Gas consumption
Without wind: 192,000 MMcf/yr
With wind: 177,000 MMcf/yr

CO2 emissions
Without wind: 11.2 mt/yr
With wind: 11.5 mt/yr

2. For OCGT:CCGT = 50:50 all year

Gas consumption
Without wind: 192,000 MMcf/yr
With wind: 187,000 MMcf/yr

CO2 emissions
Without wind: 11.2 mt/yr
With wind: 12.5 mt/yr

The calculator does not look at costs. Here is a possible answer. The increased costs would have two components:
1. Given the similar amount of gas consumed with and without wind, the total cost of the wind plants, less the small fuel (gas) savings, plus
2. The cost differential, between no wind gas turbine plants and CCGT:OCGT plant mix required with the presence of wind. You raise an interesting consideration. The calculator looks only at the gas plant electricity production and not the capacity of gas plants used and the associated capacity factors. This is worth looking at.

Contact me at kenth@kos.net and I will send you more information on the calculator.

Inputs:

Wind capacity factor = 30%

Proportion CCGT to OCGT = 50:50

Question: What is the percentage increase of the cost of electricity generated by gas compared with the no-wind case?

I presume the cost difference would take into consideration the increased investment in OCGT (operating at average low capacity factor, e.g. 15%) compared with CCGT (operating at higher average capacity factor, e.g. 50%) for the case with wind.

One hopes that Kent’s ideas will published soon in a highly respected energy journal. If so, perhaps EPAW, and other concerned groups around the world, would call for a press conference and surround it with a public relations campaign that reinforces Hawkins’ conclusions.

At the same time, why not publicly clamor for access to wind performance data in Europe, using your “calculator” to measure wind’s impact on thermal behavior in your country? I believe there is a team in The Netherlands doing just this–assessing wind in Germany, where the data is more easily studied. This report may also soon be available.

It is essential that Hawkins’ method be applied as soon as possible, so that is can be tested against reality. This is made extremely difficult because of the proprietary confidentiality that cloaks so much of wind performance. One simply can’t get access to the necessary data. You might consider demonstrations in Belgium that would demand data access.

If it is impossible to account for the wind industry’s claims about actual performance, then the industry should not be given any credibility beyond that given ordinary swindlers.

As we are in a quasi emergency situation over here (dozens of wind farms seeking and getting construction permits), what do you suggest ?

Sincerely,

Patrice

This is the kind of thinking that led to all hell breaking loose in the financial sector, led as it was by shoddy accounting and subprime mortgage schemes.

It will, on the other hand, help to convince alarmists that we are doing something about CO2 emissions and will soak up a large quantity of financial resources that could be invested in new nuclear power plant capacity. Unlike wind turbines, nuclear power has proven that a helping hand to get it started results in massive quantities of power generation, an end to a need for continued subsidies, and a large new tax base that can improve local and national economies.

When it does that, however, nuclear takes markets away from oil, coal and gas, increasing the available energy supply faster than demand increases. That drives down the price of fossil fuels and reduces the wealth and power of fossil fuel focused providers.

(If you are not convinced, take a hard look at fossil fuel market prices for the 15-20 years following the first Nuclear Age, a time in which production from nuclear fission increased from 0 to roughly 12 million barrels of oil equivalent per day over a 30 year period.)

Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights

You raise an interesting point from a theoretical point of view, but there may be practical limitations to wide-spread use. For example, if this leads to an increase in the number of gas plants, there a greater risk of local resistance and more gas pipelines required. In short, the considerations may be too extensive for this discussion.

The calculator and associated paper are not intended as a prescription or a means to configure various wind/gas-turbine combinations. Its purpose is to illustrate the dramatic impact of volatile wind production on other generation means, specifically gas turbines, which is a generally applicable approach. It provides a framework for the considerations involved and an interim assessment of their effects until sufficiently comprehensive studies can be performed in the areas indicated. Such studies could include a range of possible, realistic configurations.

The calculator results are sufficiently dramatic that other considerations that reduce these somewhat do not change the conclusion that industrial-scale wind power does not perform to the level that justifies its adoption as public policy. The reality is that the same capacity in the larger and more efficient gas turbines left alone to support the same load represents a better alternative. I expect that the type of studies called for will support this.