Nov
27
Another Huge, Huge Wind Power Improvement
November 27, 2007 | 9 Comments
Today the American Meteorological Society has circulated its paper ”The Power of Multiples: Connecting Wind Farms Can Make A More Reliable and Cheaper Power Source.” The authors, Cristina L. Archer and Mark Jacobson at Stanford University have a concisely prepared the report for the AMS to make available for us.
Whether you are an investor, site owner, consumer or utility looking at wind and the economic implications this paper and the supporting study “Supplying Baseload Power and Reducing Transmission Requirements By Interconnecting Wind Farms,” also by Archer and Jacobson from February at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University offers sound, deeply researched and formed concepts about how wind farms might be interconnected so grooming the wind for a more steady and dependable source of electrical power which can be delivered at lower costs.
For many wind farm investors, site owners and utilities the grid management of balancing energy inputs to the load can be a complex and never ending process. Wind, being the on and off and on again resource that it is, often complicates grid management. What the study’s authors offer is that by interconnecting the farms, wind can act as part of the base load requirement. This changes the importance of wind power and its impact on the grid as it shows how a group of wind farms can be connected to provide base load power.
The authors assert that when connected on a large scale a pretty solid one third of the available generating power can be used for direct to grid baseload use. This leaves the intermittent two-thirds portion for service to generate power for other power needs like energy storage such as batteries and capacitors and other storage systems and further to be used to solve other energy and climate problems. Noteworthy is that prevalent afternoon winds would be generating power during the peak air conditioning part of the day.
In the study, the hourly wind data used from the National Weather Service over 19 sites in the U.S. Midwest showed that and annual average of 33% and a maximum of 47% of the yearly averaged wind power from an interconnected set of 10 or more wind farm sites could be used as baseload power. The study asserts that in any qualified site group in which 10 or more farms were interconnected the percentages for baseload would hold true.
Another benefit from interconnecting wind farms is that it reduces the total distance that all power must travel from multiple points to a destination. Likened to a river with many creeks flowing to it and on out to sea the farms would be the creeks and the grid a river that shows how flows can be managed in a similar way. It is much more efficient than having each farm with its own creek running to the sea.
In the concluding paragraph Archer notes that if the United States organized siting and interconnection of new wind farms based on a larger master plan the power supply can be smoothed out and the transmission requirements reduced which in turn reduces the overall costs of wind energy. Such an effort would result in a much larger penetration of wind energy of total electrical power generation.
Although the study paper is long and filled with math and other details the authors offer some facts that visitors more curious than devoted might enjoy. Ms. Archer and Mr. Jacobson note that today’s gross world electrical power demand of 1.6-1.8 TW (terawatts) could be met with 890,000 5 MW windmills. That bit is followed by with the fact that 890,000 is only a factor of 7-8 time the number of smaller windmills currently installed today.
For my part the prime observation is that as others have noted and I repeated that by 2010 the world installed windmill base will be equal to 25% of U.S. power demand. Thus the research and study reports offer the many participants in wind resources the benefits of getting more thoroughly organized. A near complete takeover of electrical power production is in fact – possible.
Wind power is a fascinating field rich in current production and much more potential. To say that mankind is faced with an energy crises might seem untrue, it can be true by failing to optimize our resources and wind is one that deserves more thought and broader engineering and design effort than currently utilized. With 7.5 MW windmills coming on line and ever more experience and mass production being applied to reduce costs and today’s explanation on how to maximize the value this area of energy is on a strong growth run.
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[…] winds or high output times for use when electrical demand is high when the wind is blowing slowly. We looked at grid management last week “Another Huge Wind Power Improvement,” that covered the research into how wind parks can be tied together to form large base load […]
[…] generation with wind power this article is a strong resource to add to the information posted on November 27th about interconnecting wind farms and December 6th about storing energy from […]
we should develop more efficient wind power generators that can generate several megawatts *~:
wind power is just as good if not better than solar power. wind power also generates more power per unit area compared to solar..*
Thanks for an idea, you sparked at thought from a angle I hadn’t given thoguht to yet. Now lets see if I can do something with it.
What a great resource!
A large wind farm may consist of several hundred individual wind turbines, and cover an extended area of hundreds of square miles, but the land between the turbines may be used for agricultural or other purposes. A wind farm may be located offshore to take advantage of strong winds blowing over the surface of an ocean or lake.
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[…] Another Huge, Huge Wind Power Improvement | New Energy and Fuel – Today the American Meteorological Society has circulated its paper The Power of Multiples: Connecting Wind Farms Can Make A More Reliable and Cheaper Power Source. Archer and Mark Jacobson at Stanford University have a concisely prepared the report for the AMS to make available for us. Whether you are an investor, site owner, consumer or utility looking at wind and the economic implications this paper and the supporting study Supplying Baseload Power and Reducing Transmission Requirements By Interconnecting Wind Farms, also by Archer and Jacobson from February at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University offers sound, deeply researched and formed concepts about how wind farms might be interconnected so grooming the wind for a more steady and dependable source of electrical power which can be delivered at lower costs. […]