the feathers divide the wing into typically 5 isolated tips if used in not too high velocity.

Birds are not as efficient at flying as you might think. The only efficient flyers are the soaring birds like eagles, albatrosses etc. A large eagle has a lift to drag ratio of roughly 20-25 to 1. Compare this with that of a B-747 in a straight glide at 15 to 1 and modern gliders at 45-55 to 1.. The smaller birds are worse off than the larger ones and when you get down to birds like the humming bird the lift to drag isn't much better that the space shuttle which has a glide characteristic similar to a brick.

"Do you realize that we are not paying the true cost for fossil fuels?"

Hi Masu and others,

I realise this but I object to pay five time the price for wind energy or to waste food for fueling cars.

Nobody has ever paid this price: look at the ancient or any other now abandoned mining site. The landscape was or is spoiled, sometimes the soil is poisoned and often the people too. They had part of the fortunes coming from the earth and had part of the evil consequences. But who paid for it, with which type of currency?

"This is very true but larger plants have serious scalability problems. For example a 30 Mw generator can't operate efficiently at an output of 5 Mw"

The generator can do this without big problems but the turbines cannot and nobody until now invented a "steamspeed to mechanical rotation" conversion power machine that is better for this purpose compared to a turbine!

Where are the ideas to make this better?

The same problems exist for small turbines and these are much more ineffective!

I agree with you about gliding efficiency (look at the U2 plane) of airplanes but nevertheless they add winglets to the wings and gain 2 to 7 % efficiency, so why not with wind-turbine-blades?

RHABE

I agree with you about gliding efficiency (look at the U2 plane) of airplanes but nevertheless they add winglets to the wings and gain 2 to 7 % efficiency, so why not with wind-turbine-blades?

This is an interesting point. To ell the truth it's not something I have thought about in detail and I have no idea of the sort of wing tip vortices wind turbines generate. It could be a tricky thing to do because the centripetal acceleration is going to be a serious problem and any gain in efficiency any be offset by losses. Another thing to keep in mind is that the blades on a wind turbine has a variable pitch and this could cause further complications.

I havn't done the numbers but I suspect that any aerodynamic gain would less than the losses caused by adding them. Somebody out there may know so if you know why they don't use winglets pleas feel free to jump in.

They are adding winglets now.

Merely to reduce the noise but the efficacy is also improving.

Is generating electricity from the wind a viable proposition or is it a wasteful diversion that creates more problems than it solves?

I'll just answer the question directly.

In my case, no. There isn't enough wind in my area to make it a viable proposition. Even if wind were present 24 hours a day at speeds that make conversion to power possible, having each home with a twirling prop or whirling vanes seems too much. Don't get me wrong. I get impressed when I see a wind farm. But to see it everywhere?

So am I in favor of a centralized wind farm? What's the difference of getting it from a wind farm and getting it from a hydro-electric power plant? I still have to get it off the grid. And if the transmission lines fail or the generators conks out, we'd have a whole area of population without electricity. I'd prefer to have individual generators (in whatever form, except nuclear) for each home. That way, only one home would suffer if something goes wrong.

They are an eyesore in large numbers, above oh 7-10 in one grouping. However it would be in the best interests of the wind companies to add paint schemes and/or local contests to brighten up thier looks. They could have 'local' artists come up with paint ideas with nature in mind. Say whales, birds, local mascots, or local historical scenes. Then as people drive by they would have something interesting to look at instead of a bunch of white towers. We have seen buildings renovated with paintings depicting focklore, nature and historical scences from a towns past.

Or make them smaller

The main problem with wind power is the fact that energy captured is currently used immediately - try doing that with a coal-powered station, where each truck load of coal is fed directly into the furnace, and then the plant cools as it waits for the next truck to arrive. All very well until there is a hold-up enroute.

Every conventional method uses a buffer stock, so that production can be regulated to desired outputs. Once this can be done with wind power, then it can be collected through the day and used during peak periods, instead of the insanity of direct conversion.

This is very true but there are ways around the. If you spread the generating equipment over large areas that have different whether patterns you can pretty much assure that somewhere will be windy enough to generate electricity.

Now this dose mean that you need considerable more generating capacity that you use but lets explore the concept for a moment.

Suppose every dwelling/factory/structure used an environmentally friendly technology that was suitable at that location to generate electricity locally. Also each structure was connected to a power distribution grid not dissimilar to the existing grid. The idea is that any short fall in one area could be offset by a surplus in another and by utilizing different technologies at many locations you guarantee the supply. For example an area that generates power utilizing solar technology could cover the shortfall in a area that used wind technology during periods of low wind and visa versa at night. The question becomes how large and diverse do you need to make the system to guarantee supply. This sort of system could be achieved using current technology in conjunction with the existing grid and while it may not completely remove our dependence on fossil fuels it would definitely be able to reduce it considerably. Another advantage is that it dose not require large and expensive infrastructure like power plants. Also the income from the sale of surplus generating capacity could be used to offset the cost of the plant and equipment.

So yes the current systems do have a buffer that they use to even out the fluctuations in demand but there are ways around this and it's not as a insurmountable problem as many would think.

There's a complication in your scenario. If every dwelling/factory/structure had a generator of some sort, and the excess power is sent out to the grid for supplying to areas where there is a shortfall, how are you going to go about selling/billing it?

The structure to track and manage the flow of payments seems to be mindboggling (at least to me). You've got thousands/millions of electrical utilities (including individual homes) that need to be paid for selling power and another hundred or millions to bill for the electricity they take off the grid.

Granted it's not impossible, but, like I said, the tracking would be enormous. And someone needs to take care of all that tracking. We need to pay them too?

A utopian solution would be for everyone to connect to the grid and it automatically routes power to where it's needed...for free? I can hear the "no free lunch" pundits saying WHAT!

Just a thought.

We have a person comes round about four times a year to read the meter. Would it be too much to ask for two meters to be read - one incoming, one outgoing? That way, the price of supply to the grid can be different from the incoming price, allowing the grid maintainers to continue.

Here is the point where the EU will have to impose something, a system.

For now the small producers are not wanted as they only bring in more trouble. As long as the electricity market is free there will be no cost reduction for the small users and no decent pay for the small producers.

Someone in Brussels thought that freeing up the market would be beneficial for the consumer, the inverse is happening now.

But use the wind power to replace your other energy needs (heat) or to fill up the electric car battery, you will see direct return of your investment.

"The structure to track and manage the flow of payments seems to be mindboggling (at least to me). You've got thousands/millions of electrical utilities (including individual homes) that need to be paid for selling power and another hundred or millions to bill for the electricity they take off the grid."

Actually the whole thing is not a new idea and is already being used. Origin Energy in Australia have a system that utilizes solar panels to generate electricity and you are credited for surplus capacity that is fed back to the grid. I am also told that this is not a unique situation and that it is available in several places throughout the world. You do not get paid the same price for the power you generate as you do or the power you consume but there is a workable system already in use.

In Holland, they are building a system of 10000 Stirling driven generators. They sell the heat and the electricity to the house owner. It is distributed production trial.

This is not the real problem, also the billing is a software job. Very likely that no-one will check your meter as it will be centrally read out (and you can see your bill on a website)

The mayor problem of wind power is the uncertainty and how the distribution network will solve the highs and lows.

Hi Gwen,

You say: "The major problem of wind power is the uncertainty and how the distribution network will solve the highs and lows."

This can be overcome by controlling the power before it is turned into electricity, then dispatching it as neccessary throughout the day. Imagine the graphs I gave earlier smoothed for average output. Would that not be much easier for the grid to handle?

Good morning,

It will be a combination of the two techniques.

It would be a pity for the harvested energy that a part of it will be destroyed.

The main power distribution lines must be extended as the transport of power through the bigger region will be needed.

I was thinking of an electric car, battery driven, with a windmill to be placed on your parking lot. This can be sold together. Is there a car manufacturer reading these blogs?

gwen

Hi masu,

I'm not saying the problem is insurmountable, or very difficult even.

Most commercial wind turbines use two synchronous motors, one ~4X the size of the other. The smaller one will produce electricity for ~90% of the time, the larger only for less that 10%, depending on location. Base load is required to balance the system.

Domestic turbines tend to be asynchronous, but then the generator is often working at speeds far from the most efficient.

The constant fluctuations in wind speed cause many control problems, and on blustery days can lead to the collapse of the grid, as large fluctuations are experienced.

What I am suggesting is to take the generator down to ground level, and feed "regulated power" to it, so that the output is much more stable, and at the optimum for the generator, thus using all the trapped power, and not having to feather the prop, losing much of the potential.

This graph comes from the German electricity producer, showing power/wind speeds.

Smoothing this out over a year would provide many benefits. (I have the daily figures in an excel sheet if anyone wants them - taken from the company's own powerpoint, but I have lost that!)

There is also the amount of available power which is not used, as shown in this chart of one popular turbine:

The blue line represents available power, the red line actual power produced. I think you will agree that there is much room for improvement.

"Most commercial wind turbines use two synchronous motors, one ~4X the size of the other. The smaller one will produce electricity for ~90% of the time, the larger only for less that 10%, depending on location. Base load is required to balance the system."

Hi,

size of a motor or generator is determining the torque it can generate, so the horizontal red lines in the graph below are not understandable, they should rise proportional to speed and so should the power that is generated.

" What I am suggesting is to take the generator down to ground level, and feed "regulated power"

The power is in the wind so you have to use it in the moment the wind is blowing.

To make a mechanical power trap is difficult: high velocity flywheels from carbon fiber epoxi suspended in magnetic bearings and not allowed to tilt or yaw because of gigantic gyroscopic moments.

This will not be implemented.

The only possibility for small private windpower is to directly heat a water tank with a brake running inside the water to be heated - either circulated or inside the big tank.

Your first graph is not understandable: is the vertical percent as indicated or wind speed as stated in the text.

The lower graph is questionable too as the red line states constant power despite rising velocity.

So if this is true than the torque has to go down with speed? Why?

If the torque is constant as in constant magnetic excitation by permanent magnets then the power is rising with velocity!

Any clever generator would have additional electric excitation allowing full usage of wind power.

Why don't they use it?

(I am in the small and precision business and science so excuse me if I don't know why are they doing this but I am shure it can be done much better.)

RHABE

Hi RHABE,

A synchronous motor has only one speed at which it can operate, so the prop must be feathered to allow this speed to be maintained, thus wasting a lot of the power that could have been captured. The red lines show the actual power obtained, and the blue line shows the corresponding power available to be captured from the wind at each speed.

Even asynchronous motors have efficiency curves, and thus speeds at which they perform best/most efficiently.

To be able to capture all the available power, and utilise it to the best potential means running the generator at the steadiest speed which can be obtained - not directly wind blown.

This intermediate step is what is missing from all major applications - home-made are usually more sensible, as they use a battery as the intermediate stage, although the currents produced in high winds can cause damage to the circuitry (another reason for a non-electrical intermedate stage)

The English translation of the vertical axis is: "Proportion of wind power in grid peak load [%]"

And there are other ways of trapping the energy, which are reasonably efficient at a wide range of speeds, one of which I am investigating, it has rotational speeds from a few rpm to over 7000.

Volvo has been dealing with variable power, loads, and speeds for many years in their heavy equipment.

They have developed a number of interesting strategies using multiple parallel variable displacement hydraulic pumps and motors to implement continuosly variable transmissions (CVT or IVT). Additional hydraulic pump/motor pairs can be "cut in" to drive additional generators at constant RPM as the windmill power (and speed?) increases. There are also strategies for storing short bursts of high power in "accumulators" (fluid under high pressure).

Some groups are arguing that these types of transmissions can have efficiencies above 95%. Personally, I don't know.
But, http://www.epa.gov/otaq/technology/#hydraulic
has been studying hydraulic hybrid vehicle (HHV) propulsion drivetrains for over 10 years and they seem convienced of its' value for reducing vehicle fuel consumption and delivering high torque/power over broad speed ranges. Some of this technology will be in US production HHV trucks by 2009 and China put 50 HHV buses on the streets Jan. 2007.

Further, if there is excess power one (or more) hydraulic cicuits/motors could drive pump(s) moving water to elevated reservoirs for energy storage and load management as suggested in a previous post without an intermediate electrical conversion. However, this strategy introduces siting issues that may not be resolvable for hydraulically driven systems.

Thoughts for consideration.

At last!

Someone has seen the light!

By using the hydraulic drive system in these trucks, the engine size is reduced, and can run at a steady speed. The hydraulic power stored in the accumulator - usually used in a short, sharp burst elsewhere - is regulated to give the desired output/acceleration hich can be much greater than using the engine directly to push the vehicle.

In a wind-powered system, the input is variable, so the accumulator is used as smoothing, and a regulated output can be achieved. Using a large, high pressure accumulator bank would enable the power to be stored efficiently - even overnight for the next day's peak.

Hi GM1964,

fortunately you are wrong with your assumption that synchronous motors (and generators) have only one speed where they can operate.

If you feed a synchronous motor with a variable frequency generator (the voltage rising with frequency) then it will turn at any speed you want: from zero to upper allowed limit either limited by bearings or limited by centrifugal forces or limited by upper voltage (insulation) allowed.

This motor can drive a torque (if motor) or generate a torque (if generator).

The generated torque has to match the torque generated by the wind and the wings.

Assuming a generator where the magnetic field is exited by permanent magnets this torque is proportional to the current in the motor windings. The voltage is proportional to the speed, the number of turns in the windings and the magnetic flux density in the gap where the windings are.

The delivered energy is current times voltage.

In a wind turbine the speed has to be adjusted to get most energy out of the blowing wind. So the frequency of the generator and its voltage are variable with windspeed.

As our electric net requires fixed frequency and voltage a double conversion is necessary. First conversion from Ac to DC, then conversion from DC to fixed frequency AC with regulated phase and a voltage slightly higher than the mean voltage of the net.

So if this possibility of the asynchronous generators is not used it may be the cost and complexity of the electric circuitry or something I do not know.

Maybe somebody can tell me.

You know certainly a synchronous generator: for lighting of bycicles front and rear lamps it is an old fashioned item. Look inside there is a permanent magnet and a winding and some bearings and a housing.

If you want a more modern version look at Bosch-Indramat or Infranor or Servowatt or Siemens (these are intended for high quality servo drives but can be used as generators without problems).

RHABE

That problem is not limited to wind power.

It is the biggest problem for the whole electricity business: there will only be consumption when you offer power, how many of it will be consumed? unpredictable

The only fast reaction systems are ICE driven generators. All the rest has a latency that can be hours (Nuclear power)

Now we want to force them to start using energy suppliers that are not predictable. It is the perfect framework for a nice shit hits the fan (or turbine blade) scenario.

With tidal power you can predict the power but you can't plan. (tidal is not occurring in a 24h period) The only green energy system that has dealt with these shortcomings is hydro gravitational power generation.

Upscaling and finding way's to store the energy that is not used is the big challenge and it is in this domain that the breakthrough is needed.

Hi discussian partners,

Feeding back electricity from wind turbines to the electric net is solved since many years and is regular practice in Germany.

To achieve this it is necessary to first generate AC then convert to DC and then reconvert to AC of precise amplitude, frequency and phase.

A power net that can be operated with very unpredictable load can also be operated with some of the generators not being very predictable.

A basic supply of thermal driven power plants will be necessary in any scenario of the future.

So the problems above are solved.

The not solved situation is economics. Any wind turbine is far from being economic - the oil and gas and coal and nuclear energy is too cheap.

So the german government has passed a law (some years ago) that the electricity companies have to buy the wind generated power at a high price.

This is redistributing the high price to the end users. If the share of wind energy grows too high then there will be a part of our industry going abroad where energy is cheaper.

This is wasting peoples wealth: both ways are bad: anybody has to pay and the industry has one more argument to move.

We would need a factor of 5 (minimum ) to be near the price for energy from oil or gas.

This will not happen, not now, not in 20 years not in 100 years.

This is why I am arguing against wind energy, it is simply much too expensive.

I like the engineering tasks that are coming up but we have to solve real problems not only play around and waste our money.

RHABE

Hi RHABE,

You said, "The not solved situation is economics. Any wind turbine is far from being economic - the oil and gas and coal and nuclear energy is too cheap."

I'm afraid I might be a little too dense at this time but could you please explain how windpower could be more expensive than other types? I mean, the wind is free so there's no fuel driving the generators. You're generating electricity with hardly any expense (labor for maintenance plus spare parts, maybe a few others).

Or do you mean that the German government is trying to help the wind power industry by legislating that the price of wind electricity higher than the others? Or trying to kill it perhaps?

Hi Vulcan,

if you buy or build a power plant that is generating electricity from any other source of energy you have to pay first to build or buy the facilities: buildings, heating by coal, oil, gas or nuclear, steam generating etc generators, then for workers and repair and supervising personell including boss and secretary.

If you build and operate a wind driven generator this may be much smaller but the principle remains the same.

First part of cost is buing equipment,

second part of cost is operation and maintenance,

third part of cost raw energy ,

fourth part of cost is waste disposal,

fifth part of cost is energy transport and distribution,

sixth part of cost is marketing and overhead (directors).

Some of these may be negligible some important depending on the type you build.

The fixed costs have to be distributed over lifetime (5 to 20 years) and onto the estimated Kilowatthours produced.

After the lifetime there shall be enough reserves to build the next one.

So capital cost has to be added to the above calculation.

This adds up to an estimated 5ct per Kilowatthour for nuclear, 8 ct/Kilowatthour for coal,oil,gas, but 55ct for windpower and around 90 to 150 ct for solarenergy in northern 50° latitude.

If you have a private powerplant where you don't count your working hours this will make some difference but not very much.

If you will clarify the situation ask Vestas or any other producer how much they ask for a specific realisation, how much is transport and installation and connection to the electric net.

It is bad but a matter of fact that wind energy will be a factor of 5 minimum more expensive than oil fired electric energy. This figure is coming from a region where the wind velocity is normally near 5m/s.

So perhaps you will try to build your own wind turbine ten please tell us about estimated and real cost.

RHABE

"After the lifetime there shall be enough reserves to build the next one."

AND clean up the old site!!

That's where renewables can win easily.

RHABE,

I detect that I've seem to upset you. Sorry, wasn't my intention.

All the things you've listed applies to all power generation systems. So, I've been thinking, what's the difference between wind farms and the others?

• Land - wind farms need lots of it. This makes it more expensive in terms of land purchase or rent.
• Equipment - depending on the size. Is a 30MW wind farm more expensive than a 30MW coal-fired generating facility? I wouldn't know. But in terms of complexity, a wind farm is more simple.
• Ability to provide constant power at any time - very poor. Since a power utility makes money from sales of electricity, the nature of wind means that it can't produce a constant output...at the mercy of the winds so to speak. This being the case, ROI will take too long if you sell at the same price as coal-fired, oil, gas or nuclear. Same is true for solar facilities.

For the others, I would think that it would be mostly the same or less for all other types of utilities. They all need to transport and distribute, market and operate and maintain. Is it more expensive to operate an nuclear-power facility? I should think so. They also require more people with special skills and training. Wind farms are, well, simpler.

As for waste disposal, I think the only waste that needs to be disposed of in a wind farm is human waste, and garbage.

Of course, I'm not in the business and I don't think I'll be getting into it at any time in the near future. There's probably more to it that all these things I just said.

Just the thoughts of someone who knows a little and needs to learn a lot. CR4 is the place to get it.

Rhabe in post #69 you stated;

I realise this but I object to pay five time the price for wind energy or to waste food for fueling cars.

As most accountants say there is no such thing as a free lunch. Ultimately the damage fossil fuels are doing to the environment will need to be paid for one way or another. The question is do you wish to pay now or later. By reducing the dependence on fossil fuels now and reducing the effect on the climate you may end up paying less.

Lets now look at each of the points you raised in post #82

First part of cost is buing equipment,

I do not know the exact figures per mega watt of generating capacity for nuclear, coal, gas and wind but the complexity of a wind farm is somewhat less that any of the others. Lets assume for the moment that the cost of plant and equipment is roughly the same.

second part of cost is operation and maintenance,

Wind power would definitely be the winner here. The cost of maintenance of a nuclear plant is phenomenal and the other technologies aren't that far behind. Compare that to the relative minimal maintenance required for a wing turbine.

third part of cost raw energy ,

Again wind wins this hands down as the cost is zero.

fourth part of cost is waste disposal,

Wind power here wins again. The true cost of disposal for the waste from the other technologies if enormous and to date we are not paying the true cost. With nuclear plants the cost of looking after the waste for half a million years is not factored in while with the fossil fuel plants CO₂ is completely ignored. This is something that is currently being ignored and will ultimately bite us when we least expect it.

fifth part of cost is energy transport and distribution,

If we are talking about just the cost of distributing the generated power then all three are roughly equal on this front. If we add in the cost of mining and transporting the fuel for fossil and nuclear then wind wins again.

sixth part of cost is marketing and overhead (directors).

If we are only talking about the administration of collecting revenue then all three are roughly the same. If we include all the labor costs associated with administering the plants then wind wins again.

When you look at it this way and calculate all the costs involved wind must win in the long run and it is the subsidy that the other technologies receive by ignoring the true cost of waste that makes wind uncompetitive.

I truly agree with the statement buildup but there is one little problem:

The cost of installing wind power is higher than conventional power. It is substantially higher due the low power / unit.

The biggest windmills now have a rating of 6MW.

The average that a windmill gives is approx 70% which means that a 6MW installation will give 4.2 MW in average.

A small nuclear power plant has a power rating of 1 GW. You will need 238 windmills to do the same. The costs involved with this are huge as the windmills are not designed for manufacturing. The footprint is also enormous.

With nuclear power station the investment is spread over 40 years. I'm sure that the investment for windmills is paid off in 4 to 6 years as no company will want to wait longer for the return on investment. (those damned accountants)

But strangely you see those things rise at an enormous speed, people bring their money to build those blowers.

A little word on the skyline pollution: I don't find it ugly. The smoke from coal fired stations: that is ugly in the sky. And if you build them way smaller, they can be installed in everybody's backyard, enabling millions to be installed at a reasonable price/unit.

There is also another reason to stop burning coal/petrol (even for house warming and car propulsion): pollution kills yearly thousands. The gasses and dust are enormously harmful. Take these costs in the total picture and the balance might flip over completely.

Hi Masu,

unfortunately your assumptions are far too overoptimistic:

Here are the reasons why:

1. The wind is blowing not with constant speed but burning fuel can be done constant or at demand (some hours up and down regulating needed).

2. To catch the high winds it is necessary to install a much greater generator capacity than would be needed with constant wind speed.

3. all structures have to be stable at much faster wind speed than will be useful: the once in lifetime storm.

4. The capacity of the biggest wind generators will remain much smaller than usual power-plants. These are optimised in some aspects and one is lowest possible overall cost.

I would like another situation but these are the facts.

So I think that wind energy is a tax consuming toy not as horrible as burning vegetable oil and corn or wheat derived "biofuel" which for my feeling is a criminal act.

There may be a remote possibility of wind energy not debated until now: the jet streams that surround the earth in a variable pattern.

The circumpolar jetstreams are driven by the north-south temperature difference and deflected by Coriolis accelerations to blow around both poles at 40 to 80degree latitude at 10 to 12 km above ground with velocities of 200km/hour.

The polenear part is blowing westwards the adjacent part some 100km towards equator is blowing eastwards.

The energy content is near 60KW per square meter, it would be a fantastic energy source!

But: we have no cables that can bring the energy down.

We could put up there steerable balloons or sailing planes, anchoring these to lower partner planes and generating electricity.

Microwave energy transmission at megawatt level may be very dangerous and I have no idea of cost.

Any other possibility is out because no cabling existing nor foreseeable.

RHABE

"Every conventional method uses a buffer stock, so that production can be regulated to desired outputs."

I was just thinking about the problem of "buffer stocking" of wind energy ... here is an idea that isn't a total solution and it could be very capital intensive. But in, the correct terrian and with good engineering, it can be done.

Suppose excess electrical energy is used to pump water to reservoir at a significantly higher elevation and then this hydraulic "reserve" can be dropped through turbines back to the lower elevation recovering some of the previously "stored wind energy" when needed, low wind or high demand. It could be an excellant strategy to manage missmatches between supply and demand.

The economics of such a system would be very interesting.

What sort of energy recovery efficiency might be expected ... any ideas?

Any one have any knowledge regarding economics/energy consumption of hydro spinning reserve?

In New South Wales, Australia we have a hydro electrical scheme called the Shoal Haven Scheme. This is a series of dams on a river system. The beauty of this scheme is that electricity is generated as the water is discharge through the turbines during peak load periods. Then when the load is low and the thermal generators are producing lots of VARS the generators attached to the hydro turbines are powered up to act as motors. The turbines are then used to pump the water back up to the pondages above their station.

This has the double benefit of providing additional load which helps to adjust the power factor and also means that water can be passed through the hydro generator again to help meet the next peak demand or the peak price.

Most electrical grids in Australia try to have some spinning reserve to meet sudden spikes in demand. This often means large generators on only partial loads during the early hours of the morning so a storage system like this makes a huge improvement in the overall efficiency.

This system is used all over the world. merely to cope with the high latency of nuclear power, For these installations, no installation was to expensive to make it work. Now that we have to cope with other power sources that are not the prime choice of the industry every bump in the road is used as an argument not to do it.

Suppose excess electrical energy is used to pump water to reservoir at a significantly higher elevation and then this hydraulic "reserve" can be dropped through turbines back to the lower elevation recovering some of the previously "stored wind energy" when needed, low wind or high demand. It could be an excellant strategy to manage missmatches between supply and demand.

The Snowy Mountains Hydro Scheme has been doing this since the late 1960s. The scheme's primary objective is to divert the melt waters from the Australian snow fields from the normal eastward flow to the west. This involved the construction of numerous dams and tunnels but it was realized that it was possible to generate considerable amounts of electricity in the process. The scheme also required the construction of several pumping stations. What they have been doing is operating the pumping stations when there is a surplus of power available and then generating hydro electric power during periods of peak demand.

The scheme is a true engineering marvel and has been a great success. If you tried to build something like this today however I doubt it would ever get off the drawing board. Can you imagine the amount of winging that would take place?

I think you'll find the differnce is in the source of power - the suggestion was to used wind power to pump the water.

The system I propose would use high pressure hydraulics, and so be able to store the energy in a much smaller footprint - perhaps even within the tower (certainly for smoothing, possibly for longer)

I have been looking for the eference for the wind chart in my earlier post - it came from somewhere on the E-On site, but have not yet located it, but much info. there:

http://www.eon-netz.com/frameset_english/law_eng/law_windenergy_eng/law_windenergy_eng.jsp

Wind power can make a contribution to electrical energy production. However it would not be financially viable to construct wind turbines unless the operator is guaranteed a payment whenever the blades turn.

Their main failure is the disconnection when there is no wind and they cannot contribute, but more importantly energy has to be provided by another source, probably more costly and more harmful than the overall benefit of the wind generator.

As the UK has abandoned most if it's instant start - short run up generating plant, we will have to purchase nuclear energy from EDF in France to cover the gap when wind turbines stop turning. Our conventional steam plant - whether nuclear or coal takes 2 - 4 hours from a standing start before supplying energy.

Even when wind power is generating, small units in remote locations are largely ineffective as most of their output contribtues to improving line reactance losses etc., in the grid system. Optimum wind power generation is only realised when generation is at the point of use.

This is why most operators want to build windfarms on hills in the centre or above populated areas where the residents don't want them. They really do need to be located in large numbers in open windswept remote areas, but nobody - particularly the windfarm developers/operators will pay for the upgraded distribution lines.

Wind farms therefore require vast hidden subsidies and without this and the guaranteed payment they are not viable as a separate business enterprise. These hidden subsidies are financing a vast "we are green - PR exercise" with a dubious energy supply contribution.

Even in Scotland which is a very windy country, there are many, still, freezing, frosty, nights with no wind, when the off peak heating electrical energy demand is at a maximum. This when the limitation of wind generation will be exposed.

That said - "anything for nothing" is a good philosophy and this energy definitely needs to be harnessed, but wind power has severe limitations and can never be relied upon for base generation. It can only therefore provide a minor sporadic contribution allowing base stations to run at reduced load. It cannot replace base load - nuclear, oil, gas or coal fired station.

"Even when wind power is generating, small units in remote locations are largely ineffective as most of their output contribtues to improving line reactance losses etc., in the grid system."

Transmission line loss is a problem that has existed since man started using electricity as a major energy source. Yes they are a problem but they are a problem to all electricity generating systems regardless of the technology. A lot or research has been done over recent years and continent wide distribution grids are now common place. While there is always room for improvement the current high voltage power distribution grids have been able to minimize the losses to an extent that would have been astounding to the pioneers of the electricity.

"That said - "anything for nothing" is a good philosophy and this energy definitely needs to be harnessed, but wind power has severe limitations and can never be relied upon for base generation. It can only therefore provide a minor sporadic contribution allowing base stations to run at reduced load. It cannot replace base load - nuclear, oil, gas or coal fired station. "

I havn't done the calculations but I would expect that if you calculated the energy in the wind world wide our demand for energy would pail into insignificance. The problem is that the wind while being reasonably predictable long term has short term fluctuations that are impossible to calculate. It would however be possible to allow for these fluctuations by installing enough wind farms in a diverse enough spread of locations to reduce the effects of short term fluctuations to a minimum.

The question then becomes how many and diverse do these locations need to be to nullify the effect of short the term unpredictability of the wind.

These are all technical problems and if a technical problem is not due to some fundamental flaw in the science behind it then given the resources it can be solved.

"The problem is that the wind while being reasonably predictable long term has short term fluctuations that are impossible to calculate. It would however be possible to allow for these fluctuations by installing enough wind farms in a diverse enough spread of locations to reduce the effects of short term fluctuations to a minimum."

Appropriately placed hydroelectric "accumulators" (reservoirs) that can store "excess" peak supply for load demand "fill in" are probably the key whether the primary sources are wind, gas, coal, or nuclear ... like an electric (or hydraulic) regenerative braking system for hybrid vehicles. This strategy, although capitol intensive, would go a long way in terms of smoothing the mismatches between supply and demand. Further, this would allow the combustion (and nuclear) plants to run closer to their optimum efficiency points ... and hopefully reduce the needed level of spinning reserve.

It just occurred to me that these reservoirs are probably very large ... if the reservoir siting is in a windy area ... why not place the windmills in the reservoir for land conservation.

Hi Masu,

"transmission line loss is a problem"

you are right that this problem is existent in any electric transmission but it is worse for small power generators as in wind turbines.

It is not suitable to use the 110 to 400 Kilovolt lines that are used normally for long distance transmission to minimise losses.

Voltage has to be selected to minimise losses plus interest for building the cabling.

So if you think about an international wind power net distributed all over the continents then first the ordinary exchange has to be established. In Europe there is a net from Sicily to Norway but additional lines are planned across the baltic sea to connect Poland and Russia and Sweden.

This will be high voltage so if any connection to wind turbines are used these have to be with lower voltage but still in the kilovolt range. This takes a major part oft the total cost thus retarding today the construction of offshore windplants as there is a quarrel who will pay for this connection .

So you are right that the use of distributed nets and windturbines will make the situation of wind fluctuations better by smoothing any fluctuation.

This will be effective only if the net is extended over more than 1000km as wind fields extend very often over this large areas.

RHABE

It is not suitable to use the 110 to 400 Kilovolt lines that are used normally for long distance transmission to minimise losses.

Why not? There is absolutely no reason that power generated from a wind turbine cant be stepped up to the same voltages that any other form of generation is. What is the difference between stepping the power from a wind turbine up to line voltages compared to that from a conventional source?

There is absolutely no need to have a separate distribution system for wind generated power, it just a matter of stepping the power up to the appropriate voltages already in use.

My electrotechnical knowledge is basic.

I know that a transformer is one of the most reversible installations that we know: If you feed such a high voltage step down transformer with more power than it would give due the step down ratio, it will automatically reverse the current and start stepping up.

Of course that you will need to regulate this as they are calculated to give in one direction (voltage drop correction), a rather simple device can change the windings when the current goes to 0 in combination with a high voltage, allowing the overvoltage to be drained off to the distribution network.

The main question for me is: how much of the energy delivered by the wind is then used by the final customer.

First step is to make an AC power from the rotation of the windmill.

Second: this AC power is transformed to DC and reshaped to AC 240/400 - 50 Hz. Sometimes this step can be omitted by using asynchronous generators, but they have a bad efficacy. Synchron generators would require the windmill to have a certain speed, reducing the efficacy of the first conversion step. This effort to put the power generated by the windmill on the grid costs a serious part of the energy.

The next step would be to step up the voltage, this also costs energy, although less.

I know that the normal distribution network has serious losses, but they can work with synchron generators, enabling the highest efficacy possible. The uncertainty at both sides: delivery and consumption make the distribution of energy through Europe a nightmare.

My opinion is that a different use of the energy generated by the windmills will have a higher impact on the CO₂ reduction.

Smaller units, installable on every building by low trained personnel, will enable to have the power available at point of consumption. things like compressed air, cooling and heating all driven by the power of the wind are than possible with a higher efficacy. Low wind periods can be skipped by adequate store of the excess production. AC cant be stored but heat, cold, air, DC, ... are easy to store.

Hi Gwen,

The next step would be to step up the voltage, this also costs energy, although less.

Power stations generate electricity at various voltages but they generally around 11 Kv mark which is to low for long distance transmission and therefore needs to be stepped up.

That means the only part of the process that is unique to wind is the initial stage, the stepping up to transmission line voltages is common to all generation.

Smaller units, installable on every building by low trained personnel, will enable to have the power available at point of consumption. things like compressed air, cooling and heating all driven by the power of the wind are than possible with a higher efficacy. Low wind periods can be skipped by adequate store of the excess production. AC cant be stored but heat, cold, air, DC, ... are easy to store.

Rather than trying to store energy locally it would be far better to use any surplus capacity to supply those that have a shortfall. This is nothing new and co-generation system that use the existing grid to distribute surplus generating capacity are available in several places throughout the world.

Storing electricity is very costly, difficult and inefficient so if you can transport the surplus power to an area that needs it then it would be far more efficient than trying to store it.

Hi Gwen & masu,

I think that the problem here is that the smaller the power plant, the less useful it is to sell the power. Giant wind farms are able to produce enough energy to supply the grid economically, but the smallest cannot, as they do not produce enough power to "drive" the transformers.

It will be practical to connect large wind farms to the grid, and also to connect individual units to the local supply, where the energy is used in the neighbourhood, at the 220/400V range.

For those who wish to be self sufficient, there is no reason why they should not store the excess for times of need, as the losses involved in storage can be less than those of transmission, depending on need, proximity, etc.

Hi GM1964,

I think that the problem here is that the smaller the power plant, the less useful it is to sell the power. Giant wind farms are able to produce enough energy to supply the grid economically, but the smallest cannot, as they do not produce enough power to "drive" the transformers.

Any amount of surplus power can be distributed on the grid and you don't even need a transformer. The Origin Energy system uses solar panels to generate around 1 Kw of DC electrical power that is turned into AC by an electronic inverter. The power can either be used at the time and point of generation or fed back through the power distribution system for use by others.

Hi masu,

Just as I said, the excess is fed into the grid at 240V, for consumption in the local area.

This will be of some use as other power can be diverted to where there is a shortfall, but there will still be bigger losses the further the power has to be sent.

Just as I said, the excess is fed into the grid at 240V, for consumption in the local area.

It doesn't necessarily need to be the local area. Transformers work both ways, a transformer that steps 11 Kv down to 240 v can just as easily step 240 v up to 11 Kv.

But is it feasable/ likely that enough power will be produced in one neighbourhood to supply all their needs, and still export to other areas?