Jun 9, 2012

Government Finds Wind Energy Not Meeting Energy Reduction Goals

...When fossil fuel plants are operated at less than full power, they operate less efficiently from a fuel use perspective. Thus, when their demand is reduced to make room for wind power, which generally occurs at night when winds are the strongest, base-load fossil plants are cycled down. As the wind dies down, these fossil plants are started up again, using more fuel and releasing more emissions upon start-up. The concept is similar to the inefficient fuel use of a vehicle in stop-and-go traffic.

Argonne researchers are working on a solution that entails using batteries to store the wind power for use when the wind stops blowing lessening the need to cycle down the conventional plants. Battery technology could also be used to store solar energy captured during the day for use at night. However, the use of battery technology to store electricity is not currently a commercially viable option.

Issues with Wind Power and Cycling of Plants

It is important to note that while wind may displace some pollution emissions, it is at a higher cost than just the cost of the subsidized wind turbine because of the need to have back-up power. Wind capacity does not displace actual fossil fuel plants—it displaces the generation from the back-up plants when the wind is blowing. When the wind is not blowing, the back-up plants are needed to supply the electricity needed to meet demand. Thus, the true cost of wind power should include the cost of building plants to back up the power when the wind dies down. Ratepayers are actually paying twice–once for the wind turbines and secondly for the capacity to back them up. It would be cheaper for ratepayers to build new plants to replace older plants given the small, marginal reductions in carbon dioxide that are obtained from wind power.

Further fossil fuel plants are not the only plants that may be affected by additional wind power. For example, if there is enough wind on the system that all the fossil fuel plants are cycled down, nuclear power plants then may be affected. Mayo Shattuck, Executive Chairman of the Exelon Corporation, indicated that because wind turbines tend to generate the most power when that power is least needed, and because federal subsidies allow operators to bid the power into grid markets at a price of zero, undercutting all other generation, nuclear plant owners, whose power cannot be cycled easily, end up paying the grid to take their power.[vi] Those costs increase electricity prices as well.

A recent study found that European countries that are raising the share of renewable energy in their electricity system and are taking older fossil-fuel and nuclear plants out of service are not doing enough to ensure adequate back-up power when the sun does not shine and the wind does not blow. According to Chris Rogers, a London-based analyst, companies need to be rewarded for operating backup stations that can be switched on and off quickly. According to his report, gas-fired plants need a daily “capacity payment” of at least $230 a megawatt to provide the back-up power.  Some European utilities have held off building new gas-fired plants because the investment would not be profitable without the capacity payment. According to the report, even Texas and California need to establish capacity markets by either building new power plants or by controlling consumption at peak times.[vii]

Because wind is an intermittent technology, wind turbines generate power only when the wind is blowing, and that means electric grids will need backup generators to provide base-load power during off-wind periods. Those back-up generators are typically fossil fuel plants that should be run continuously as they were designed to provide base-load power. When they are ramped up and down, conventional plants are being used inefficiently, consuming more fuel and releasing more emissions in the process, just as a car does in stop-and-go traffic. If they are ramped up and down frequently, the net emissions reduction from using wind power is lowered by the increased fuel use and the associated emissions from cycling fossil plants back up. According to one of the Argonne researchers, “A certain percentage of the energy goes into just heating up the boilers again.”[viii]
Please continue reading at:

[i] Bentek Energy LLC, How Less Became More: Wind, Power and Unintended Consequences in the Colorado Energy Market, http://www.bentekenergy.com/WindCoalandGasStudy.aspx

[iii] Argonne National Laboratory, System-Wide Emissions Implications of Increased Wind Power Penetration, March 5, 2012, http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es2038432

[iv] Argonne National Laboratory, Grid realities cancel out some of wind power’s carbon savings, May 29, 2012, http://www.anl.gov/articles/grid-realities-cancel-out-some-wind-power-s-carbon-savings

[v] Forbes, Wind Power May Not Reduce Carbon Emissions As Expected: Argonne, May 30, 2012, http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2012/05/30/wind-power-may-not-reduce-carbon-emissions-argonne/

[vi] Aol Energy, A Brave New World: Renewable Energy Without Subsidies, June 6, 2012, http://energy.aol.com/2012/06/06/a-brave-new-world-renewable-energy-without-subsidies/#page1?icid=apb1

[vii] Bloomberg, Renewable-Power Boom Leaves Nations Without Backup, Report Shows, June 8, 2012, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-08/renewable-power-boom-leaves-nations-without-backup-report-shows.html

[viii] Climate Wire, Renewable Energy: Wind power may not reduce carbon emissions as expected, June 1, 2012, http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2012/06/01/8