Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.

Wind news

by Jerome a Paris Sat Sep 29th, 2012 at 07:25:53 AM EST

A symbolic milestone is reached:


EU wind capacity hits 100 gigawatt mark - industry

(Reuters) - Installed EU wind capacity has reached the 100 gigawatt mark - the equivalent of power generated from 39 nuclear plants or a train of coal stretching from Buenos Aires to Brussels - but financial risk threatens growth, industry body EWEA said.

"We have just in the past couple of weeks passed 100 gigawatts of total installed capacity in Europe," Christian Kjaer, CEO of the European Wind Energy Association, told a small group of reporters. "We have been adding about 10 gigawatts per year for a couple of years and it will be around the same this year," he added.

The stable volume of installations is important, as it helps provide predictability to manufacturing companies.


Another large offshore wind farm is inaugurated:


Scrira cuts ribbon on giant Sheringham Shoal offshore wind farm

The UK's booming offshore wind market will receive a further boost today with the official opening of the giant 317MW Sheringham Shoal offshore wind farm off the coast of Norfolk.

Developers Scrira Offshore Energy, a 50:50 joint venture between Norwegian energy giants Statoil and Statkraft, will cut the ribbon on the facility at an opening ceremony at Holkham Hall in Norfolk, near the 88 turbine development.

The £1bn development will be the UK's third largest offshore wind farm, after the 500MW Greater Gabbard site and the 376MW Walney 1 and 2 sites, and is expected to generate 1.1TWh of green energy every year, enough to power almost 220,000 British homes.

Both Walney and Greater Gabbard were inaugurated earlier this year, making it indeed a remarkable year for offshore wind installations, most of it in the UK.

And a journalist provides some inconvenient truths:


It's a myth that wind turbines don't reduce carbon emissions

Conclusive figures show that the sceptics who lobby against wind power simply have their facts wrong

The assertion that wind turbines don't reduce carbon emissions is a myth, according to conclusive statistical data obtained from National Grid and analysed here in the Guardian for the first time. With a new wind generation record of 4,131 megawatts set on 14 September, the question of how far the UK's wind generation fleet can help in meeting our climate targets is increasingly controversial. Now it can be shown that the sceptics who lobby against wind simply have their facts wrong.

(...)

From analysing National Grid data of more than 4,000 half-hour periods over the last three months, a strong correlation between windiness and a reduction in gas-fired generation becomes clear. The exchange rate is about one for one: a megawatt hour of wind typically meant the UK grid used one less megawatt hour of gas-derived electricity. This means that actual CO2 savings can be calculated from the data with a high degree of accuracy - these are not guesstimates from models, but observations of real-world data.

Display:
Google signs wind-power agreement with Oklahoma's Grand River Dam Authority | NewsOK.com

Search-engine giant Google Inc. has signed an agreement with the Grand River Dam Authority to buy electricity from a wind farm under construction in Canadian County.


Search engine giant Google Inc. has signed a deal for wind power from the Grand River Dam Authority to help power the Google data center in Pryor. Photos By Steve Gooch, The Oklahoman
Multimedia Photoview all photos Article Gallery: Google signs wind-power agreement with Oklahoma's Grand River Dam Authority NewsOK Related Articles

Google will buy up to 48 megawatts of wind power from GRDA's interest in the Canadian Hills wind farm near El Reno. The 300-megawatt wind farm is expected to be complete by the end of the year and will be Oklahoma's largest wind farm with 135 turbines.

Google will use the electricity to operate its data center in Pryor in northeastern Oklahoma. The data center began operations in 2011.

"Google's long and demonstrated commitment to renewable energy, combined with their significant and growing presence within our service area, has been an important factor in GRDA's pursuit of renewables, as exemplified by this agreement," Dan Sullivan, CEO of GRDA, said in a statement. "In addition to increasing Google's access to renewable energy, we are also offsetting part of GRDA's wind acquisition cost through the premium Google has agreed to pay. We are pleased to pass the savings along to Oklahomans, and we're proud to pioneer this innovative structure with one of our largest customers."

Read more: http://newsok.com/google-signs-wind-power-agreement-with-oklahomas-grand-river-dam-authority/article /3713352#ixzz27m43KpmI



Now where are we going and what's with the handbasket?
by budr on Fri Sep 28th, 2012 at 10:22:21 AM EST
Good stuff.

(Now, "Oklahoma" and "wind" in the same sentence. Just me? Man I feel like Chandler.)

by Number 6 on Fri Sep 28th, 2012 at 10:36:18 AM EST
[ Parent ]
UK shale gas is more lead balloon than silver bullet | Damian Carrington | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Let's take the emissions cuts first. In May, the International Energy Agency claimed that annual US emissions fell by 1.7% in 2011 "primarily due to on-going switching from coal to natural gas in power generation and an exceptionally mild winter." The coal-to-gas switch has been driven by gas prices that are falling due to large volumes of shale gas. But a new analysis of US government energy data by Greenpeaces's upcoming energy news site, Energydesk shows renewable energy in fact played a bigger role than gas in cutting climate-warming gases.

The analysis shows that electricity generation from coal did indeed fall significantly from 2010-2011, by 113TWh. But gas generation rose only by 29TWh. Generation from wind, hydro-electricity and other renewables rose by three times that amount: 92TWh. Looking at a longer period, 2008-11, coal's share of the US power mix fell by over 6%, while gas rose by 3.3%, Greenpeace found. But renewable generation rose by 3.6% and, given that renewable energy emits far less carbon than gas, again we see that renewable energy is contributing the lion's share of the emissions cuts. (It's worth noting at this point that the UK's renewable energy generation grew by 6.5% in the last year.)



*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Fri Sep 28th, 2012 at 02:53:01 PM EST
Possibly related:

Why the natural gas lobby is wooing the clean power industry -- Cleantech News and Analysis

A representative from a natural gas trade group showed up at a renewable energy conference in San Francisco on Thursday to promote this message: you need us and we should be friends.

Seeing someone from the American Gas Association on a panel at the Renewable Energy Finance Forum was surprising. The worlds of fossil fuels and renewable energy typically don't mix -- at least not at a clean power conference.

"The takeaway here is that the AGA is doing an outreach effort," said Nancy Floyd, managing director of Nth Power and the moderator of the panel that included the AGA rep, after the panel discussion. "You can't ignore what's happening with natural gas."

In recent years, the natural gas industry has successfully positioned itself as the more environmentally friendly form of fossil fuel, mostly because using natural gas to generate electricity produces less greenhouse gas emissions than burning coal. Coupled that with Obama's energy policy to embrace oil and gas development - energy independence and job creation are two powerful election-year slogans - and there has been a surge of natural gas exploration that includes the controversial use of fracking to extract it.

by Bernard (bernard) on Fri Sep 28th, 2012 at 04:12:46 PM EST
[ Parent ]
US gas prices might well stay low for quite a while, as lots of gas is not produced for its own sake, but is a byproduct from fracking production in liquid rich shales, where the impotant product is nat gas liquids which are sold as oil, at the global market price. Then you get some associated gas which you dump on the regional gas market without really caring about what you get for it. This means gas production can stay stable or even increase even if the gas price is low, as long as oil prices stay high.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
by Starvid on Sat Sep 29th, 2012 at 07:17:11 PM EST
[ Parent ]
And imagine when the US and Canada starts exporting LNG. That'll scare the pants off of Gazprom, which has already stopped Shtokman. Anders Åslund had a (pretty questionable) article about this in the FT a few days ago.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
by Starvid on Sat Sep 29th, 2012 at 07:18:57 PM EST
[ Parent ]
As far as I know, the notion of the USA as a major LNG gas exporter is based on a simple summation of the capacity of projected LNG terminals, but some of those terminals are competing for the connection of the same fields and the ability of those fields to produce as much surplus over domestic demand is strongly questionable. (Add to that the real estate bubble fuelling the developments.)

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Sun Sep 30th, 2012 at 03:29:12 AM EST
[ Parent ]
A comment I got from EWEA a few months ago is that the gas industry had become a lot smarter in Brussels recently and was promoting itself as a useful complement to wind (which it is).

In a world with lots of renewables (where Europe is headed inexorably), gas makes no sense as base load, but makes a lot of sense for mid-load/daily variations and even more for spinning reserves, ie selling capacity rather than energy. This means lower capacity factors, but it means capacity can keep on increasing. It's less bad for gas suppliers than other scenarios (more coal or nukes), and it's good for gas-fired plant manufacturers and for utilities able to use their assets smartly and provide new services to the grid.

Wind power

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Sun Sep 30th, 2012 at 03:01:48 PM EST
[ Parent ]
.. This is a very, very contingent alliance, because only some of the steps towards a green grid are in the interest of the gas industry -  Adding intermittent energy sources to the grid, and closing down coal plants. And.. No, I think that sums it up.

Building large grid interconnects? : Bad news for gas.
Desertec? : Extremely bad news for gas. (because in the north African desert sunshine is not very intermittent at all, but instead approximates a natural load follower)
Large scale energy storage? : Bad news for gas.
Nukes: Very Bad news for gas.
Technological surprise in the field of electricity generation:... - The possibility of this happens is good news for gas, because it keeps people reluctant to build capital intensive generation gear, but actual breakthroughs would be... Bad news for gas.

The second you want to do anything at all that goes beyond just erecting windmills and putting up solar cells in places without reliable sunshine the gas industry is going to become your enemy.

by Thomas on Sun Sep 30th, 2012 at 05:10:55 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Nukes are very good for gas - they don't load follow at all, and large nuke plants mean that you can sell more backup capacity which is never intended to be used outside an acute emergency.

The rest are very bad for Gazprom, who make money from selling natural gas. But not for the gas power plants, who are in the business of selling MW, not MWh.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sun Sep 30th, 2012 at 05:44:34 PM EST
[ Parent ]
but there's still a lot of nukes and coal to take out of the system, so hitching on the renewable bandwagon and say that with some ("clean") gas you can do the whole thing with renewables and without coal or nukes is a good strategic bet for the gas industry. If they don't do that, they will end up on the wrong side of the debate (ie people will remember that it's still carbon being burnt...)


Wind power
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Mon Oct 1st, 2012 at 05:00:48 AM EST
[ Parent ]
With that installed capacity, there must be an historial of production over all the regions that may give confidence as to the stability of total production.

res humà m'és aliè
by Antoni Jaume on Sat Sep 29th, 2012 at 03:26:10 PM EST
Half the market in the past 3 years has been China, which is (mostly) closed to foreign manufacturers. The US market has been incredibly volatile (climbing from 3GW to 10GW, then down to 5GW, then back to 10-12GW and likely to fall to 1-2GW next year). Europe has seen some big variations in some markets (Spain collapsing, France going down, Romania an Bulgaria going up) but overall it's been quite stable.

Wind power
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Sun Sep 30th, 2012 at 03:03:56 PM EST
[ Parent ]
All,

See http://intelligencepress.com/features/bakerhughes/. A lot of the new Ngas wells are frackers, and they deplete really fast. This situation only takes a few months to self-correct, but then it will overcompensate, and when that happens, it's price spike time. Whooppee!

Nb41

by nb41 on Sat Sep 29th, 2012 at 10:35:34 PM EST
I woldn't bet the farm on that. I've already lost money on indirectly speculating in the US gas market, and once is enough for me. ;p

So yeah, frackers deplete fast. That's why you drill new ones at record pace, and as long as you keep up intensive drilling, you should be ok.

What's really interesting to me is if all this drilling is financed through cashflow or through constant debt/equity injections...

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Mon Oct 1st, 2012 at 04:58:43 AM EST
[ Parent ]
> The £1bn development

Hmmm. That's for 317 MW nameplate, say 130 MW average. And the pound is 1.2 euro. That's a lot of money... is this typical? I've read much lower estimates.

by mustakissa on Sun Sep 30th, 2012 at 05:44:46 AM EST
Remember that you get to amortize over 10-20 years.

£ 1 bn for 1.1 TWh/yr, assuming a 20 year lifetime and a discount rate of 8 %, gives you £/kWh 0.9*0.08/(1-1/1.08^20) ~ £/kWh 0.073.

That doesn't strike me as an unreasonable sort of wholesale price.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sun Sep 30th, 2012 at 06:18:01 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Yes, offshore wind costs around 3-35MEUR/MW to build. But what matters is the cost per MWh; offshore is at 120-150 EUR/MWh today, which is more than onshore wind (60-70 EUR/MWh) and more than market prices (around 50 EUR/MWh) but trending down, and probably comparable to the cost of MWh from new build nuclear plants.

Wind power
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Sun Sep 30th, 2012 at 03:05:52 PM EST
[ Parent ]
That depends on how many nuke plants you want. We are building windmills in factories, and putting together nuclear plant prototypes - It is not very likely at all that future build will rack up price tags comparable to Olkiluoto (if for no other reason then because if Areva cannot get the price down, future build wont happen)
by Thomas on Sun Sep 30th, 2012 at 05:21:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]
We'll know soon enough how much EDF gets in the UK to build the new nukes over there...

Wind power
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Mon Oct 1st, 2012 at 04:58:30 AM EST
[ Parent ]
All the signals are that the answer will be "as much as it takes". EDF is asking for a blank cheque, and the UK government seems happy to oblige.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II
by eurogreen on Mon Oct 1st, 2012 at 05:03:07 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Not actually seeing that the UK government has much of a choice about it - Their existing generating infrastructure is a mess, with far too much of it reaching the end of its design life because deregulation turned out to mean "Take the money and run" - A heck of a lot of the money that should have been spent building replacement plant wound up in shareholder pockets instead, so now the UK needs to add tens of gigawatts of capacity in <10 years. Integrating that much renewable power into an already shaky grid in a hurry is just not going to happen, coal and gas are even more politically unacceptable than nukes.. If anything, I am wondering why they are not trying to negotiate a bulk discount. -8 reactors is not really enough. Not if they want to close any of the older coal plants and cut down on the gas imports.  
by Thomas on Mon Oct 1st, 2012 at 10:02:34 AM EST
[ Parent ]
The UK minimum power price for nukes is just such a scandal. I can't for the life of me see why the government just don't institutes the same kind of support mechanisms as for wind, or just buys all the power from the nukes at a fixed price and then sells it on itself. Or accept that new nuclear power is often not a good fit for deregulated power markets.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
by Starvid on Mon Oct 1st, 2012 at 05:15:21 AM EST
[ Parent ]
It's like they don't even believe their own propaganda.

- Yay free markets, they will save us and provide everything we need! But as we can't trust the market to do this, we institute massive market distorting subsidies for nuclear power. Otherwise we might end up with no power at all, and we can't have that.

Q: Isn't the problem this deregulated power market then, if even you don't trust it to provide?

- Nooooooo!!! Lalalalala!!! * fingers in ears *

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Mon Oct 1st, 2012 at 05:21:14 AM EST
[ Parent ]
It's not going to be a minimum tariff, it's going to be a feed-in tariff (well, an equivalent in the form of a contract for differences).


Wind power
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Mon Oct 1st, 2012 at 05:35:34 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Thank god for that then.

Still, if the feed-in tariff price is based on say the cost of production rather than the long-term power price, it's still a subsidy.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Mon Oct 1st, 2012 at 08:56:11 AM EST
[ Parent ]
It's a hedge. Whether it's a subsidy depends on how much you trust the long-term power price estimates and how much value you place on having hedged that uncertainty.

My answer is "not a whole hell of a lot," and "quite a bit," respectively.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Mon Oct 1st, 2012 at 12:00:15 PM EST
[ Parent ]
> If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.

Hmmm. In my school days they called this 'Keynesianism'. Did I miss something?

by mustakissa on Sat Oct 6th, 2012 at 04:44:47 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Yes, Keynesianism was discredited in the 1970s and so it must be rediscovered under another name.

I distribute. You re-distribute. He gives your hard-earned money to lazy scroungers. -- JakeS
by Carrie (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Oct 6th, 2012 at 04:56:40 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Meanwhile the number of EDF's rivals competing for the UK projects is reducing...

British nuclear plans suffer blow as Chinese investors pull out | Business | The Guardian

The government's nuclear energy plans were in trouble as Chinese investors withdrew interest in two projects and local councils postponed a decision on storing atomic waste.

Areva, the French nuclear engineering group, confirmed that it had pulled out of the running to buy a stake in Horizon Nuclear Power, the enterprise planning to construct new reactors at Wylfa in Wales and Oldbury in Gloucestershire. Areva said its partner, the state-owned China Guangdong Nuclear Power Group (CGNPC), had also shelved its bid.

...Two other bidders, one involving US-based engineering group Westinghouse and the other led by Hitachi of Japan, are still in the running to take a stake in Horizon - although Westinghouse's backer, another Chinese state-owned firm, China National Nuclear Power Corporation, is also understood to have withdrawn from the consortium.

...There have also been reports that Iberdrola, the Spanish group that owns Scottish Power, is considering dropping out of a separate consortium bid to build a new nuclear plant near Sellafield in Cumbria, while France's EDF was said to be struggling to complete work on a generic design assessment it needs in order to proceed with building a new atomic power station in collaboration with Areva at Hinkley Point in Somerset.



*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Thu Oct 4th, 2012 at 04:28:14 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Yeah. How much is the current estimate for the price of Olkiluoto 3?
by mustakissa on Mon Oct 1st, 2012 at 08:35:30 AM EST
[ Parent ]
About 5-6 billion euros I think. But a lot of this is first-of-a-kind costs.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
by Starvid on Mon Oct 1st, 2012 at 08:53:15 AM EST
[ Parent ]
 
It is not very likely at all that future build will rack up price tags comparable to Olkiluoto

Well, the second of the series, Flamanville, has also racked up massive cost overruns and delays.

Olkiluoto : 6.4 billion, 10 years.
Flamanville : 6 billion, 9 years.
(Current estimates off Wikipedia.)

Maybe they'll get it right with the third one?

I had concluded that the EPR design must be a bust. But it's also possible that neither Areva/Siemens nor EDF know how to build a nuclear power station in the modern world.

Either way, you wouldn't want to bet your energy future on it.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II

by eurogreen on Mon Oct 1st, 2012 at 08:58:42 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Flamanville started construction before the Olkiluoto experiences could be very useful. The Chinese EPR's are going perfectly on track, possibly due to their recent reactor building experience.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
by Starvid on Mon Oct 1st, 2012 at 09:06:41 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Or due to negligent oversight...

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Mon Oct 1st, 2012 at 09:53:50 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I really don't want to see the nuclear industry equivalent of the Wenzhou train disaster.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Mon Oct 1st, 2012 at 09:54:38 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Any comments on this?

http://www.hs.fi/english/article/%C3%85land+in+dispute+with+mainland+over+wind+power+subsidies/11352 60190399

I'm not a lawyer, but is the feed-in tariff payment a subsidy? It's not paid by the Finnish state is it?

Bloody politicians

by mustakissa on Sun Sep 30th, 2012 at 02:09:40 PM EST
It's standard anti-renewables spin to call feed-in tariffs a subsidy, generally considered enormous, scandalous, etc.

See Wind lowers prices (unfortunately the full article is behind a subscription wall)

and The cost of wind, the price of wind, the value of wind.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Sun Sep 30th, 2012 at 02:21:02 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I'm not a lawyer, but is the feed-in tariff payment a subsidy?

No, it's a contract structure under which you sell your power at a fixed price, rather than at the spot price. No different in principle from a potato chip factory buying its potatoes on a forward contract rather than on the spot market.

It makes prices predictable for both supplier and user. The Financial Times's target audience don't like that, because they make their living insuring suppliers against falling prices and users from rising prices. Suppliers and users getting together to negotiate fixed prices obviously hurts the middlemen.

A lot of the unbundling, deregulation and competition nonsense you read in the paper is driven by the same impulse: Break up every actor who is large enough to efficiently cut out the middlemen, to make the middlemen's service a valuable and necessary one.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sun Sep 30th, 2012 at 05:09:33 PM EST
[ Parent ]
JakeS:
No different in principle from a potato chip factory buying its potatoes on a forward contract rather than on the spot market.

Good one.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Mon Oct 1st, 2012 at 08:03:30 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Related: How We Happened to Sell Off Our Electricity

Long, and I haven't read it yet, but it was sent to me by Paul Gipe.

Wind power

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Mon Oct 1st, 2012 at 02:25:21 PM EST
[ Parent ]


Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.
by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Mon Oct 1st, 2012 at 03:21:03 PM EST
[ Parent ]
It's a stark illustration of the realities of privatising essential services - that what is being sold is not infrastructure, but bill-paying citizens, and what is being privatised is not electricity, but taxation.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
by Starvid on Mon Oct 1st, 2012 at 05:34:01 PM EST
[ Parent ]
That's a great quote, but too much of the rest of the article is just a lot of silly and confused EDF-bashing.

Wind power
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Tue Oct 2nd, 2012 at 04:51:24 PM EST
[ Parent ]

UK offshore wind generation jumps almost 50%

Further evidence of the rapid growth being achieved by the UK offshore wind industry has been provided by government statistics published yesterday.

Sheringham Shoal is the latest offshore wind farm in UK waters to be completed. The country now has more than 2.5GW of installed capacity
Offshore wind generation increased by 46.7% during April-June (Q2) compared to the same period last year. This follows on from similarly-strong growth during Q1.

Measured in terms of output, offshore wind generated 1.6TWh over the three months, representing almost one-fifth (19.8%) of the UK's Q2 renewable energy output. Correspondingly, offshore wind's contribution to total electricity generation also rose, to 1.9%.



Wind power
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Sun Sep 30th, 2012 at 04:00:40 PM EST
Jerome this article is not yet on the wind power list.
by mustakissa on Mon Oct 1st, 2012 at 07:32:06 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Done.
by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Mon Oct 1st, 2012 at 08:04:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Busting the carbon and cost myths of Germany's nuclear exit

With the UK taking another step towards supporting new nuclear power on Tuesday - at either no extra cost to the consumer if you believe ministers, or substantial cost if you believe most others - it's worth taking a look at what actually happens when you phase out nuclear power in a large, industrial nation.

That is what Germany chose to do after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, closing eight plants immediately - 7GW - and another nine by 2022. The shrillest critics predicted blackouts, which was always daft and did not happen.

But more serious critics worried that the three things at the heart of the energy and climate change debate - carbon, cost and security of supply - would all head in the wrong direction. Here in Berlin, I have found they were wrong on every count.



Wind power
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Mon Oct 1st, 2012 at 03:31:49 PM EST
Next version of advance word from the EU nuclear stress tests is published in Der Spiegel.

sorry to say i can't translate tonight, perhaps someone can. Upshot is that there remain some serious holes in security (particularly with quakes and loss of power), but other areas passed reasonably well. A few are singled out as dangerous.

In other news a US transmission company has taken financial interest in TenneT to fund more offshore connections.   Anbaric Transmissions

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

by Crazy Horse on Mon Oct 1st, 2012 at 04:33:31 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Quick summary:
  • Price tag for retrofitting all reactors: €10-25 billion
  • Most problematic country: French reactors (seismic safety, location of emergency equipment, seismic and flood risk assessment)
  • Most problematic plants: Olkiluoto/Finland and Forsmark/Sweden (less than one hour window to start cooling systems in case of an emergency shutdown)
  • Problem for German plants  (all of them): seismic warning system


*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Mon Oct 1st, 2012 at 05:52:34 PM EST
[ Parent ]
oh this is going to be fun in France!

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II
by eurogreen on Mon Oct 1st, 2012 at 06:00:08 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Forsmark is the plant closest to my home, something like 70 km away, so I happen to know that it not only has reserve diesels but also an off-site gas turbine and a dedicated transmission line to the Hallstavik paper mill, which it ran bakwards to recieve off-site power during the partial station black-out a few years ago. I'd love to read why they imagine that plant to be a major issue.

On top of that and unlike TMI/Fukushima, in the event of an actual core damage requiring venting, like all Swedish reactors the facility is equipped with emergency filters which are designed to capture 99.9% of all radioactivity in the steam.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Mon Oct 1st, 2012 at 06:41:38 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I might add that the plant fared well in our own stress tests whiich were run by our national safety agency. The only problems were the previously weak safety culture which was on the mend, and the risk of ice storms which had not been correctly considered, IIRC.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
by Starvid on Mon Oct 1st, 2012 at 06:49:51 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Well, the advantage of an international audit with respect to any national authority is precisely the ability to pick up systemic weaknesses which are politely ignored by the whole national polity (loony greenies excepted). In France, ignoring seismic risks seems to be the biggie.

In France, we are being softened up for the added costs. The recent Senate energy report predicts a 50% power price rise by 2020. The headlines attributed this to "subsidies for renewables", but the biggest single contributor is the nuclear safety catch-up work.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II

by eurogreen on Tue Oct 2nd, 2012 at 04:13:20 AM EST
[ Parent ]
The seismic perspective is actually interesting. I remember when the US regulator looked at seismic risks at US nuclear power plants, and to the surprise of most people the Calfornian plants had the lowest seismic risks, as they had been designed with them in mind. The plants most at risk were located in New England IIRC, as no one had consiered building them in an earthquake resistant way?

Still, the only Swedish plant which might be at some seismic risk is Ringhals. Still, the biggest quake in the last 1000 years around there was a 5.4-6.0 Richter in 1904. I imagine that quake was taken in account when the plant was built.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Tue Oct 2nd, 2012 at 04:27:56 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Ok, some comments on this report from the Swedish Radiation Protection Agency.




Forsmark, liksom det finska kärnkraftverket Olkiluoto, får varsin anmärkning i rapporten eftersom anläggningarna är extra känsliga för ett totala strömbortfall. I händelse av en sådan har man mycket kort tid på sig, en till två timmar, för att säkra verksamheten.

Men på svenska Strålsäkerhetsmyndigheten (SSM) tar man lugnt på anmärkningen.
- Detta var ett scenario vi hade klart för oss redan på 1980-talet. Forsmark är designat för just sådana eventualiteter, säger Lennart Carlsson, chef för kärnkraftsäkerhet på SSM.

Han påpekar att det finns flera system med kraftledningar, turbiner, dieselgeneratorer och batterier som ska trygga elförsörjningen.
- För att förlora all kraft krävs en lång kedja av utslagningar. Och i slutänden, om det värsta skulle hända och en härdsmälta uppstå, har vi andra system, inklusive haverifilter som skyddar anläggningen, säger han.

Forsmark, like the Finnish nuclear power plant Olkiluoto, each get a remark in the report because the facilities are particularly sensitive to a total loss of power. In such an event there is very little time available, an hour or two, to secure the facility.

But on the Swedish Radiation Protection Agency (SSM) the remark is received calmly.
- This was a scenario we considerad already during the 1980's. Forsmark is designed to deal with just these kind of eventualities, says Lennart Carlsson, head of nuclear safety at SSM.

He notes that there are several systems with powerlines, turbines, diesel generators and batteries which are supposed to secure the power supply.
- To lose power you need a long chain of accidents. And in the end, if the worst were to happen and a meltdown were to occur, we have other systems, including emergency filters, which protect the facility.



Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
by Starvid on Thu Oct 4th, 2012 at 07:07:42 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Oh, price rises are going to happen. Current french electricity costs are low because they have a very large fleet of fully paid off nukes, so the cost of production is dominated by the marginal cost of running the plants, which is very, very, low. Given that the original build  started in the 70s, and design life was 40 years, replacing them as they go offline is going to entail a heck of a lot of capital expenditure, and then prices will fall off a cliff again in roughly thirty years - design life for an epr being thrice as long as the typical payment schedule on construction finance.

Unless, of course they just pay for the reactors up front, which would mean high prices while build is happening, and then a steep fall.

by Thomas on Tue Oct 2nd, 2012 at 07:00:35 AM EST
[ Parent ]
...and the planned nuclear plant in Pyhäjoki will cost 4-6 billion -- at least, according to Fennovoima:

http://yle.fi/uutiset/pyhajoen_ydinvoimalan_hinta_saattaa_nousta/6319499

(Greenpeace doesn't believe it... guesses over 8 billion. Olkiluoto 3 is at 6.6G and counting)

by mustakissa on Wed Oct 3rd, 2012 at 02:43:34 AM EST
[ Parent ]
The opinion of Greenpeace on this matter is a null data point. Imagine for a second a Greenpeace press release estimating a low cost for a nuclear project? Does this strike you as something likely to ever happen, regardless of what the facts are? No? Me neither.

And that projection is completely ridiculous - experience   is everything in cost control, so 6 billion is the upper bound for build in Finland.

by Thomas on Thu Oct 4th, 2012 at 02:03:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Your entirely rhetorical point seems to be: "isn't it your impression that Greenpeace are systematic liars?"

(For Greenpeace substitute what the hell else we feel like smearing today).

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Thu Oct 4th, 2012 at 02:51:52 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Ill be less rhetorical then. In matters nuclear, Greenpeace has a very long history of being systematic liars, and I find it most useful to regard anything they say as pure noise. There are nuclear-skeptical organizations that are still honest sources, but Greenpeace is not one -they only tell the truth when it happens to coincide with the message they want to tell.
by Thomas on Thu Oct 4th, 2012 at 03:41:59 AM EST
[ Parent ]
You're unfortunately being as rhetorical as before.
by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Thu Oct 4th, 2012 at 11:40:14 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Thomas:
experience   is everything in cost control

That is a joke, right?

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Thu Oct 4th, 2012 at 02:53:32 AM EST
[ Parent ]
.. No? This is actually very well established. The best predictor for precisely how expensive a clusterfuck any given reactor project turns into is how many people are involved who have worked on reactor construction before. The fewer people you have with relevant experience, the bigger the overrun. So assuming you have enough sense to grab the people who embarrassed themselves the least while building ok-3, the next one will be cheaper.
by Thomas on Thu Oct 4th, 2012 at 03:35:30 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Presumably there's a lack of experience on Olkiluoto then, since it's gone from €2.5bn to €6.6bn.

As Google Translate tells me, the yle article quotes the Greenpeace spokesperson saying that, based on Olkiluoto, Pyhäjoki "can easily rise" above €8bn. Which is admittedly not a hard data point, but not a systematic lie either.

Fortunately you know that €6bn is a ceiling. We'll see.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Thu Oct 4th, 2012 at 11:59:26 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I feel compelled to help Thomas out here a bit. Indeed the people building Olkiluoto 3 lacked experience, which is no wonder with the two-decade gap to the last previous project in Western Europe. Thomas's point is that some people gained experience by witnessing and battling the challenges of Olkiluoto 3, which could be used in the next project.

Then again, the next project was not Pyhäjoki but Flamanville, and one can hardly claim that there wasn't experience and there weren't specialists from Olkiluoto. There is no reason to assume that already a third project will have everything sorted out.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Thu Oct 4th, 2012 at 02:43:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I'm not really sure quite what Thomas's point was, but still. As you say, (adding Flamanville to the mix), experience ("everything in cost control"), important though it may be, is in fact no guarantee of cost control.

My point is that, Greenpeace or no Greenpeace, delays and costs on these reactors just keep rising. Perhaps the takeaway is that the nuclear industry can only offer a future in which we keep on running the old reactors and only build new copies of the old reactors -- since the industry has no "experience" of new designs and loses control of the projects.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Thu Oct 4th, 2012 at 03:14:25 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Well, I do not exactly expect everything to go smoothly -I merely figure the overrun in time and money has to go down, because people do learn from their mistakes. This holds true in all human endeavors.

.. to a certain extent, I am of the opinion that the fundamental design paradigm of the water cooled reactor is the problem. - Residual decay heat + water cooling means that even in shutdown, active systems must remain operational come hell or high water, and there is no real upper bound on how much money you can spend on redundancies, robustness, and containment. We would be better off - both on cost and on safety - if we built reactors that defaulted to passive shutdown instead. We would not need 4 separate cooling loops and half-a-dozen backup generators if the result of loss-of-power was that the core got a couple hundred degrees warmer and then just sat there radiating heat (small lead-cooled core) / gravity dumped fuel into holding tanks (molten salt designs)

by Thomas on Fri Oct 5th, 2012 at 04:05:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Most likely some delays could be avoided. Areva for example used steel which can't be checked by x-rays and had to do plumbing again and hasn't got control software accepted. If Areva builds Pyhäjoki after Olkiluoto it will know what kind of steel Finnish authorities require and have a previously accepted software ready.
by Jute on Fri Oct 5th, 2012 at 04:32:44 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Actually no, the 4-6 billion was "preliminary" and "could still go up from that", according to the Yle article:


Fennovoiman viestintäjohtajan Maira Kettusen mukaan yhtiön aiemmin ilmoittama neljästä kuuteen miljardin euron kustannusarvio oli vasta alustava, ja hinta voi vielä nousta siitä.

...and investment costs for nuclear are somewhere 60-80% of total costs, which will thus be more still.

by mustakissa on Fri Oct 5th, 2012 at 02:57:22 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Even with the 100% Olkilouto cost overruns, it still is cheaper than offshore wind.

1700 MW nuclear, running 8000 hours a year, cost 60 billion kronor (about 7 billion euros), 40 year depreciation, 6% interest rate, gives a capital cost of 291 kronor per MWh.

300 MW offshore wind (Thanet), running 4000 hours a year, cost 10 billion kronor, 25 year depreciation, 6% interest rate, gives a capital cost of 650 kronor per MWh.

Add operational costs and maintenance of 150 kronor per MWh for both plants and you get:

  • nuclear 441 kronor per MWh
  • offshore wind 800 kronor per MWh.

NB: This is about offshore, which is more expensive than onshore wind.

PS. I haven't double-checked the numbers, so there might be some error in my calculations.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Fri Oct 5th, 2012 at 06:33:26 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Looks roughly right -- if it stays at 100%...

(Of course this is apples and oranges, in the sense that we're comparing a theoretical estimate for which we only have one empirical lower bound (OL3) so far, with an actual accounting result from years of engineering experience on multiple sites.)

Plus decommissioning and waste disposal (or are they part of operational costs? How?)

by mustakissa on Fri Oct 5th, 2012 at 07:55:20 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Decomissioning costs etc are covered, in Sweden at least, by a special tax on nuclear electricity which is put into a segregated fund. The tax is something like 0,1 eurocent per kWh, or 10 kronor per MWh.

Lots of the worries over decomissioning costs come from the UK, where the local reactor designs (graphite rather than water moderated reactors) mean you have to deal with massive amounts of cracked and irradiated graphite, which pushes up decomissiong costs a lot, maybe by something like an order of magnitude.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Fri Oct 5th, 2012 at 09:05:42 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Something along those lines is standard in all western nuclear policies so there are large funds set aside to deal with that.
Even if those funds were to.. say, get stolen or destroyed by financial shenanigans sometime over the forty-to-sixty year period that the plant is paying into that account, well, it would not be that bad a problem. -

Neutron-activated materials as a rule have fairly short half-lives, and given the solidity of construction, dealing with an obsolete and de-fueled reactor by welding the doors shut and letting it sit and cool of for a century or two would be a perfectly reasonable solution.

by Thomas on Fri Oct 5th, 2012 at 11:21:29 AM EST
[ Parent ]
the entry of Anbaric into the German offshore transmission field has the makings of being a game-changer; at worst, allowing TenneT to work its responsibilities.


"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
by Crazy Horse on Tue Oct 2nd, 2012 at 06:57:12 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Eh, this is from last May... slow news day?
by mustakissa on Tue Oct 2nd, 2012 at 02:27:40 AM EST
[ Parent ]
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Tue Oct 2nd, 2012 at 05:10:52 AM EST
[ Parent ]
If there was ever a moment when windpower simply passed into the mainstream, here's a candidate event. Karl Lagerfeld brings Chanel to the forefront of energy policy. 2 October Paris.



"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

by Crazy Horse on Wed Oct 3rd, 2012 at 08:04:24 AM EST
Wow. What is the turbine type? :-)

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Wed Oct 3rd, 2012 at 09:50:50 AM EST
[ Parent ]
As in all fashion, it's just a "model."  ;-)

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
by Crazy Horse on Wed Oct 3rd, 2012 at 10:19:15 AM EST
[ Parent ]
That's a cool picture indeed.
I'd ay the turbines look most like the Repower 3.2MW model...

Wind power
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Wed Oct 3rd, 2012 at 11:19:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Hm. But those have boxy nacelles; I think those of the smaller REpower turbines look more like it.

Speaking of turbine spotting, on my return from the InnoTrans, I saw a gearless Siemens turbine for the first time (not sure if a 2.3-113 or a 3.0-101 unit). Smooth critter with its stubby tubular nacelle, which is visibly smaller than that of an equivalent Enercon unit (though less streamlined).

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Wed Oct 3rd, 2012 at 12:58:17 PM EST
[ Parent ]
yes, sorry, was thinking of the smaller MM82



Wind power

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Wed Oct 3rd, 2012 at 06:16:32 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Another pretty picture...



German Coal-Fired Generation of Electricity Falls While Renewable Generation Rises

Debunking Another Myth about Germany's Electricity Revolution
Solar Energy Now Rivals Hydro Generation
Renewable Generation Now Exceeds Generation from Hard Coal



Wind power
by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Wed Oct 3rd, 2012 at 06:14:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Next stop brown coal (bituminous coal? lignite?)
by mustakissa on Wed Oct 3rd, 2012 at 11:41:11 PM EST
[ Parent ]
And note that this is all about electricity. That's no more than a third or so of the total. Transport, process industry, metallurgy, space heating... oil, gas... making electricity carbon neutral is only the smaller part of the job. This is a common blind spot.
by mustakissa on Wed Oct 3rd, 2012 at 11:48:32 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Third-quarter numbers are out about electricity production in Germany (data based on EEX numbers so it may be short of 100% coverage). Instead of translating the news report, I do a table:

Generation modeQ1-Q3 2012Q1-Q3 2011Change
Wind32.6 TWh29.5 TWh+10%
Solar25.0 TWh16.0 TWh+56%
Wind + solar57.6 TWh45.5 TWh+21%

The article mentions the seasonal natural balancing between wind and solar; numbers for the last two months:

Generation modeAugust 2012September 2012
Wind2.16 TWh3.02 TWh
Solar3.88 TWh2.91 TWh
Wind + solar6.04 TWh5.93 TWh


*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Thu Oct 4th, 2012 at 05:20:42 AM EST
> the seasonal natural balancing between wind and solar

Yep, this is important as storage of energy over seasonal time scales is hard. One can match and mix wind and solar to follow the annual load cycle.

...but not just the seasonal cycle: wind and sun anti-correlate also on the synoptic time scale, with high pressures being sunny and low pressures windy.

by mustakissa on Fri Oct 5th, 2012 at 09:01:38 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Big dams are your friend. :)

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
by Starvid on Fri Oct 5th, 2012 at 09:11:33 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Unless you live downstream from this one.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II
by eurogreen on Fri Oct 5th, 2012 at 10:46:42 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Certainly, but they also have their limitations. And you only find them in certain countries...

You can, e.g., store quite huge amounts of energy in the Norwegian mountains. But getting it out quickly enough when you need it may be a problem. Even after installing all the necessary extra turbines and high-voltage lines -- where do you put all the water downstream of the dam?

by mustakissa on Fri Oct 5th, 2012 at 12:12:31 PM EST
[ Parent ]
In the river, where it is collected by the next dam.

There is also the option of pumped hydro, which would become far more attractive with access to sovereign credit.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Fri Oct 5th, 2012 at 05:44:15 PM EST
[ Parent ]
In the river, where it is collected by the next dam.

Eh, I'm talking GW, not TWh. Where do you put a huge amount of water all at once in a small river, with picturesque, small Norwegian villages lining the shores?

by mustakissa on Sat Oct 6th, 2012 at 04:53:18 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Naturally there are limits. In Sweden it is regulated in Vattendomar that sets highs and lows and a ton of other things. Regulated rivers are precisely that from a legal standpoint.

Have no idea what the order of maximum effect is with relation to water flows. Should not be much lower then total maximum effect though, not much point in installing more effect then the Vattendom allows water flow, though there is probably an effect on each others maximum allowed flow in the case of rivers running together. Total installed hydro capacity in Sweden is about 16 GW in Sweden.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

by A swedish kind of death on Sat Oct 6th, 2012 at 05:29:21 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Yep, and in Norway 29 GW. And that's the rub. Read the title of the article: 100 GW wind installed and growing. And total consumption in Europe somewhere in the 400 GW range, and that should grow too, if we want to electrify our other energy uses, like transport, space heating, process industry, metallurgy. Electrifying those is the only way to get around the lousy Carnot efficiency of burning stuff...

So, currently Scandinavian hydro can produce only a tenth or so of total electric power consumed in Europe. If it is to serve as intermittency back-up, it should be much larger than that. As it is, it may serve Scandinavia, Scotland, the North of Germany, and that's about it. And that will require substantial investment, in HVDC lines and turbines. So, it's part of a solution at best. Alpine hydro will be another part.

Whether a hydro plant can be upgraded will depend on what's downstream: another big reservoir, a fjord, or the sea: good. And no, you don't actually need pumped hydro if the reservoir is big enough: you can "store" energy by holding back the flow, for a while at least. And the good news is that the reservoirs are lowest towards spring, when in winter there are good winds over Northern Europe.

Some reading stuff from Norway here:

http://www.cedren.no/Publications.aspx

esp. the first article.

by mustakissa on Sun Oct 7th, 2012 at 07:48:47 AM EST
[ Parent ]
You're neglecting scheduled load-following. If all the wind in Europe is offline at the same time, we will know about it at least a day in advance. Dedicated peakers only need to cover the forecast errors and unexpected plant shutdowns.

Suppose you have a sustainable grid in which the baseload is wind, solar, and run-of-river hydro (and wave and tidal); scheduled load-following power is wood pellet, biochar, and large industrial consumers being paid to shift energy-intensive production around to other parts of the day/week; and peak load is hydro, pumped hydro and biogas.

Suppose further that European total consumption is on the order of 1 TW at the daily and seasonal peak, and 0.65 TW at the trough. If the largest single point of failure is 10 GW, with an 0.3 % probability of failing during any given day, and the largest forecast error for consumption in any given day has a standard deviation on the order of 20 GW, or about 2 % of peak power.

Now assume that we want to have enough peaker capacity to make blackouts only happen once every 1800 days (approximately five years) on average, and keep enough peaker power online at all time that we only need to bleed off scheduled power about once a year. That means you need about six or seven standard deviations plus the largest single point of failure. Call it 150 GW of dedicated peaker power. For all of Europe, in a fully sustainable grid. So 50 GW of peaker power from Scandinavia alone is very definitely in the right ballpark.

The real challenge is going to be coming up with sustainable scheduled load-following.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Sun Oct 7th, 2012 at 09:07:07 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Being able to predict it doesn't absolve you from having to provide it! As you said it,

The real challenge is going to be coming up with sustainable scheduled load-following.

I think you misread me: I'm not implying that the mechanics of load following would be a problem of consequence even at ~100% renewable penetration. That meme is nonsense. But we do need load-following power above and beyond hydro.

I don't think using bio-fuels for this is a good idea: they are limited in availability, and it would be better to reserve them, e.g., for transport, where they are hard to replace completely. One solution on the longer run would be hydrogen fuel, generated by electrolysis from peak wind/solar. This is already being studied. Besides being burned in power plants, hydrogen has some direct uses, e.g., in steel making (one example of a user that could switch off on request and use stored fuel).

This would require the installed capacity of renewables to be more than 100% of average electric power load, e.g., 150%. A tall order, but the North Sea is large enough for a big chunk of that.

by mustakissa on Sun Oct 7th, 2012 at 10:03:04 AM EST
[ Parent ]
"...implying that the mechanics of load following would be a problem of consequence even at ~100% renewable penetration. That meme is nonsense."

I would not bet the farm on that.

by asdf on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 12:11:33 AM EST
[ Parent ]
The economic characteristics of the market interact with the physical characteristics of the power system, and the two must be considered as a whole...not so easy to do...

http://arxiv.org/abs/1106.1401

by asdf on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 12:43:43 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Yep, there are folks that study this for a living. Still, no show-stopper...
by mustakissa on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 06:39:50 AM EST
[ Parent ]
In a new article, IWR also discusses prices, which I'm gonna paraphrase only.

EEX released numbers for September which show the average price of baseload electricity dropping to 4.47 c/kWh (from 5.26 c/kWh in September 2011), and that of peak load to 5.47 c/kWh (from 6.24 c/kWh), a development IWR is fully justified to credit to the increase in renewables (as discussed several times this year on ET). However, IWR attacked EEX for calculating the average for peak load solely on the basis of trade for workday and holiday peak load, and said the real average (including trade for Saturdays and Sundays) was just 4.92 c/kWh.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Fri Oct 5th, 2012 at 02:15:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I must say that I don't understand the IWR criticism. You should count only the peaks that matter, and weekend peaks do not test the envelope.
by mustakissa on Sat Oct 6th, 2012 at 05:36:29 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I don't understand your argument. If power is traded as peak power, then it should count as peak power, no?

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Sat Oct 6th, 2012 at 11:41:11 AM EST
[ Parent ]
What I mean is this. This is about the price of electricity, not the volume sold. Two prices are used to represent the whole price structure: baseload price and peak price. If you choose this representation, you want those two data points to be maximally separated. You achieve this by choosing for peak load the highest peaks only: working-day peaks, when power companies have to throw in their most expensive, rarely used resources.

Now the interesting thing in this comparison is not the prices themselves but their development over time (in response to the spread of renewables). Then it doesn't matter precisely how you define peak load, as long as you do it consistently over time. Then the IWR method is just as good -- just a different convention. What I don't buy is their claim that it is better.

by mustakissa on Sun Oct 7th, 2012 at 02:21:46 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Two prices are used to represent the whole price structure: baseload price and peak price. If you choose this representation, you want those two data points to be maximally separated.

In what way maximally separated, beyond price? The way I see it, if there is separation in trading, anything above is artificial. Any way I look at it, EEX's number is not average peak load, it's average weekday peak load, and doesn't represent the whole price structure. If one wants to know how high prices can get, then standard deviation could be calculated.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Sun Oct 7th, 2012 at 03:55:47 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The only way to represent the whole price structure exactly is to give all the raw data. If you are allowed to give only two numbers, the best way to characterize it is IMO the one I outlined above. But there are various almost-best alternatives, and if all you're interested in is evolution over time, it doesn't matter too much which one you choose as long as you're consistent. Meaning, IWR's critique has no merit.
by mustakissa on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 06:37:04 AM EST
[ Parent ]
If you are allowed to give only two numbers, the best way to characterize it is IMO the one I outlined above.

Best, for what purpose? It is certainly not fit for a complete representation. Regarding IWR, they aren't interested in the time evolution only; the context of this criticism is public perception of price levels.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 06:42:20 AM EST
[ Parent ]
the context of this criticism is public perception of price levels

Then I think they are over-sensitive. Come on, there is more to life than spin :-)

by mustakissa on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 11:09:29 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Spin can kill real energy policy. Price levels are the focus of the energy debate in Germany at present, with conservatives and liberals and traditional Big Energy claiming renewables cause high prices and need to be curbed.

But, you still haven't answered my question regarding for what purpose you (and EEX) consider the sans-weekend average of peak power the best measure. You obviously have something in mind when you say weekday peak power is typically more expensive, but I honestly don't know what and I'd like it spelled out.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 03:58:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]
On second thought, let me be more explicit. You did write this much about the speciality of workday peak power:

working-day peaks, when power companies have to throw in their most expensive, rarely used resources

However, the situation when power companies have to throw in their most expensive, rarely used resources is not average peak load, nor average weekday peak load, but peak loads higher than that. Such peaks can appear at any time in the week when caused by a baseload plant shutdown. With the spread of intermittent renewables, these peaks can appear at any time of the day or week. Hence my earlier contention that using the standard deviation would be a good measure of price extremes. With that background, I can imagine two possibilities: either I'm not aware of something special about the usefulness of the weekday measure, or that usefulness is dated (reflecting the pre-renewables, pre-deregulation structure of the power market).

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 04:21:33 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Best practice would in any case be to use the full sample and then test for weekday effects. It's not that hard - we expect undergraduate economists to understand how to do it.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Tue Oct 9th, 2012 at 04:29:07 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Nothing special really. Just the highest peaks that are still somewhat common. But yes, it will always be a rough-and-ready measure. Like standard deviation for what is likely a highly non-normal distribution.
by mustakissa on Tue Oct 9th, 2012 at 05:59:30 AM EST
[ Parent ]
if all you're interested in is evolution over time, it doesn't matter too much which one you choose as long as you're consistent

This is an interesting question on its own. Is the renewables-induced price reduction uniform on different days of the week?

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 06:49:19 AM EST
[ Parent ]


Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.
by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 08:01:12 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Vestas follows Enercon's and REpower's example in up-rating its biggest turbine (which was to be expected, given the rotor diameter):

Capacity of V164 offshore turbine increased to 8 MW. Wind. It means the world to us. | Vestas

The V164 platform was from the very beginning developed with a possible potential of increasing the turbine size. The progress in the technology development has now shown that an 8 MW version will offer lower cost of energy and at the same time keep the reliability and structural integrity of the turbine unchanged.

The balance of plant will be reduced due to the increased power output per turbine. This means that the cost of energy will be reduced as the number of turbines, foundations, etc., as well as the required number of service visits will also decrease.

...Vestas still expects the first prototype of the V164-8.0 MW turbine to be installed in Oesterild, Denmark, in 2014.



*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Thu Oct 4th, 2012 at 09:41:59 AM EST
For new readers: up to 8 MW from 7 MW. And note: offshore, where the winds are good (and sometimes terrifying).
by mustakissa on Sat Oct 6th, 2012 at 04:55:41 AM EST
[ Parent ]
L'Assemblée adopte le projet de loi sur l'énergie malgré le départ de nombreux députésThe French parliament adopts energy bill despite walkout of many MPs
L'Assemblée nationale a adopté à l'unanimité, dans la nuit du jeudi 4 au vendredi 5 octobre, la proposition de loi PS visant à créer un bonus-malus sur la facture d'énergie et à étendre les tarifs sociaux, et ce malgré les départs des députés UMP, UDI (centristes) et Front de Gauche pendant la séance.The National Assembly adopted? unanimously, on the night of Thursday 4 Friday 5 October, the Socialist Party bill to create a bonus-malus on [household] energy bills and [subsidised] energy bills, despite the walkout of UMP IDI (centrist) and the Left Front during the session.
Le texte, qui sera débattu par les sénateurs à compter de la mi-octobre, a été voté par la quinzaine d'élus de la majorité présents. L'écologiste Denis Baupin présidait la séance. Les députés de l'UMP, de l'UDI et du Front de Gauche, qui avaient par avance annoncé qu'ils voteraient contre, avaient quitté l'hémicycle environ une demi-heure avant pour protester contre l'introduction d'amendements assouplissant la réglementation de l'éolien. Cette mesure était défendue par Europe Ecologie-Les Verts.The text, which will be discussed by senators from mid-October, was voted by the fifteen elected majority present. Environmentalist Denis Baupin chaired the meeting. Members of the UMP, the IDU and the Left Front, which had announced in advance that they would vote against, had left the chamber about half an hour before to protest against the introduction of amendments softening the regulation of wind power. This measure was defended by Europe Ecologie-Les Verts.
Ils ont dénoncé des "droits du Parlement bafoués" par un manque de consultation sur ces amendements, et par un changement non prévu de l'ordre du débat. Certains ont critiqué un "passage en force". "Ne transformez pas à 2 heures du matin en fin de semaine la France en un immense ventilateur. On vous laisse faire seuls cette horreur", a par exemple lancé l'UMP Martial Saddier.They denounced the "Rights of Parliament violated" by a lack of consultation on these amendments, and unanticipated change the order of debate. Some have criticized a "bulldozer" approach. "Do not turn France into a huge fan at 2am at the end of the week. We will leave you alone to accomplish this horror," for example, has launched the UMP Martial Saddier.
Denis Baupin s'est, au contraire, félicité de l'adoption de cet amendement qui supprime "la fameuse règle des 5 mats qui obligeait jusque-là tout projet d'implantation d'éoliennes (ou d'extension) à prévoir au moins 5 éoliennes". Le groupe écologiste estimait qu'elle "freinait inutilement le développement des parcs éoliens", par exemple dans l'ouest de la France.Denis Baupin has, instead, welcomed the adoption of this amendment which removes the "rule of five masts which required any proposed installation of wind turbines (or extension) to provide at least 5 turbines." The ecologist group felt that it was "unnecessarily holding back the development of wind farms", for example in western France.


It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II
by eurogreen on Fri Oct 5th, 2012 at 11:24:41 AM EST
Note that the wind amendments, tacked onto an unrelated (but very interesting in itself) energy bill, follow several weeks of intense consultation with actors in the renewable energy sector, and are an attempt of pulling the French (terrestrial) wind sector out of its current spectacular nosedive, by simplifying the voluntarily complexified administrative procedures (a wind park is alleged to take 8 years to complete in France, compared to 4 in Germany).

Similarly, moves are underway to rescusitate the stillborn solar energy sector.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II

by eurogreen on Fri Oct 5th, 2012 at 11:50:04 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Looks like France is doing the right things, and much more than just shutting down an aging nuclear reactor.

A next important step would be to reverse the policy in support of direct electric space heating, and start driving the adoption of heat pumps (both air and ground). Not only will this lower electricity consumption esp. in winter, but in the South it will make summers more comfortable. And the existing grid capacity, which was demonstrated to handle a 100GW-plus load peak in winter, will then be enough to move substantial amounts of wind or solar power around/through France...

by mustakissa on Sat Oct 6th, 2012 at 05:03:44 AM EST
[ Parent ]
The other major policy getting started is a drive to bring a million homes per year up to decent standards of insulation. The hard part is that the bulk of poorly-insulated places are rental accomodation, so you need to get the incentives/constraints right.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II
by eurogreen on Sun Oct 7th, 2012 at 08:00:37 AM EST
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Yep, that is very important. And getting the building code up to snuff for new construction, both proper insulation and passive thermal behaviour.
by mustakissa on Sun Oct 7th, 2012 at 09:39:25 AM EST
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Heat pumps don't work well in winter, at least not the air-based ones. After all, they heat your home by pulling heat out of the air and depositing it inside your home, but there aint much heat in the air when it's -20 outside. So then you need your electric heater anyway.

If you live somewhere where it doesn't get very cold in the winter (like the UK or France), your main replacement for electric heaters should probably not be heat pumps, but insulation. :)

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Sun Oct 7th, 2012 at 04:06:06 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I think standard air-based heat-pumps are supposed to manage down to -15 degrees C so even with some margin of safety I guess it should be enough for French conditions.

But yeah, put in some double glass windows in the UK already and see the heating needs shrink.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

by A swedish kind of death on Sun Oct 7th, 2012 at 04:22:53 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I think so too. And then there are warm sweaters ;-)
by mustakissa on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 06:31:56 AM EST
[ Parent ]
They don't even have double glass windows? I think triple glass windows (with vacuum inbetween?) are standard here. At least mine are triple, and the entire construction is 12 cm thick. I bet it's far more cost-efficient to spend money on better insulation rather than on new power plants. :)

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
by Starvid on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 05:04:08 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Vacuum? Would that not but unnecessary strain on the panes? Perhaps some other gas then air instead?

I have double anyway, bogstandard windows. Funny thing was that on one of those english building shows, they were installing the same but calling it hypermodern, energy efficient Nordic windows.

When it comes to how much they use single pane, I am uncertain how much I am extrapolating from own experience and stereotype. But this kind of public service information indicates that England still has far to go:

Windows / Insulation / Home (England) - Energy Saving Trust England

The benefits of energy-efficient windows
  • Smaller energy bills: replacing all single-glazed windows with B-rated double glazing could save you around £165 per year on your energy bills.
  • A smaller carbon footprint: by using less fuel, you'll generate less of the carbon dioxide that leads to global warming - typically, 680kg a year.
  • A more comfortable home: energy-efficient glazing reduces heat loss through windows and means fewer draughts and cold spots.
  • Peace and quiet: as well as keeping the heat in, energy efficient-windows insulate your home against outside noise.
  • Reduced condensation: energy-efficient glazing reduces condensation build-up on the inside of windows.

The costs and savings for energy-efficient glazing will be different for each home and each window, depending on the size, material and installer. Double glazing should last for 20 years or more.

To get a better idea of how much you could save by replacing your windows, use the Energy Saving Calculator at the Glass and Glazing Federation's website, developed with the Energy Saving Trust.   



Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se
by A swedish kind of death on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 05:53:11 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Yes, you might well be right, it makes sense to have some other gas there, which doesn't transmit heat well, or air would probably leak in over time, I suppose? I can't say I know much about windows.

Old houses don't use triple windows, as they often have such beautiful windows which would be a shame to replace. The house I live in installed triple-pane windows a few years ago, but was built as recently as 1940. The house I grew up in was built in 1872 and still use the original (I think?) windows, which are double-pane.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 06:01:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]
You want a gas with maximum inertia and minimum degrees of freedom.  This means the heaviest monoatomic gas you can find.  Radon might be a good option :)

More effective would be to put something in which slows the gas down, aerogels are a great option for this (although they are expensive and tint things slightly bluish, like smoke).

by njh on Tue Oct 9th, 2012 at 12:02:12 AM EST
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> Radon might be a good option :)

Perhaps not :) ... argon is used much.

by mustakissa on Tue Oct 9th, 2012 at 05:53:00 AM EST
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Vacuum? Would that not but unnecessary strain on the panes? Perhaps some other gas then air instead?

I would have thought that they used vacuum (and I'm pretty sure some of them do), but the Google agrees with you that it's not generally the case.

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

by JakeS (JangoSierra 'at' gmail 'dot' com) on Tue Oct 9th, 2012 at 04:34:15 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I thought they all used vacuum. Our double panes do, which I learned when a small pebble shot at high speed from a weed whacker outside knocked a bullet hole in the outer pane. I inquired about filling the hole with resin, but was told that that would not reinstate the vacuum and thus the efficiency of the insulation.  
by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Tue Oct 9th, 2012 at 05:20:55 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Not on older - mid 1990s?! - builds. We still haven't finished upgrading the windows in our house.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Tue Oct 9th, 2012 at 05:34:37 AM EST
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I have just had the opportunity to do an informal test of my house's insulation.

It dropped to freezing on Friday night and stayed at just above freezing all day Saturday and Saturday night. Friday it was overcast all night, continuing all day Saturday, and then Saturday night. So we had two nights and a day of pretty constant exterior temperature just above freezing, and not much sun.

The interior of the house dropped about 3 degrees F (around 1.5 degrees C) over Friday night (from 63 to 60), and then stayed constant during the day. It dropped another 3 degrees Saturday night. Then today (Sunday) it was sunny and about 60 F out, and warmed up to 65 inside (because of insolation). Furnace is not enabled yet.

Because it is fairly uncommon to have more than two sequential overcast days in Colorado, we get lots of free solar heating and can avoid running the furnace until the daily highs drop to around 50 degrees and nightly lows below freezing, which is usually not until early November.

This is a recently-constructed house with double-paned windows, good door seals, and standard American fiberglass insulation in 10 cm walls...

by asdf on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 12:23:54 AM EST
[ Parent ]
You only have an indoor temperature of 63F (17C)??? That's awful!

Most people here never lets it drop below 20C (68F) and most prefer something like 23C (73F).

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 05:17:12 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I assume you're not serious... A couple of years ago we were talking about this on ET and someone was in Japan where it was at freezing inside. Here at my house, we generally do just fine at 63 F (17 C) in the winter. Lots of sweaters, and we have a gas fire in the living room in the evening to bring it up a bit, but what's the point of getting it to 23? Obviously there is no reason at all for heating your bedroom at night, since you're under a pile of blankets anyway. And pets can stay in very cold weather if they're dry and have enough food, so there is no reason to heat the house during the day if you're gone.

In the morning you take a hot shower and that warms you up until you get your coffee, so really it's only a few hours in the evening when the heat is worth running at all. (Unless you work at home.)

Look at some old movies from the 1930s--people wore all that clothing for a reason. I lived in a house (it was a good house, not a shack) in New England that was built in 1925 and had no provision whatsoever for heating about a third of it--hallways, staircases, entries, the basement, etc. And in Colorado especially, it gets so sunny in the day that you can usually get it up to 20 or so just by sitting there with the curtains drawn back.

This whole thing about how it needs to be springtime 365 days a year is really ridiculous. Unless you're sick or aged or something like that, a "room temperature" of 17 or 18 C is just fine. Here's a quote from a discussion of how 20 C became identified as "room temperature."

The average laboratory temperatures in Europe are [in the 1920s] decidedly lower than in nearly the whole of the United States, and it is doubtful whether international agreement is possible on so high a temperature as 25 °C. There has been much difficulty in getting Europeans to agree even to 20 °C. Various temperatures have been suggested and used abroad, 15 °C, 16°C, 17.5 °C, 18 °C, etc., for different standardizing purposes. 15 °C was formerly the one in greatest use.

http://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/jres/112/1/V112.N01.A01.pdf
by asdf on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 07:01:17 PM EST
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The entire idea about being inside is that it shouldn't be like outside: cold, dark, and full of rain and snow. The greatcoats are for outside, inside you shouldn't need wear them. And with good insulation, you don't need to. It's currently 7 degrees celsius outside, nice and warm inside, and my radiators (district heating, yay) aren't even warm.

Some relatives of mine live in the country, so they don't have district heating. Until recently they had electric heating via water radiators, which meant they always had to wear thick sweaters inside, or even thick socks, as the temperature was usually hovering around 17-18 and power is expensive.

Now they've replaced the electric heater with an automated wood furnace, which has a 93% efficiency rating and a huge water accumulator tank. They only need to fire it up twice a week except during midwinter, and it stays a balmy 22-23 inside all the while. They feel their quality of life has clearly improved. Not only is it warmer inside, but they've installed heated floors in the bathroom and have more or less unlimited amounts of hot water for showers.

Also, firewood is more or less free as the sheep don't eat trees and they have to keep the meadows clear anyway, and hence get it untaxed. You only need a chainsaw.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

by Starvid on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 07:31:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]
There's not much firewood here in the desert!

And obviously it is a bit of a philosophical debate about the value of being warm. But it is also undeniable that those of us living in northern climes use energy for heating way, way, way out of proportion to people living in the tropics. One must somehow come to terms with that...

by asdf on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 11:22:45 PM EST
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Sweaters in 18C??? That's walking-around-naked temperatures here.

(Except that, as a Catholic country we never do such things.)

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Tue Oct 9th, 2012 at 04:41:38 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I don't see why anyone would want 23° all year round, unless they like to walk around naked. On the other hand, anything less than 18° makes my hands cold, and I can't use a computer.

Those of us who live in temperate climates are spoiled, I suppose, but paradoxically, generally far more tolerant about a range of living temperatures than those who live in the desert (who over-chill) or the frozen north (who over-heat), to over-compensate I guess.

It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II

by eurogreen on Tue Oct 9th, 2012 at 03:46:12 AM EST
[ Parent ]
unless they like to walk around naked.

Nordics, remember?

</stereotyping>

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Tue Oct 9th, 2012 at 04:40:00 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Around here, people who prefer temperatures around 25°C at home aren't uncommon. Definitely energy-wasting and definitely too much for me personally. (But then also they don't sweat like I do in summer heat outside...) I prefer something between 20-22°C by day, sinking to 17-19°C by night. I have what you have with fingers too (albeit at a bit lower temperature), and in addition, a sensitivity of the sinuses (even though I have no problems with cold weather when going outside).

But of course, tolerable temperatures depend on air humidity, too.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Tue Oct 9th, 2012 at 11:01:12 AM EST
[ Parent ]
There is this funny thing for ground-based heat pumps which some clever people have invented. Drilling the heat well is expensive, so you save money if you drill a shallower one. However, then you might run out of heat in the ground during winter. But fear not! These people got the idea of installing solar heat collectors on the roof, which recharge the ground with heat as long as the sun is out. :)

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
by Starvid on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 06:04:56 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Massive wind farms to be set up in northwest coastal areas - Helsingin Sanomat

The sections are being put in place with the help of the tallest moveable crane in the Nordic Countries. The crane reaches a high of 156 metres, and has a warning light for passing aircraft, says Petri Ainonen, project director of the crane company Havator.

Finland's highest wind turbine will be raised in Olhava, near the cost, on Tuesday. The hub of the windmill is at 140 metres, and the tips of the rotor blades will reach nearly 200 metres when they rotate.


by sgr2 on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 02:37:17 PM EST
That's some height – the blades won't get closer than 80-85 m to the ground. The article says it's to avoid turbulence. I find these will be Vestas V112-3.0 MW units (meaning hub and tip height should differ by 56 m), so the data in the article is somewhat imprecise.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Mon Oct 8th, 2012 at 04:10:10 PM EST
[ Parent ]


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