What grows on a wind “farm” ? Debt-cows
On Wednesday nearly all the wind generators in the country failed. About 4,000 turbines across five states of Australia were hit by some kind of simultaneous fuel crisis. At one point all the wind power in our national grid was only making 3% of Australia’s electricity, and that was the best part of the day. At its worst, all those turbines produced about 1.2% of the power we needed. It was that bad.
Across the nation, something like $15 to $20 billion dollars of infrastructure ground to a halt.
Welcome to the clean green energy future:
The black line in this image is the total power generation across the day, and that equates equally to power consumption across the day. The green colour rolling along the bottom is wind generation, all of it, across the day. Who pays for the battery back up for these dysfunctional non-farms?
As Rafe Champion would say — it was a “choke point” all day.
It would be nice to believe this incident was due to all the old failing wind towers that used to be reliable workhorses. If only. Then there would be hope we could fix things. But these were mostly new towers, and this is as good as it gets.
We could double the money and build Snowy 2.0 power storage, state interconnectors, and batteries. Otherwise we just have to pay off the Sun, the Moon and the Southern Oscillation.
Or, of course, we could back up 99% of the entire grid with fossil fuels (and some Hydro), which we do. But then the wind farms are completely superfluous, except to make the Greens feel good, and the Renewables Industry rich.
…
TonyfromOz estimates we get a day like this once a year, but there are a lot of 6-hour-type squeezes when all 4,000 plus turbines make even less. A battery just isn’t going to cover that…
Who pays for the back up? We the People.
As TonyfromOz says: compare the productivity of a 50 year old coal plant
Let’s look at the ancient old clunker Liddell, now coughing its last, after 50 years of operation. Only two of its four Units are in operation, and both of them are operating at much reduced Capacity. Liddell delivered more power across the day than did EVERY wind plant in the Country, in fact nine percent more power across the whole 24 hour recording period.
So, on this day, every single wind plant in Australia cannot match the delivery from HALF of the oldest coal fired plant in the Country.
We’ve spent something in the order of $20 Billion dollars to get an 8GW generator that doesn’t work most of the time. Liddell, if they fixed it, and it could run in a free and fair market, would still be profitable.
BTW — The graphs come from Anero.id, a site set up by one man — Andrew Miskelly — that provides an essential service our well funded AEMO and the entire Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure can’t manage to provide. Amazing what one determined bright guy can do.
For more information see TonyfromOz: Daily power for Tuesday 28th April: All day wind power was generating between 1 and 3% of the total Grid requirements.
References and estimates below
The rough cost and size of the Australian Wind fleet
On paper there is 8,100MW of theoretical Wind power on the National Energy Market in Australia.
(Once, for five minutes, all the turbines produced 5,310MW).
The largest installation in Victoria — The MacArthur wind “farm” — cost more than $1b in for supposedly a 420MW plant which works like a 100MW generator except for all the times it doesn’t. At that rate, the cost of building all the wind plants in Australia works out at around $19b.
The largest plant in Australia is the Coopers Gap Wind Plant, and its cost was $850 Million for a 452MW plant. With this new bulk savings the total build in Australia for 8GW of wind would be about $16b. But we probably spent a lot more.
The average wind tower is 1.95MW, so there must be around 4,200 wind towers in Australia in to add up to 8.1GW in total Nameplate capacity.
The current Capacity Factor of wind power in Australia is about 29.5% according to Tony. It’s as if it was a 2400 MW really unreliable generator.
Let’s do hope the economic consequences of this event are catalogued for analysis.
It isn’t simply the inadequacy of the useless wind farms. It’s the impact upon the ratepayers and economy.
AEMO can ignore reality, but cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.
The more wind/solar is installed, the worse things will become. Wed’s event is just a preview.
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Ahhh Lance.
We do not have leaders but mere moronic followers who blow which ever way the world winds blow.
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Same here in the UK with wind underperforming for three weeks and negligible electricity on many of those days.
https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
What will it take to make the politicians who are driving this see sense?
At present they are behaving like the three wise monkeys.
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I’ve just looked at a CSV file I downloaded from Gridwatch recently, and the lowest point was at 10:25 on the 13th April, when the figure was a pathetic 0.58% of demand…
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Mr. Ward:
The words “wise” and “politicians” should not be used in the same paragraph.
And you have also insulted monkeys.
Politicians are more like The Three Stooges.
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Oh, come on have more faith in battery technology. They keep on improving!
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Yes, REAL SOON ever since 1982. Unfortunately they are still expensive and limited in capacity.
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Really, I wuz only joking like.
[Thumbs up from me Glen. I saw that invisible /sarc – Jo]
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– – winking smiley face – – Poe’s Law
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Keeping the lights on: power retailers to pay for stability
Coal-fired power stations will be paid for their generation capacity to keep them operating and the government is considering building a new 660MW gas-fired generator in the Hunter Valley in an overhaul of the electricity system aimed at keeping the lights on.
Energy Minister Angus Taylor will on Friday deliver the government’s response to a shortlist of options from the Energy Security Board to redesign the electricity system as the threat to grid security and the economics of coal and gas plants posed by the rapid growth of wind and solar reaches unacceptable levels.
Under the government’s preferred strategy, electricity retailers would pay the owners of dispatchable generators such as coal-fired, gas-fired and hydro plants as well as batteries to guarantee future capacity when the grid is facing periods of peak demand that threatens reliability.
Under current rules, generators are paid on an “energy only’’ basis for the power that is used by consumers. When wind and solar power is operating at full capacity the coal and fuel plants operate at a loss, undermining their economic sustainability.
Mr Taylor insisted that energy prices, which have fallen more than 11 per cent in the past 12 months, will not rise to help pay for increased security.
“The human and financial cost of insecurity is too great to be left unaddressed,” he said.
“We need an electricity grid we can rely on.”
Mr Taylor said the first outcome from the ESB’s recommendations must be the delivery of affordable, reliable power.
“This requires strong market signals that both encourage investment in new dispatchable generation to replace our ageing thermal generator fleet, and incentivise our existing thermal generators to remain in our market for as long as needed,” he said.
Under the proposed capacity pricing retailers like Origin and AGL would pay to have power available, and would need to buy capacity backed by a physical resource to prevent blackouts and brownouts.
These changes would move Australia’s electricity market closer to Britain’s and most of the US. The risk of an energy-only market was laid bare in Texas in February when freezing weather shut down wind and some gas stations and left 4.5 million homes and businesses without power.
Gas is now endorsed by the government as the transition fuel to Australia’s future renewables-powered economy.
“Gas will inevitably provide part of the answer, with prices falling dramatically in the last 18 months, and new generators now typically built to be hydrogen-ready,” Mr Taylor said.
The changes to the system should increase investment certainty for business.
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Energy only suppliers are simply grifters.
Capacity markets are what back the unreliables up and are the only true means to a stable grid.
Mr Taylor does not understand the unviability of Hydrogen and the associated economics. H2 absorbs more energy to create, store, and transport it, than it contains. It is always a net energy loss. The only question is how much of a loss can be tolerated. The inefficiency is tolerated for moon rockets because the Mass efficiency is all that matters, not the cost.
H2 typically costs 2 to 4 times the energy it contains in order to produce, store, transport, and use, it. Smarter people than Mr. Taylor have already worked this out.
There’s a cheaper and more direct way to address this issue within the capacity market concept. Require Wind, Solar, Gas, Coal, Nuclear, Hydro, to bid into the day-ahead load under guaranteed capacity delivery contracts as equally competent providers as they might wish to guarantee under absolute delivery. That will sort out who can actually produce guaranteed delivery and who cannot. Let the market decide. Get the Govt out of the subsidy business.
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Agreed Lance but day ahead bidding still enables suppliers to grift. I’d support year ahead bidding.
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The contrarian in me wonders if supply-only bidding could still work, eventually, as long as suppliers are not forced to cap their rates in times of stress. When all the unreliables are out of commission, the remaining reliables would be able to charge arbitrarily high prices to meet demand, which could easily cover their costs of sitting on standby most of the time. (It sounds like they are currently prevented by law from doing that, from what I’ve read on various articles here.) That sort of pricing would send some useful market signals pretty fast!
(People who don’t know how supply and demand work usually call that sort of thing “gouging”, because it’s a lot easier than actually understanding free markets and working within them.)
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A glimmer of hope like a ray of sunshine on a winter’s day. The renewable energy cabal will of course resist anything which might reduce their ability to make hay while the sun shines.
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If Angus Taylor believes that the extra costs won’t be passed on to the consumer he is nuts…or lying!
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Indeed. I can’t figure Taylor out, but I can guess he’s treading a line that talks several talks which is being ambiguous at least. Surely the concept of an efficient and effective energy system doesn’t elude him.
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Whilever the notion that Carbon Dioxide is harmful rules, the concept of an efficient and effective energy system will elude them.
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I object to the word “failure” because it is not correct.
If a windmill is operating as designed, which means no wind = no power, then is has not failed.
If it catches on fire, and some have, THAT is a failure.
If it freezes up, and has to be stopped for deicing, THAT s a failure too.
The main problem is the use of wind for energy:
– One windmill plus no wind = zero power
– One bazillion windmills plus no wind = zero power
Failure is a propaganda term when used to describe one low wind day.
Windmill output is highly variable, and sometimes near zero, or zero.
A weak output, or zero output, period can be expected every week, sometimes several times a week.
That’s why windmills require 100% fossil fuel back-up.
Windmills belong in museums, not connected to electric grids.
Replacing a reliable electric grid powered by fossil fuels, at great expense, with an unreliable electric grid powered by “renewables”, is a HUGE failure of logic.
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Just speak English Richard.
A generator that doesn’t generate is “A failure”.
If the failure is expected, it’s still a failure.
Stop making excuses for green propaganda.
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It’s a failure of policy.
It’s a failure to understand the community requirement.
It’s a failure of implementation (it is foreseeable, so it requires a backup source).
It’s a failure of logic (whatever that is).
Yes, mechanically it worked as designed, but that’s not really the question for a community energy source is it.
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If battery prices declined by about 90%,
windmills + batteries
could be competitive with fossil fuels
in a few windy areas … maybe.
Without very cheap, reliable batteries, windmills are a big step down from nuclear power and fossil fueled power.
Electric vehicles would be competitive with much cheaper and lighter batteries.
I can’t think of any time in history when an important product (nuclear and fossil fueled power stations) were replaced by products that are worse (solar panels and windmills).
This could only happen with leftist government intervention: Subsidies, tax credits and mandates.
Leftists eventually ruin everything they touch.
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failure refers to replacing fossil fuels.
failure refers to it always blowing somewhere so that a connected network will always have free power.
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I used to hope that if we held off in the United States (at least my area of them) that we could learn from the mistakes of others. Somehow I don’t think we will lean. The real world impacts don’t seem to slow the momentum of the the true believers.
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That’s because a catastrophic cascading blackout hasn’t happened to “them” yet.
What the USA needs is a good “black start” experience at grid scale, with outages of 2 to 10 weeks for 80 Million people.
That’ll get “their” attention. I don’t wish for it, but it would not be a surprise if it happened.
What do the navel gazing elite think will happen in NYC, Chicago, Atlanta, Houston, LA, etc, after a week of no power?
People will riot, and a ham sandwich will be worth more than a Platinum credit card.
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Lance
A good friend of mine has the same logic as you. He actively wants coal stations to close quickly and the then total disaster that is renewable generation to be exposed quickly for the sham it is.
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From my current understanding of what Trump is doing, he is carrying out that exercise on the scale of the entire economy. That is the only way people (the ones who aren’t paying attention already, anyway) will see what the deep state and central bankers really want. Then they (the people) are supposed to respond with a resounding “no”, but I’m not too optimistic about that part! People are sheep!
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Lance,
You mean something like happened in Venezuela some time ago.
That was nasty.
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So far as I know blackouts are already happening. Controlled blackouts, as major consumers are being required to cut consumption when the system is fully loaded.
It is inevitable under present policy that at some time control measures will fail to satisfy demand and that control will be lost.
The longer it takes for that to happen the greater the damage that will be done when it does happen.
And the good citizens of NYC, Chicago, Atlanta & all those must hope that it happens somewhere else first.
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cross posted in sorrow and sadness and despair at https://freedomaustralia.freeforums.net/thread/1064/politicians-steal-wind-beneath-wings?page=1&scrollTo=2398
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Talk about destructive theft!
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The story in Texas leading up to the February blackout disaster should be familiar: The rules designed to promote unreliable wind necessarily meant less reliable electricity generation and the grid could only survive with massive blackouts. People died in the cold, in their homes.
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Rolling blackouts, increased power costs, people freezing in their homes.
What part is not what the socialists want?
Never vote for the Left, folks. Never vote Left.
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Worth repeating Klem, NEVER. VOTE. LEFT.
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This says everything you need to know about the current (an unfortunate but appropriate pun) sense of responsibility there is at senior levels of leadership in almost every sector of the marketplace outside China. There is a lack of even mediocre let alone good leadership which, when coupled with a tremendous desire not to be a victim of the unpleasant results of speaking the truth, means disaster is never far away. People need to start producing the energy that trashes the complacency of politicians and their new middle class supporters and shows them that climate catastrophe styled extortion is not just a lie but a very unnecessary lie when it comes to a greener planet, and that we will no longer tolerate such lies.
We have nuclear and so why don’t we start using it to replace the older generators and buy time to find alternative energy sources which really do work and don’t just waste people’s hard earned cash.
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I have a quick story about the lack of leadership in the U.S. right now, and one that you will not be able to find anywhere in the U.S. media because it comes via some well-placed people sickened by it.
When Trump came to office a large number of senior government officials left voluntarily because they didn’t wish to work for Trump — actually it was stronger than that, but we all know the story. Now they are returning, and despite having had perfectly good jobs elsewhere the past four years, they are demanding four years of back pay plus reinstatement at several grades higher because they would have advanced in job if not for the terrible tragedy of the Trump years. I am told they will get what they wish because there is no Presidential or cabinet leadership and the unions are completely in charge. These Biden years, like Obama, are going to be awfully good for government and rent seekers.
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“So, on this day, every single wind plant in Australia cannot match the delivery from HALF of the oldest coal fired plant in the Country.”
What a jewell you have in Tony! I check out his post daily just to see your score. I saw on wednesday that wind produced ave. 3.1% of demand and at its lowest 1.2%. That alone is enough to expose the deceit perpetrated in the 1990’s to enable the
1999 Kyoto Agreement, that “renewables” could possibly replace fossil fuels as the prime energy source for modern industrial civilisation. This untruth has sustained the Global Warming Narrative for 25 Years and I am truly greatfull for you, particularly
those in SA for testing this myth to destruction. Tony’s work may yet enable you to pull back from the brink. The USA is about to take a step towards disintegration whilst Germany, at the moment of realisation of the disaster, may have just followed the US over the edge and with it the entire EU.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/legal-blow-for-merkel-s-climate-plan-as-german-greens-surge/ar-BB1gaIR2?ocid=Peregrine
Here in the UK , of course, we are more concerned with who paid for the PM’s wallpaper than the gross unstability of OUR grid , which cannot withstand the collapse of the continental connectors.
This could be the year that the Global Warming Farce at last is brought to face its own contradictions and is exposed for the insanity it purveys. I am actually looking forward to COP26 . November in Glasgow – so appropriate.
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As the German court rules that Germany is not doing enough to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the reality is that whatever Germany or the EU or the US or Australia do about emissions is pointless, even if CO2 were the climate control knob.
Oxford has a nice graph which shows, to my eyeballs, that during the recent 15 years ALL of the increase of CO2 emissions was generated by China, India and other Asian nations. Those countries have chosen to grow, and not commit economic suicide.
https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/annual-co-emissions-by-region.png
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I looked hard for Australia on that chart but couldn’t find it.
I think we’re part of that thin purple line at the top labeled “Oceania”.
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I hope that every single one of those ugly wind turbines blighting the countryside near GLA airport are not turning as the COP26 begins! They were pretty static the last time we flew in there.
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Every single one IS not turning; oh dear!
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All that you need to complete the analogy to the Texas fiasco in February is to have the media and politicians claim that because Liddell was not up to filling the gap left by wind, then the entire blame for power shortfall belongs to Liddell.
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Stupid is as stupid does. At the moment the West is on a self-destructive path for embarking on the emissions reduction train. Those of us who are awake know its destination; over the cliff, and we desperately want to get off it but can’t as we are forced to stay on board with the crowd, mostly thanks to our state and federal governments. Only time will tell if we the people rise up and do something to get that train to change direction. China and Russia must be laughing at us for being on that train. They are on a different train heading in the opposite direction. The problem for us is if we don’t make the train change direction, we will be crying as they come in to pick up the pieces. We will then have only ourselves to blame due to voter apathy and not exercising our right at least to send a clear message if not depose our governments at the ballot box to force the train to change direction. We the people have the power but thus far we the people are asleep while the train is racing towards that cliff. I sincerely hope something happens to wake people up so we are allowed to alter the train’s direction by switching to a different track.
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I should imagine china and Russia are getting very nervous.
They must think the west is playing some very clever long game that they can’t work out.
The laughter starts when they realise we are as mad under the surface as we appear ON the surface.
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In that case take these stupid sanctions off Russia. They only serve to drive them further away. I, and many others see this marginalisation as intentional. There is a large element in the conservative/military caste that wish to keep Russia a proscribed state.
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Peter the PM is listening to your complaint and will make an effort not to appear stupid.
‘Coal-fired power stations will be paid for generation capacity to keep them operating as part of a major overhaul of the electricity system.’ Oz
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Peter the PM? Has there been another change?
As for subsidising coal-fired power stations WHY? It is politician’s subsidising their choice** of generation that has made this mess. Just stop subsidies for unreliable generators. And if that is too difficult to do, then charge variable generators for Grid Disruption.
**at our expense of course.
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If I were the PM I would place a larg tax on renewables and fine all companies who destabilise the grid with wind or solar power and place the directors of those companies in prison for conducting acts of terrorism.
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That would be politically incorrect.
‘Per capita, Australia is already the world’s biggest spender on wind and solar, two expensive electricity sources that have negative value because, supported by subsidies, they drive out lower-cost coal and gas. Our subsidy-supported national spending on wind and solar is twice that of Japan and the US, three times that of Germany and six times as much as China. Our $7 billion a year in subsidies to renewables represents a quarter of the spending on electricity.’
Spectator/Alan Moran
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Yes of course it’s politically incorrect. That’s why I could never be PM. I would be attacked by all the elites and special interest groups who support renewables and frown on fossil fuels and nuclear. Meanwhile China, Japan and others are building their coal fired power stations as though there is no tomorrow, in complete contrast to the so called push by the West to reduce their emissions to 0% as though there is no tomorrow. Either they have it wrong or we have it wrong. If they are wrong then we are doomed anyway, and if we are wrong then we are still doomed but in a different way. Either way the West will crash and burn unless they wake up to themselves and see what they are doing is pointless. If we wanted to be really serious about reducing emission to save the planet then the UN needs to force every country to cease building coal fired power stations and close down their existing ones immediately. Of course that is not going to happen for obvious reasons. It’s all a farce and more and more Westerners are falling for it. Stupid is as stupid does.
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Until global cooling reveals itself there is little we can do to persuade the masses that CO2 doesn’t cause global warming.
Don’t concern yourself, its only money and when the proverbial hits the fan we need to be ready. Nuclear power plants are forbidden, so coal and gas are our best options.
Gladys renewable zones (a sop to the brainwashed zealots) will be a litmus test for this free enterprise venture.
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We are naurally cooling. I think the cycles within the sun are heading towards a serious colder time.
Cold kills and we will be wishing CO2 would significantlywarm the planet.
The zealots will be claiming their accords worked.
Just like they fixed the ozone hole. It’s easy to treat problems that don’t exist.
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“Yes of course it’s politically incorrect. That’s why I could never be PM. ”
Come on! Up your sights!
Trump is only the latest to show it can be done
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In the UK you can rely on a high pressure parking itself in the wrong position during the winter, and the result is two consecutive weeks of no wind and no sun..
This makes renewable power somewhat sparse.
So what we do is get the media and govt to completely ignore this ( don’t mention the wind Major) and at the same time sacrifice vast sums of money to the weather gods.
It always works eventually, with the happy result that we will end up with even more solar panels and wind turbines that won’t work the next time the weather gods decide to be uncooperative.
Still, there’s alway biomass…..do you think people realise that means burning thousands of tons of wood pellets imported from America?
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We are in the same situation here in Northern NSW where the sub-tropical ridge ( high pressure belts) dominates our winter weather. Typically a stable cold regime with occasional incursions of cold air masses from the south. So, for long periods of time these wind towers remain inactive and useless. The array along the ranges west of Glen Innes extends for 40 kms and are to many an affront to nature.
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Visual pollution, killers that need even more ugly powerlines spread like spiderwebs held up buy even more ugly towers.
Often useless and with a huge carbon footprint to make for their short life. Economic disaster.
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https://catallaxyfiles.com/2021/04/28/hold-onto-your-hat/
UPDATE APPROACHING NOON
The wind has dropped to zero in Victoria and as near as you can go without getting to zero in SA and NSW. Hilariously, in Victoria brown coal has ramped up from 69% of local generation at 8am to 88% at present while hydro dropped from 24% to 1%. Saving water I suppose.
The flow from Tasmania has been reduced, also to save water presumably, at the expense of burning more coal to keep things going in Victoria, SA and NSW where we are leaning on Qld and Victoria.
In SA gas generation is down to 57% from 90% at breakfast.
This is possibly the lowest wind period in recent times.
Across the SE at 8am the wind is generating 490MW of power, that is 2% of the demand and 6% of plated capacity.
Queensland is contributing 300MW, NSW 150MW, SA the wind leader 18MW, Victoria with the most installed capacity 17MW and Tasmania, the battery of the nation 2.6MW.
WA is going ok in comparison, generating 132MW, that is 7% of their demand.
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Have any of these facts been made public by the MSM??
If they have its in very small print on page 14 mixed in with obituaries ( very fitting) or a smudged footnote under the Harvey Norman advertising.
Can’t see Our ABC broadcasting it either. The only TV coverage will be from Sky News’s “Outsiders” slot by Roman Dean.
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Rowan Dean…
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Spell check won’t apologise, but I will!
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Can’t see Our ABC broadcasting it either. The only TV coverage will be from Sky News’s “Outsiders” slot by Roman Dean.
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In the second graph “Energy production by source…” Wind, Solar and Water are not checked. Makes it hard to sustain your argument when the thing you are talking about is not included.
And the capacity factor for Liddell is around 30% according to the data provided by Tony, so it is comparable to wind.
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Solar is not shown which during the day at least produced around 40% at its peak. The post is about wind, which at midday was about 1.3% of total generation. Even today wind is just 8% or so a moment ago while coal is 75%.
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You lost credibility and the argument long ago.
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All you can do is chuckle, really. (us, not you)
Liddell is now 50 years old. Two of its Units are currently offline. the other two are running at half rat power, well 75% and 80%, still delivering 750MW in total into the grid.
Please Peter Fitzroy, oh please, find me a wind plant still in operation after 50 years ….. anywhere on the Planet.
Tony.
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Tony I showed you a norwegian wind plant yesterday, it is 44 years old and still running and producing as it did when built, none of its blades are down for maintenance. The idea that coal is always at 100% of nameplate is false, no matter the age of the plant. You and your pals never want to compare like with like.
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Seriously Peter Fitzroy, are you really serious.
This is ONE wind turbine of 2MW Nameplate
A wind plant consists of a ….. number of turbines, so this is NOT a wind plant.
In the exercise below I gave you all something to do. At that same exercise, just hover your mouse over the position showing the largest wind plant in the Country, Coopers Gap and see that at its maximum, it’s delivering around 390MW at maximum from a Nameplate of 452MW. That’s as good as it gets because the plant will never deliver its full Nameplate at any time, even for one five minute recording period. The same applies for all wind PLANTS.
Oh, Peter, and this is taken directly from that same site that you didn’t link to.
Oh, and another thing, as you are always so incredibly correct with everything you write, that Tvind single UNIT is in Denmark, not Norway.
Peter Fitzroy – Open mouth, change feet.
Tony.
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Not fair Tony.
You are dealing with facts.
Fitz deals in fairy dust.
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one turbine is a plant, you are confusing wind farm and wind plant. But I answered your question, fact, and I mentioned that it was operating at the same level (50%CF for all that time, fact. dodge all you want
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The point about Liddell that matters is not it’s age, but that the government has created an unfair playing field, specifically to advantage wind and punish coal. If there was a free market, where people are not forced to choose wind power over coal, the capacity factor of Liddell would be up near the 80s and 90s.
The subsidies for Wind are killing the capacity of reliable coal, not the age of the plant.
Old coal can be maintained and still make a profit. But the government has also allowed predatory capitalism and a few giant corps own different generation assets that should be competing with each other. Instead the corps choose to run down and close one cheap asset so as to make higher profits from their other assets.
When is a billion dollar asset worth more in the trash can? When the government screws the free market.
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100% agree with allowing a level playing field. IT matters little to me the technology used, but I want all costs, including those which are currently externalised to be accounted in the price the generator is charging.
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Peter you say:
No you’re totally wrong!
One turbine is a Wind Turbine!
A Group of Wind Turbines is a Wind Mill Farm!
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Oh dear. Can you bear it.
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“one turbine is a plant” One tree is a forest.
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Peter, among all your other falsehoods, you are trying to claim 50% CF for the Tvindkraft 44-year-old turbine? According to my information, by 2015 after 40 years it had been running (generating electricity) about half the time, and had produced a total of 20 million kWh. That is an average of 57 kWh per hour (i.e. 57 kW) over 40 years, compared to its de-rated nameplate maximum of 900 kW, which gives us a more realistic and believable capacity factor of 6.3%. (if you only count the time it was actually operating, then you can try to stretch the “operating” capacity factor to 12%, for half the time) The web site says it sends half its electricity to the grid and the other half to an immersion heater, so it’s not clear whether the immersion heater output was included in that 20 GWh total, but I will assume it was unless anyone can correct me.
I will give them props for keeping the thing running for 44 years, though, that’s quite impressive. They didn’t say exactly how much they spent to keep it running, or build it in the first place, but they’ve apparently only had to replace the blades once and the blade bearings a few times. It was also built with volunteer labour, so see how far you can get with economics like that.
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“Please Peter Fitzroy, oh please, find me a wind plant still in operation after 50 years ….. anywhere on the Planet.”
Unfortunately the first wind farm of the modern era was not built until 1980 so still about 9 years to go. The world’s oldest operating wind plant, in Tvind in Jutland, Denmark, has been generating power for 41 years.
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Tony, even at your age your efficiency rate is 99.9999% better than PF’s
Keep up the good work !
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PF… every time you hit the keyboard , youmake a bigger fool of yourself !
The “second graph” is showing the contribution of Fossil Fuel sources only..
Hence no wind , solar, Hydro, etc
I suggest you read the data, think about what it means, and contemplate it for a few hours, BEFORE you consider commenting. !
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And that is point, no contribution from renewables – because that would spoil the story
Also – we are talking about a specific period of time, but are not shown the wind speed for each location, nor are we shown how much power supplied was via contract (I know this will be hard but…)
All generators try to lock in long term supply contracts, all distributors want to avoid the situation where they have contracted for more supply than demand. So you have two markets, contract and spot. Renewables mostly operate on the spot market, while coal is mainly in the contract market. Still with me?
Now as demand fluctuates during the day you will see the spot market change to supply the difference between contracted supply and demand.
So without those facts, all you have is false picture of what is going on.
However, I do know that ad hom is your go to
025
Get over yourself PF. The point of the first graph is “renewable assets”. The point of the second is “fossil fuels”.
Showing wind and solar contributions doesn’t spoil the story, is IS the story.
220
As I pointed out, unless you include all the conditions, including contracts, demand, and the generating costs for solar, coal, wind, hydro etc all you are doing is tilting the board.
113
Peter Fitzroy,
The point of the story is the sheer scale of the proportion of the demand requirement delivered by fossil fuel generation required on the day as a result of the lack of any meaningful contribution from all that installed wind generation capacity and therefore the insignificance of that contribution from wind across the 24-hour day.
Please don’t continue to try to confound the issue. Stay on topic.
However, should you want to, which should be the topic for a separate article, to include ALL costs, don’t forget, as I point out at #27.1 below, to include ALL CO2 emissions resulting from the mining, milling, refining, manufacture, installation, and ongoing support, (or backup), of these intermittent renewables.
And don’t forget to include a carefully-derived estimate of the costs of the clean-up and remediation of the mining sites in those countries where these toys are manufactured, where such niceties are not observed. A proper, accurate audit just might make Victoria’s brown coal generation look benign by comparison.
Are you up for it, Mr Fitzroy?
Paul Miskelly
160
Tilting what board exactly Fitzroy?
Methinks you are desperately trying to fog up the obvious. We don’t need a single contract clause to see what that graph and this post shows — that wind is too unreliable to be worth using.
151
Such a simple statement, so difficult to get across.
50
Fossil fuel sources are checked. Water, wind and solar bring it up to the black line. The total is still there. Nobody was being dishonest but yourself. There is no flaw with what was written.
110
sounds like one desperately clutching at straws , any straws
50
Peter Fitzroy,
I notice that you repeat, mantra-like, that wind’s capacity factor is 30 percent.
Do try to understand that electricity grids operate second-by-second. Supply and demand must balance second-by-second. That’s electric power engineering 101.
To suggest that an average value for wind, quoted across a full year, when comparing it with Liddell’s output, ON THIS DAY, is therefore irrelevant.
On the day in question, what was the total wind capacity factor?
(As far as total demand is concerned, the C.F. of the total wind plant capacity is what is relevant, not that of individual wind farms.)
Well, have a look at:
https://anero.id/energy/wind-energy/2021/April/28
Do you see that bold black line on the chart? That’s the line linking the 5-minute time points through the day, and therefore showing the total wind Capacity Factor through the day.
Do you notice that the day starts with a total wind CF of somewhat less than 16 percent, falls to a minimum of 3.8 percent, then staggers back up to around 15 percent?
At no time ON THIS DAY does wind’s CF come anywhere near the long-term average of some 29.7 percent. (Anton can provide the correct value.)
Are you beginning to understand that, in quoting the wind industry’s oft-claimed 30 percent number, you have been misinformed?
Further, it doesn’t matter what kind of spin you would like to put on it, wind’s performance throughout this day was pathetic. If wind, solar and hydro had been the only sources of generation, (as would be the result of a “transition” to 100 percent renewables), then, on this day, grid-wide blackouts would have been the result.
Do you need to be told that recovery from such an event – a grid-wide blackout – can take weeks, resulting in deaths and otherwise enormous suffering for many that survive it?
Paul Miskelly
330
Bang On, Mr. Paul.
Grid scale power requires that generation meet the connected load every second. Not an average over hours/days/weeks.
Grid collapse occurs between 5 and 300 seconds if generation cannot meet load.
voltage collapse, frequency collapse, generation collapse. in that order.
In less than 10 minutes, you can be back in 1870. For weeks, months, or years. That is what is in play.
180
“. . . electricity grids operate second-by-second. Supply and demand must balance second-by-second. That’s electric power engineering 101.”
My guess is that the rapid changes in power from wind facilities is a bigger problem than going way low and staying low. See this issue in the western USA:
https://transmission.bpa.gov/business/operations/wind/baltwg.aspx
Moves in 5 minute readings for the past 7 days.
John
80
Star pick back again! You beaut.
40
Peter, if half of Liddell’s capacity is off line because it was retired, and the remaining half is at 80% capacity factor, then that means it’s dispatchable capacity is some 40% of original capacity or 80% of available capacity.
That’s still 750 MW that Wind cannot provide on any predictable, reliable, dispatchable, basis.
Oh yes. That “crippled up old coal plant” is still more productive than all of the installed wind capacity. And without it, SA would be in total blackout. Tell me. What does all that non-dispatchable wind and solar do about that, eh?
Please address the pertinent issues of meeting actual grid load in real time.
Failing to do so would either be duplicitous, ignorant, naive, or intentional.
Prithee, do, have a very fine day.
210
That should settle the matter Lance. Peter will now acknowledge truth and common sense.
190
hahaha. You dry wit you, Glen. ;- )
150
Thanks for a good laugh Jo and Glen. 😉
70
Certainly, I agree, but I was quoting Anton – who used the original nameplate.
17
Okay then, while you would like Nameplate mentioned, how about this then.
At Peak power time on Thursday evening, we have a total Nameplate for wind for ALL of Australia of 8132MW. ALL of that wind was delivering 560MW at a Capacity Factor of 6.9%
Just in Victoria alone there are 10 brown coal fired Units. One is offline YallournW Unit 4. That leaves the remaining nameplate for just those 9 Units of 4280MW. At that same Peak power time at 6PM, those nine Units were delivering 4460MW at a Capacity Factor of 104.2%.
Every one of those Units is (way) older than the oldest wind plant in the Country.
Nine brown coal fired Units – 4460MW
63 Wind plants, (or seriously, if we use your terminology) around 4200 wind plants, (if one Unit/Turbine is a ‘Plant’. – 560MW.
I would say a good word about them ….. if they actually worked.
They don’t. That’s the whole purpose of discussing it like this.
Add on the Unit which is offline in Victoria, then the Nameplate is 4660MW, so the adjusted CF is now 95.7%, even with a Unit not delivering.
95.7% CF from ancient old clunkers, and 6.9% from state of the art wind turbines.
You be the judge!
Tony.
190
Okay then, and I’m surprised no one has mentioned this.
Because of the unstable variability of wind generation, it has forced up the cost of electricity.
However, everybody gets paid the same amount for the electricity they deliver to the grid.
So, over that one hour around the Peak power time, the (approximate) average cost for generated power is around $100/MWH.
So, the brown coal plants delivered 4460MW for the hour, hence 4460MWH at $100 per MWH, so $446,000 shared by those two power plants, Loy Yang (A and B) and Yallourn W, based on the power delivered by each plant.
Wind generation delivered 560MW for the hour, hence 560MW, and at the same $100/MWH, that’s a total of $56,000, umm, split up amongst 67 wind plants.
Chump change, eh! (well, for wind plants anyway)
Tony.
90
Just checked nemwatch and wind isn’t doing much better as I post this comment. Nothing unusual here of course.
40
G’day Ted,
Looks like there’ll be some variable winds over our southerly units tomorrow.
http://www.bom.gov.au/australia/charts/4day_col.shtml
Cheers
Dave B
00
If only the experts had declared blowing up coal fired power stations was dedicated to Aeolus, the wind god …
“Aeolus, in the works of Homer, controller of the winds and ruler of the floating island of Aeolia.
In the Odyssey Aeolus gave Odysseus a favourable wind and a bag in which the unfavourable winds were confined.
Odysseus’ companions opened the bag; the winds escaped and drove them back to the island.”
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Aeolus-Homeric-character
Perhaps if they throw a few virgins into the nearest volcano as well, that might work, though, like wind farms, the 97% science is dodgy.
80
Where to find the required virgins, Travis.
90
Not in Australia. That’s why Jesus wasn’t born here – they couldn’t find three wise men and a virgin.
50
When the wind does blow, it forces reliable generators to cut back production, reducing their average utilisation and therefore their profitability. For April, average wholesale prices ha been around $50/MWhr. On Wednesday, per AEMO, daily spot prices rose to around $90/MWhr in the southern states where most windmills have been installed, as additonal dispatchable generators that were suddenly called on to meet demand bid up prices.
Note that wind generators also receive large scale renewable energy certificates with a current spot price of $35/MWhr when they do deliver (that is built into the retail price), so their profitability is greatly enhanced compared to the reliable coal and gas generators.
81
Exactly; with the RET they’re paid twice which turns a loss making business into a profitable one as the Hepburn annual report bears out.
10
Ha, you are mere amateurs at throwing money away on wind failure.
Here in the UK we recently went more than a week with no worthwhile contribution, it’s been very poor for over a month.
See “Monthly Nuclear/Coal/CCGT/Wind (GW)”
https://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
The BBC has not mentioned this, it did report the one day it was working well though!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56657299
90
Give us more time. Australia is often years behind other Western nations. At least we have that advantage 🙂
50
Please Mr Grim, tell us how to use that site, gridwatch. How do I see those graphs? Clicking on them doesnt work for me…
20
It just displays all OK for me, so I don’t know sorry – try a different browser/settings?
Same info “Past month (daily averages)”:
https://grid.iamkate.com/
Or “This Month (Hour Averages)”:
https://gridwatch.co.uk/
10
Hmm. On dissenter and Chrome gridwatch shows 16 tiny strip graphs in a microscopic font which I long to enlarge. But alas, all that good data is trapped inside a page that won’t let me click and release those graphs. :- (
20
Yes sorry, they do not enlarge, didn’t realise that was the issue.
There is a data download option at the top of the screen, never tried it myself, but if you want to try and graph it out yourself?
10
I use MS Edge — works fine.
20
IOS / Safari…. finger zoom no problem !
00
Windows 10
Winlogo + to turn on magnifier
Winlogo escape to turn it off
10
Tried to post this earlier without text so likely in the spam bicket
https://mywindowshub.com/a-complete-list-of-magnifier-keyboard-shortcuts-in-windows-10/
10
Screenshot without zooming in.
https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/b331/kevster1346/ukgrid.png?width=450&height=278&crop=fill
00
Interesting that the UK demand ( 30-35 GW), is not significantly greater than Australia (25-30 GW )? Despite the difference in population and Industrial base. ??
00
This is Andrew’s Aneroid site at this link, and here, I have just ticked the wind generation tab, so it will open up directly to just the power generation from the wind sector. Now it opens up to the default, and that is the current situation. Scroll down a little till you see the second image, the graph. At the top right of the graph, you see % and MW, so tick MW. (and here, the percentage is the CF) It’s in real time, so it is updated every five minutes.
This graph has rolled from Thursday night into Friday morning now, showing the most recent 24 hours up to this time.
Okay, as you look at that graph, the black line shows the total for all Australia. (AEMO)
Now, under that you see all the coloured lines for each individual wind plant.
You see two coloured lines rolling over the top of all the colours.
These two wind plants are Coopers Gap in Southern Queensland, and the Sapphire wind plant in the Northern Tableland of Northern NSW. There’s only one wind plant in the Country further North than these two, and that’s the Emerald Hill plant in Far North Queensland.
Now under the graph, you see the codes for all the wind plants, and they (sort of) correlate to the name of the plant.
The exercise.
The code for Coopers Gap is COOPGWF, and the code for Sapphire is SAPHWF1.
Now, untick those two boxes alongside each code and the graph subtracts those totals, and the lower black line is now the sub total. (minus those two)
Those two wind plants are providing almost 36% of all the wind generation in Australia.
And incidentally, the main text speaks specifically of the situation on Wednesday.
The situation on Thursday was EXACTLY the same for total power generation. So here we have TWO days running with pitiful wind generation, and at Thursday’s low point, wind was only delivering 1.1% of all Australia’s generated power.
Tony.
290
scratches head, why ignore the best producers atm?
022
Coal?
20
Geez TonyfromOz – a bloke is trying to do some computer work and you post that! I’ve just spent 1/2 hour playing with that site. It’s amazing. It’s something I always thought should have been published for all to see years ago, especially how us taxpayers are providing the dosh for the subsidies as well as paying for the inflated electricity bills. AEMO should have been under legislation to provide that info for all to see.
130
And Ross,
Nobody paid Andrew to do it. It’s all out of his own pocket.
If anyone is interested, it started as a means “to show Dad how the wind energy data should be displayed”, and made readily available to anyone.
That was back in 2007, from memory, and it sort-of grew like the proverbial Topsy from that.
And, no, he has no association whatsoever with the electricity supply industry, and never has.
Regards,
Paul Miskelly
180
Paul, and he’s done the nation a great service. Please thank him from all of us.
If the AEMO or the government wanted to brag about renewables, you can be sure they would have made a site like his long ago.
It’s no accident that they haven’t.
180
Here’s the Wiki graph for all of the countries 1970 to 2018 and note that combined EU + USA average co2 emissions about the same as 50 years ago.
When will they wake up to China, India + other developing countries SOARING emissions.Just look at the GRAPH. Good luck to the developing countries but why should the Western countries BEGGAR themselves and why use the MOST TOXIC, DILUTE, RUINABLES?
And every 20 years the entire TOXIC mess has to be thrown into landfills and the ongoing TOXIC disaster then wrecks our environment both below and above the ground FOREVER.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions#/media/File:World_fossil_carbon_dioxide_emissions_six_top_countries_and_confederations.png
70
This failure of unreliable wind generators is very good news indeed because it helps generate awareness of the uselessness of these devices whose only function is to transfer wealth from the poor to the Elites.
However, the failure wasn’t extensive enough. Until the grid completely fails for a long period, nothing will be done.
One or two proper coal power stations need to be destroyed due to government policy and then we’ll be set.
110
Agreed David !..
.. we really need a major failure of the grid power supply to wake up the masses.
Something that the Media and Authorities cannot ignor…Force some difficult questions to be asked, even if it means some economic pain and social chaos.
Texas should have been a wake upi call, but it will be white washed and forgotten about in the name of Politics.
Ironicly, i suspect we still have sufficient Fossil generation to prevent that senario occurring , and “Rolling blackouts” is the most we might experience!
60
I have been saying this for a long time. The only time people will take notice is when the lights go out, the fridges cease to function, the sewage works stop operating, etc, etc Until that happens please be patient….
60
I know they don’t teach history anymore but there is a very good reason windmills were rapidly dumped first time around, as soon as a reliable steam engine was invented over 200 years ago.
160
Even earlier in Brittany with tide mills in the 1700’s. They have big tides here 10-14 metres and reliable twice a day, although not available when convenient like steam engines.
The world’s first large modern tide power station was built there on the Rance river.
50
Don’t forget all this BS and fra-d of their RUINABLES push is only because we are supposed to be facing donkey Biden’s EXISTENTIAL threat.
But Dr Christy has put their idiocy to the test and found ZIP evidence for their PANIC. And ditto for another score of reputable scientists and researchers in recent years.
https://www.thegwpf.com/putting-climate-change-claims-to-the-test/
50
Not only Wednesday – its been the whole week here in Victoria!! Windless, warm days normally associated with March weather. The whole state has been running on coal, in the majority, virtually the whole week. Monday and Tuesday were also cloudy so that means nil solar. The wind will return on Saturday/ Sunday.
80
We’re supposed to exist in the future on DILUTE, TOXIC, RUINABLES but SUPER EMITTER China etc can do what they please and emit record levels of co2 for another 40 years?
Here’s the best summary of Biden’s so called climate summit from Andrew Bolt. A parade of misfits and idiots and not one climate scientist to be found.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/04/27/andrew-bolt-on-bidens-climate-summit/
30
The Main Stream Media hypes the batteries that are being installed at a great cost, however, these batteries are not to provide power back-up – they are required to provide grid stability.
A battery installation that costs $2 Billion only provides around 5 minutes of power if used in a backup role.
60
Phil
If you do the maths on these billion dollar batteries they do not add up. Its clear that they would only be viable if there were either massive power prices in place, or we have massive subsidies going to their owners.
Looks like we may well get both in the next few years…
60
They are also hyping the concept of a “virtual power station” whereby everyone has battery packs at home which are shared by everyone else on the grid.
It’s a good way to hide the cost of centralised grid scale batteries.
40
Energy Australia and Alinta Energy are both owned by Chinese companies
Both are energy generators and retailers, owning crucial assets in Australia
The largest windfarm in NSW is owned and operated by another Chinese company
Experts fear Chinese could launch cyber attacks to disrupt infrastructure
It comes as Canberra-Beijing tensions reach new low in wake of coronavirus
Could be a good time to build some more coal-fired power stations, just like what China is doing.
80
Years ago (early 2000’s) when the Challicum Hills wind plant was built here in Western Victoria most people thought wind power was probably ok. You know, generates electricity “free” from the wind and those landowners get a nice return on having the towers on their property. We live in a particularly windy region- so somewhat ideal for wind electricity generation. In fact there’s a set of low hills between Ballarat and Ararat (where Challicum Hills and some other wind plants have been built) on the south side of the Western Highway. Virtually bang on the Great Dividing Range. There was an opportunity back then to maybe erect thousands of wind towers between these locations- a distance of about 100km. The hills used for theses towers are generally low productivity farming country anyway, even for wool production. So tower rent would have benefitted a lot of landowners. Linked up all the towers in this area and built a major transmission line to supply the grid from this one area. Having all the wind plants in this area would have been better for weather forecasting/power generation. But no, what has happened since is we have wind plants now spread virtually all over Southern Victoria and Gippsland. All built at great distances apart. Extremely BAD planning. Because now, the AEMO or Vic govt have decided that transmissions lines need to be erected to link these far flung wind plants. Plans for a line between the Waubra wind plant and Melbourne and now being opposed by local farming groups (where the line crosses over /under their farming land). It’s basically a dogs breakfast in terms of long term planning. A lot of money spent, when Hazelwood Coal fired plant should have been retained or upgraded for probably about 1/2 the cost. I think at one time Hazelwood could have been bought for around $200m from ENGIE.
70
Ross,
A little bit of analysis shows that your proposed “solution” is also hopelessly flawed.
Go to Andrew’s wind-energy pages on any day or month and untick all the wind farms except those in that region of Western Victoria. Do you see that the combined output for just those wind farms is, if anything, even more intermittent, erratic, and hence grid-destabilising, than that for the present widely-dispersed lot, which is itself completely unacceptable?
Concentrate even more wind farms in your desired region, as you propose, and the result would be, if anything, even greater chaos on the grid.
I note that you have completely ignored the profound health effects on those in the region, effects resulting from the incessant noise of these things, effects whose impact would only be exacerbated by installing more of these monsters.
Proper planning would have resulted, I suggest, in refusing to contemplate this technology at the outset, and instead concentrate on the upgrade or replacement of such as Hazelwood with more efficient coal or gas fired generation. There would have been a tangible, measurable reduction in CO2 emissions as a result, and no destabilising of the grid.
What is completely ignored by planners, because these toys are fully imported, is that it requires enormous quantities of fossil fuels to be burnt to produce and install wind and solar technologies, let alone the ongoing fossil fuel burn in the need to back them up. But any attempt at a proper audit of such emissions is inconvenient to the virtue signallers.
So, Ross, filling up Ararat and surrounds with wind turbines, rather than spreading them around, is also no “solution”.
Regards,
Paul Miskelly
70
Paul, you have interpreted my piece incorrectly. I hate wind turbines. Not initially as my contribution points out, but it developed from about the mid 00’s. I have worked on farms where they are sited, so know how huge they are. I have known about the “Waubra syndrome” for years. I also have learned about capacity factors and most other facets of these monstrosities. I’m not a big fan, you might say! (get it?)
40
Hi Ross,
I didn’t miss your point, which is that even the planning process was a miserable failure – a “dog’s breakfast” – as you called it. I guess I concentrated rather more on the utter futility of any planning process should it have been even halfway decent, given the total failure of these intermittent-output technologies.
Got it: you’re not part of wind’s “fan club”!
Anyway, I’m glad that you are discovering the utility of Andrew’s site.
He has a particular ability to present complex data in ways that the rest of us might understand it.
Best regards,
Paul Miskelly
40
No worries, I’m assuming Andrew is a brother or close relation? If so, tell him “well done”.
10
With the latest German technology for lignite (brown coal) stations, an up-graded Hazelwood would have had 37.5% less emissions, but it wouldn’t have paid because of government policies (incl. Federal).
I wonder about the technology developed in Victoria of up-grading brown coal by compression would go? I guess the Victorian government would ban it just as they did when it was proposed to export it. Of course it might cut emissions from existing stations in Victoria only by 23% while maintaining reliability. Do PI Dan wouldn’t want that.
30
The idiotic Labor government, when it gained office in 2014, put a tax on coal. They have to be anti-coal to get the green preference votes in inner suburban Melbourne. But, you probably already knew that. Trouble is, the LNP are a light shade of green as well. There seems like there is a lot of current technologies that would make coal not only more efficient but also “cleaner”. Like the compression technology you mentioned which seemed feasible, particularly for export. But, who in politics would every go down that track?
20
I just had a look a the SMH reporting on the ESB and then went to the comments.
Total delusion.
We have climate change warriors making attacks on “coal fetishes” etc. This is actually a serious situation. These dunces simply cannot understand that an intermittent (perfectly illustrated here by Jo) energy source CANNOT power our grid without something else backing it up. And the only “something else” we have is fossil fuel.
The problem is that these idiots vote and when they vote for madness unfortunately they take us all down with them.
The big thing we need to do is remove any subsidies for any future renewables developments. These are the main revenue stream for the wind power carpetbaggers – they are in the business of harvesting govt subsidies, not actually producing power…
130
A couple of days ago I saw an article from the Climate Council or some similar body, claiming that the fossil fuel producers and others are subsidized by the Government for producing fossil fuels. It seems that businesses are able to claim back fuel taxes paid for fuel used in non public road business operations. The climate council claims the payments as subsidies. In the real world, fuel taxes are payments by road users for the use of the roads, to provide funds for road and infrastructure payments, and refunding fuel taxes for non road use is a refund not a subsidy.
Of course it’s different when it goes the other way. A few days ago I received an invitation on Facebook, to send a petition to the Victorian Government urging them not to charge EV users who drive on public roads, a payment for the use of the roads. That’s a subsidy.
70
A couple of years ago the ABC had a news item about a farmer on the west coast of Tasmania who leased some of his land to a business to install wind turbines and generate electricity to send to the mainland.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2019-04-08/beef-farmers-tasmania-wind-farm-dreams-reality/10976378.
The article says the turbines work any time the there is wind above 18 kph and the wind speed averages 30 kph year round. At the time I checked BOM records and for the area and saw that the average wind speed at the nearest BOM site, Strahan, was 18 kph. So there is a problem.
Also from the article, Energy analyst Marc White says transmissions costs can make or break the economics of a windfarm. It seems to me that relying on average wind speed can make or break the economics of a wind farm. In spite of what the climate believers think, average climate conditions, including wind, are not the normal weather. Average wind speed is calculated from actual wind speeds between 0 and gale force.
100
Lest we forget, soon we’ll be plugging in ALL our cars and trucks.
The extra load shouldn’t be a problem
We’ll be happily driving (and delivering essentials … like food) on roads freshly paved with good intentions.
70
The latest Nissan Leaf EV has been released according to the Daily Telegraph today, price increased to $65K but a bigger capacity battery increases theoretical range by about 100 kilometres to just under 400 kilometres …. variable energy factors ignored and that the battery operating system stops discharge below 10 per cent of capacity.
But the great news is a three-way charging-discharging system will enable households to plug in and use Leaf energy as required, I assume as required means as blackouts increase across the electricity grid in future?
The new Leaf scored a three star out of 5 stars and the home power feature was listed.
10
So, there is a $10,500 upcharge for the extra 22 kWh battery capacity.
Meaning pure cell capacity is costed at $500 /kWh..
…in other words , over $30,000 of the total car price. ( $60,500). Is the cost of the battery cells alone !… ( The complete assembled “pack” will cost much more ! )
What happened to the forecast huge reduction in battery costs we have be prommissed for the past 10 years that the Leaf has been available ?
20
I suggest that everyone commenting here does a bit more than just complain. I will be forwarding a summary of this post to Matt Kean, Minister for Energy in NSW and a wind farm proponent, to John Barillaro, leader of the NSW Nationals, to Craig Kelly, Independent realist and student of facts and data, David Gillespie, my local member and a National in the Federal government. They may not respond and their gate keepers might destroy the email but they cannot claim ignorance when the power grid goes pear shaped. The more people who pester them with the reality the more they might realise that the folk out there could not give a fig about global warming and that those that do are ignorant.
60
Dr Gillespie MP has acknowledged emails sent by me regarding electricity generation and the wind turbine farce, and does often acknowledge receipt with more than a formal acknowledgement email.
40
Unless common sense and rational analysis is undertaken then current path will lead economic destruction of Australia
Is there something wrong with the greens, left leaning politicians and the ABC, msm who have demonstrated they just can’t think critically or rationally
90
When cost meets the benefit and the latter is a foot tall.
No amount of incentives will make wind blow any different.
The whole concept of ROI in this case isn’t motivated by business sense since Australia never had an energy problem.
Evident is the stress put on the reliable generators to fill the gaping energy holes.
What is the added cost to reliable energy generators as a result of this?
50
The Impossibility of windmills – short and well put together video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7PHUMd7PYA
20
Leak Junior has nailed it – see the link.
The cartoon shows a dad and his son, both clad in animal fur, pushing a wheelbarrow of bones past the ruins of Yallourn Power Plant. The son asks “What was Power, Dad?”, and the old man replies “An obstacle on the road to a brighter future, son.”
30
No link – duh! Try this:
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/cartoons/johannes-leak-cartoons/image-gallery/de8f7d34d6dcf6dbb2f01239663cedd7#&gid=1&pid=24
00
At 5.30am this morning in Vic, wind delivered 7% of generation, brown coal 93%, solar (of course) zero. Those ageing brown coal plants were operating at 95% of capacity, delivering a reliable 4,480 MW to keep the power on throughout the night. But come midday, and they are forced to cut back to 3,700 MW to allow intermittent wind(5%) and solar (30%) into the grid.
Now can anyone explain how a stable grid can be maintained if wind and solar provide 50% of generation on average?
70
Renewable energy businesses must be helped to produce profits.
Too bad about the other generators that are reliable and generate most of our electricity all of the time.
sarc.
30
Robber:
It’s simple, South Australia does it. You have enough gas fired “peaking plants” to supply + more reliable gas fired generation (for when those are down for maintenance) + lots of diesel generators AND you have interconnectors to bring lots of coal-fired electricity into the State.
SEE that’s how you get REDUCED carbon dioxide emissions. Is a sarc tab necessary?
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The Australian Institute Of Company Directors, according to a report published in The Australian today, are very concerned about climate change and want the government to do more about it.
Here are the key people;
https://aicd.companydirectors.com.au/about
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Here’s looking forward to the Royal Commission into Company Directors Who Neglected Their Fiduciary Duties by Misdirecting Investment Towards Commercially Unprofitable RE in the Hope of Getting Laid More.
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I’d like to help the Green/Anti-Human critics of modern society justify the increasing costs of energy and other things.
Let’s be honest. The Enviro crowd has a never ending series of theoretical threats to human survival, only solved by bigger government and higher taxes for a plethora of emergencies only recently profitable or viable.
So. Let’s cut the crap. Every cost of every theoretical scare mongering story is now lumped into the “Boogeyman Tax”.
Let the politicians set the tax, and distribute it amongst the many parasites, then try to get re-elected.
Let’s define Boogeyman, culturally:
England: Bogeyman, Bogieman, Boogie Man, Bogy, Bugbear
Netherlands: Bokkenrijders
Germany: Bütze, Buhmann, Mummelmann, Popelmann
Spain: Hombre del Saco, Hombre del Costal, Homem do Saco, El Roba-chicos
Russia: Baba Roga, Złota Baba, Ježibaba, gorska maika
Algeria: H’awouahoua
South Africa: Tokoloshe
Nepal: Gurumapa
Indonesia: Wewe Gombel
Whatever you call it, Politicians use it to gain power, money, influence, and control.
Rationale: create a problem, stoke fear, offer a solution, contract peers to provide it, laugh all the way to the bank.
Someday the Sheeple will wake up, very angry.
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In the meantime – why is this banned in Oz?
Mind you, I don’t think that it would be approved by Skeptical Science, Greenpeace, Australian Conservation Foundation, The Climate Council, Citizens Climate Lobby – and perhaps, just perhaps, a few other groups of ‘experts’!
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[…] What grows on a wind ‘farm’? Debt-cows — JoNova […]
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@joannenova.com.au
All our windblown leaders are going to ensure we have 50% reduction and zero% something by either 2030 or 2050.
Let us just imagine for a moment that Australia achieves zero% carbon production.
Heck, chuck in the world achieving zero% by 2050.
Has anyone actually modeled the level of CO2 that will exist?
Let’s say we kill off the entire human population of the world.
What will the level of CO2 be?
And the temperature?
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G’day NFA,
You ask: “Has anyone actually modeled the level of CO2 that will exist?”
My understanding is that Henry will just ignore it all, and outgas enough from the oceans to maintain equilibrium. Of CO2 and temperature, dancing the Sun’s tune as modified by the identified cycles.
And, as a result of his continuing activity there will be no adverse effect on life from all that effort, obviously ignoring all the adverse effects on humans from the misuse of all that money and wasted efforts.
But yes, we’ll all die, eventually, but not as the result of any attempts by man to reduce those CO2 levels.
Cheers
Dave B
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We are not stewards of the planet.
The planet is the steward of us.
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Ok.
But where are the models for CO2 and global temperature after 2050 when hu-persons no longer produce co2.
I’d reckon the ex-sperts have until 2030 to really nail it home or the universities will have to be burnt to the ground.
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Look on the bright side. With such a small contribution by wind the grid will be very stable.
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In reality the lights stayed on and the average punter is oblivious.
The dance will continue and ever more complex and costly bandaids will be applied.
The grid needs to break and break big before anything will happen. Even then the finger will be pointed at coal and gas as they are the last things left working.
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In reality Australia has some of the largest and easiest accessible coal, uranium, gas, oil, iron ore, gold, copper, whatever.
That is why we must buy ‘dirty energy’ products from CCP-China and billions have been poured into so called non-profit NGO’s and other DronGO’s from overseas and we cannot be told about the scum funders because ATO privacy.
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As seen by the continuing discussion on this blog, the big issue is not one of determining the truth of the background to Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming; we have it here; the geology, the astronomy, the thermodynamics, the gas physics and assessment of false models.
We have the science, engineering and financial side of things tied up.
The two big problems are;
1. The massive, constant verbal assault on the senses of people via radio and television that proclaims the incipient disaster that’s due to wipe us out “next year”. The truth is submerged in the wall of sound and the constant online reminders about our guilt with respect to the environment.
2. The absence of leaders willing to forego all the financial and political benefits that come with being “on the team”.
In the current biosphere any attempt to push back against the imposed wisdom is severely dealt with.
A start has been made;
We thank you Donald J Trump.
KK
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absolutely
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And then, when the wind blows:
8am Wed May 1, in SA wind delivered 100% of demand. But to maintain stability, needed to run 20% gas, with surplus sent to Vic.
Spot price $8/MWhr.
And in Vic, wind delivered 32.5% of demand, coal 83%, with surplus sent to Tas and NSW. Spot price $9/MWhr.
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In comments at
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2021/04/30/we-dont-need-no-stinking-giant-fans-47/#comments
which has picked up this thread of Jo’s
“Woodporter
April 30, 2021 at 7:17 pm
“… nearly all the wind generators in the country failed. About 4,000 turbines across five states of Australia were hit by some kind of simultaneous fuel crisis.”
What does that mean? Wind powered generators neither use nor rely on fuel for operation, as best I know.’
Like Peter Fitz – thinking inside the box
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Heard that the Amazon is now releasing more C02 into the atmosphere than it absorbs. Due to? Logging and fires. Another parameter to consider in the CAGW debate, since logging is a human-caused scenario. When people start to realise that GW and CC are based on three-dimensional, non-linear parameters that only Chaos Theory really has some kind of answer, then we just might have some logical idea of what will happen in the next 50, 100 or 1000 years.
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