How Much Power from Wind?

GA Dances with threes. Reducing our consumption IS the way to go. We have lots of easy places where we can cut without affecting our comfort and probably improve it.

Home / building heating / cooling are the first place to look. How many buildings have both on at the same time because of bad HVAC design and maintenance? I know at least two. Why do we have to keep shopping malls at freezing temperature during the summer? Heat-pumps with water heaters should be mandatory everywhere. They give free hot water in the summer and reduce the cost of heating in the winter. Building insulation, even in warm places have to be mandatory. It is cheaper than installing windmills to compensate for the losses through the walls.

Fix the above and will cut our energy consumption by half. That what it did to my home.

It's easy to pick out one alternative power source and shoot it down. All various endeavors combined, however, would make a difference.

I agree, we need to install as many energy supply types as can reasonably be done. As to wind power: is it a feasible energy source. That is, does the cost to install and maintain them produce enough electricity that they are economically viable? If they are, then we should install them. If no, they are only feasible because of subsidies, then we should look elsewhere for our energy needs.

With anything we do. We need to reduce energy consumption in all areas.

It is becoming competitive already. As gas and coal prices increase - and they will, especially when the carbon tax is applied - wind, solar and others become more cost-effective. The real problem with most renewable energy sources is marrying them to the grid. If the wind drops or the sun is obscured, other power sources have to be brought up to speed to carry the load. The same is true if another source of power is lost, say a major powerline fails or a generating plant drops offline. Then it is possible to have a cascading power failure where the failure of one segment causes the failure of another.

You have hit the nail squarely on the head. Wind is an economic loser until the government gets involved and picks the winners and losers (through taxes). Bottom line is that wind has done more to help drive up the market price of electricity through market destabilization (as pointed out elsewhere on this thread), because you need lots of gas turbines and other generation to come up quick when the wind dies down. And not only are you losing the power from the loss of wind, there is more power consumed as the wind turbines are "motored" to keep them synchronized to the grid. Power from gas turbines is generally the most expensive, but quick, and the last generator on the grid sets the market price. $$$$$

Not trying to be overly negative, but there is only so much hp available in wind. Until there is some major epiphany in technology, wind will require some kind of subsidy. Those high electric prices you pay to run more gas turbines than usual is exactly that kind of subsidy (in addition to taxes that benefit the king).

If we could harness all the hot air coming from the political class, we could power the world.

One of the most efficient wind farms in the world is located right here near our Parliament (although I think there are other factors that resulted in us putting it there).

You b*ggers really need to do something about reducing consumption.

"Will wind energy ever evolve into more than a niche power source?"

When wind (and solar) add in the technology to become a base load, and do it at a cost that is less than 10% more than current base load power sources, then they will become mainstream.

What would it take to make them base load power?

Some way of storing and giving back the power on demand, and NOT when the wind decides to produce power. Current designs of wind mills cannot store or moderate power delivery.

A Europe wide study showed that only 10% of the installed wind power can be relied upon as base load power. The fact remains that a will mill earns the same avoidance cost as as diesel genset that can power up at will.

A wind mill should only earn 1/2 to 1/4th that of a "on demand" power source. A base load power can be used for maintenance of frequency or voltage, whereas a wind mill only can add power in spurts at odd times. This is like paying an employee that shows up at the job sight when he likes, who works typically 25% as hard as other workers, if at all, the same amount as an employee that shows up on time, day in day out and works as hard as the boss want him to. The value is not equal and should not be paid equal amounts.

Current cost of wind is $1800-2000/kw. The base load ability of that will is only 10%, so you must have 10 times as much installed generating ability as the rated power. That makes wind over $18,000/kw in base load terms.

A coal plant is $1-3k/kw. The fuel to run it costs about $0.014/kw-hr, avoidance cost is $0.057 (peak), where retail price of electricity sold is $0.08/kw-hr. A wind mill should only get $0.02-04/kw-hr, and not the $0.05-0.057/kw-hr it now gets. That would be fair. Same applies for solar...

One of the biggest limitations to renewable energy systems is the outrageous greed behind the design and implementation of such systems. The mark up on the manufactured cost Vs the selling price is sick. Plus the needless red tape and hoop jumping BS a person has to go through to get set up is ridiculous!

Wind or solar are not the only solution I know that. One very big and very overlooked point is the energy storage systems. I don't see any private or business interest in the practicality and profitability of becoming an energy storage unit. That is having a privately or corporately owned energy storage facility or system set up purely as a profit earning load balancing method between peak supply periods and peak demand periods.

Alternative energy is typically variable from moment to moment so why is no one looking at setting up a profitable way to store energy?