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The absolute worst thing that can happen is that wind farm owners will have to scale production down because they can't sell it. If the wind farms aren't liste

The absolute worst thing that can happen is that wind farm owners will have to scale production down because they can't sell it. If the wind farms aren't listening or the order doesn't go out or there is any sort of communication problem, the excess power could overload the grid. This is a fail-deadly situation. If this problem is so frequent, get more export lines and sell the excess elsewhere (and, conversely, import when you're running low). Why is this portrayed as a problem at all? From the article: Building new transmission, though, is an uphill battle. New lines often require new rights of way through sensitive habitat and private property. And they are phenomenally expensive, raising the show-stopping question of who pays. Everyone's overlooking the other thing mentioned in the article: The new wind farms aren't cutting down on non-renewable usage. If too much wind power is generated, the BPA reduces hydroelectric generation.

Retric 16y ago
Hydroelectric is often used more like a battery than a base load power source. The infrastructure costs are fixed, the power output per month is fixed, but producing 50% more or less power for a few hours is easy to compensated for by changing the power output levels over the next few days. In that context Wind + Hydro = base load power and together they can replace Coal power plants. The worst case situation where recent rains mean the hydro power plants need to produce energy or waste it, at the same time a wind farm can produce extra energy is really an edge case that has little real impact. The issue is at the other end, when there is little rain or wind for a long time.
- chopsueyar 16y ago
  I voted you up, but please explain to others how hydro can work as a battery with windpower. I can also see GP's caution as a way for power companies that rely on non-renewable resources to curtail this type of renewable energy production. "It will destroy the grid!" If I had considerable investments in coal, I would make certain that wind would destabilize the grid for a bit, and point my finger and say, "You can't use wind. It will destroy the grid!"
  - Retric 16y ago
    Pumped storage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity) is the most cost effective form of mass storage for the electric grid. The difference between a dam and pumped storage is you store energy using electricity to pump water up when you have excess grid capacity. Ideally you want to replace peaking power plants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaking_power_plant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaking_power_plant), with base load power and every night you pump water up and use it the next day with some reserve capacity to deal with issues. Now traditional hydroelectric http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectric http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectric get's "free" energy with short bursts (floods) that's gets released over several months, but other than that it's almost identical to pumped storage in that you can release more or less energy within minutes of changes in demand. In the past they tended to be used for base load power, but they all have a capacity factor which is average output / max output and in the USA it averages out to 42%. As to the mechanics: Worldwide, an installed capacity of 777 GWe supplied 2998 TWh of hydroelectricity in 2006.[1] This was approximately 20% of the world's electricity In theory if you add 2998 TWh of wind power on average, and can release 2x base load hydroelectric on demand then you can replace 20% of the world electricity generation with wind power and have little impact on the grid. Realistically, wind power over large areas is not going to drop to zero, also hydroelectric power is not setup to produce zero energy one minute and 2x that energy the next and not all hydro has the ability to store energy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run-of-the-river_hydroelectricity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run-of-the-river_hydroelectrici.... Plus you have transmission losses ect but hydro + wind can become very close to base load power especially if you slightly overbuild and accept the loss of some of your peak power aka 10% extra generation 3% of the time = 0.3% wasted capacity. For comparison Transmission and distribution losses in the USA were estimated at 7.2% in 1995 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission PS: Also the transistion is a fairly slow process, so we have several years to get things working.

Retric 16y ago

Hydroelectric is often used more like a battery than a base load power source. The infrastructure costs are fixed, the power output per month is fixed, but producing 50% more or less power for a few hours is easy to compensated for by changing the power output levels over the next few days. In that context Wind + Hydro = base load power and together they can replace Coal power plants. The worst case situation where recent rains mean the hydro power plants need to produce energy or waste it, at the same time a wind farm can produce extra energy is really an edge case that has little real impact. The issue is at the other end, when there is little rain or wind for a long time.

chopsueyar 16y ago
I voted you up, but please explain to others how hydro can work as a battery with windpower. I can also see GP's caution as a way for power companies that rely on non-renewable resources to curtail this type of renewable energy production. "It will destroy the grid!" If I had considerable investments in coal, I would make certain that wind would destabilize the grid for a bit, and point my finger and say, "You can't use wind. It will destroy the grid!"
- Retric 16y ago
  Pumped storage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity) is the most cost effective form of mass storage for the electric grid. The difference between a dam and pumped storage is you store energy using electricity to pump water up when you have excess grid capacity. Ideally you want to replace peaking power plants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaking_power_plant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peaking_power_plant), with base load power and every night you pump water up and use it the next day with some reserve capacity to deal with issues. Now traditional hydroelectric http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectric http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroelectric get's "free" energy with short bursts (floods) that's gets released over several months, but other than that it's almost identical to pumped storage in that you can release more or less energy within minutes of changes in demand. In the past they tended to be used for base load power, but they all have a capacity factor which is average output / max output and in the USA it averages out to 42%. As to the mechanics: Worldwide, an installed capacity of 777 GWe supplied 2998 TWh of hydroelectricity in 2006.[1] This was approximately 20% of the world's electricity In theory if you add 2998 TWh of wind power on average, and can release 2x base load hydroelectric on demand then you can replace 20% of the world electricity generation with wind power and have little impact on the grid. Realistically, wind power over large areas is not going to drop to zero, also hydroelectric power is not setup to produce zero energy one minute and 2x that energy the next and not all hydro has the ability to store energy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run-of-the-river_hydroelectricity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Run-of-the-river_hydroelectrici.... Plus you have transmission losses ect but hydro + wind can become very close to base load power especially if you slightly overbuild and accept the loss of some of your peak power aka 10% extra generation 3% of the time = 0.3% wasted capacity. For comparison Transmission and distribution losses in the USA were estimated at 7.2% in 1995 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission PS: Also the transistion is a fairly slow process, so we have several years to get things working.