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tl;dr: Chevron owns the turbines. They originally signed an agreement with PacifiCorp to buy the power generated. When the agreement was up Chevron decided not

tl;dr: Chevron owns the turbines. They originally signed an agreement with PacifiCorp to buy the power generated. When the agreement was up Chevron decided not to renew it and instead pursue registering as a generator to sell the power directly to buyers on the Western Interconnect. As a result they have nowhere to send the power right now for the same reason you can't install a 50MWh generator on your property, toss some wires up, and start pumping electricity into the grid - even if you wanted to do it for free. This is a great example of garbage journalism. The story reports "the facts" but completely fails to put anything in context. The story completely misses this point and acts like the government is at fault for approving the permit to install the turbines and that the nay-sayers and NIMBYs were correct because it turns out wind turbines are just a boondoggle after all. The actual story is Chevron made incompetent business decisions by failing to sign up as a generator earlier and failing to temporarily renew their PacifiCorp power purchase agreement, thus forcing them to idle an expensive asset while they fix their mistake.

gwbas1c 2y ago
> The actual story is... Is that connecting renewables to the grid is time consuming, and shouldn't be. A few years ago, I determined that they payoff of grid-scale batteries is extremely fast, BUT, connecting to the grid is so frustrating that I decided I didn't want to peruse the opportunity. I don't know if I'd use the word "incompetent."
- margalabargala 2y ago
  I would expect a company whose business is building and operating power plants, to be more adept at navigating the red tape surrounding the grid that they operate than you are.
- scblock 2y ago
  No, they have an interconnection agreement. They're already connected to the grid.
scblock 2y ago
Chevron did everything wrong on this wind farm even before they built it. This is not a wind issue, this is not a government issue, and this is not a PacifiCorp issue. This is Chevron being garbage, which should surprise no one.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  > Chevron did everything wrong on this wind farm even before they built it. This is not a wind issue, this is not a government issue, and this is not a PacifiCorp issue. What do you mean by all this? Anything specific? The parent comment seems to imply they just haven’t built interconnect yet
chiffre01 2y ago
This is Cowboy State Daily, one of the few news sources from Wyoming.They publish a lot of stories with a significant amount of bad faith, particularly concerning energy and environmental issues. wyofile.com is a better source for energy and environmental reporting.
- LinuxBender 2y ago
  Thankyou. I will use more articles from that site from now on.
happosai 2y ago
Wind power is not their core business, so they don't even seem to be trying. Someone decided that doing some wind power would be good publicity, and then did a token effort with this farm. Someone's friend who needed a job but couldn't be trusted to run anything serious in Chevron was then hired to run wind business with predictable results.
Denzel 2y ago
Do you have any book recommendations to help understand the electrical grid and why you can’t just start pumping electricity into it? I find these type of systems fascinating.
- jasonjayr 2y ago
  Fundamentally, Grid operators have to realtime-match demand + generation, and have a bunch of grid-scale devices along the way to sink excess generation temporarily, or have (expensive) peaker plants to ramp up generation temporarily. For example, natural gas can respond quicker to demands, but nuclear power plants typically cannot. Typically nuclear plants will feed into the average 'base load' and the more responsive plants will handle temporary peaks. In order to financially make this work, there are a whole litany of agreements + commitments in place, as well as some "free market magic". (Remember a few years ago when spot prices for electricity spiked into obscene territory?) Renewables provide unique challenges for these operations, as you cannot simply turn sun and wind off and on. Similarly, you can't just pump uncontrolled electricity into the grid w/o the operator's coordination.
  - Denzel 2y ago
    Huh, thanks for that explanation, I didn't consider what happens when a grid generates excess energy that has nowhere to go. Makes sense that bad things would happen once you've exceeded your storage capacity, hence the real-time matching.
    - jasonjayr 2y ago
      You may have already seen it, but this timely story from Grady/Practical Engineering also goes into these details: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42183747 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42183747

gwbas1c 2y ago

> The actual story is... Is that connecting renewables to the grid is time consuming, and shouldn't be. A few years ago, I determined that they payoff of grid-scale batteries is extremely fast, BUT, connecting to the grid is so frustrating that I decided I didn't want to peruse the opportunity. I don't know if I'd use the word "incompetent."

margalabargala 2y ago
I would expect a company whose business is building and operating power plants, to be more adept at navigating the red tape surrounding the grid that they operate than you are.
scblock 2y ago
No, they have an interconnection agreement. They're already connected to the grid.

scblock 2y ago

Chevron did everything wrong on this wind farm even before they built it. This is not a wind issue, this is not a government issue, and this is not a PacifiCorp issue. This is Chevron being garbage, which should surprise no one.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
> Chevron did everything wrong on this wind farm even before they built it. This is not a wind issue, this is not a government issue, and this is not a PacifiCorp issue. What do you mean by all this? Anything specific? The parent comment seems to imply they just haven’t built interconnect yet

chiffre01 2y ago

This is Cowboy State Daily, one of the few news sources from Wyoming.They publish a lot of stories with a significant amount of bad faith, particularly concerning energy and environmental issues. wyofile.com is a better source for energy and environmental reporting.

LinuxBender 2y ago
Thankyou. I will use more articles from that site from now on.

happosai 2y ago

Wind power is not their core business, so they don't even seem to be trying. Someone decided that doing some wind power would be good publicity, and then did a token effort with this farm. Someone's friend who needed a job but couldn't be trusted to run anything serious in Chevron was then hired to run wind business with predictable results.

Denzel 2y ago

Do you have any book recommendations to help understand the electrical grid and why you can’t just start pumping electricity into it? I find these type of systems fascinating.

jasonjayr 2y ago
Fundamentally, Grid operators have to realtime-match demand + generation, and have a bunch of grid-scale devices along the way to sink excess generation temporarily, or have (expensive) peaker plants to ramp up generation temporarily. For example, natural gas can respond quicker to demands, but nuclear power plants typically cannot. Typically nuclear plants will feed into the average 'base load' and the more responsive plants will handle temporary peaks. In order to financially make this work, there are a whole litany of agreements + commitments in place, as well as some "free market magic". (Remember a few years ago when spot prices for electricity spiked into obscene territory?) Renewables provide unique challenges for these operations, as you cannot simply turn sun and wind off and on. Similarly, you can't just pump uncontrolled electricity into the grid w/o the operator's coordination.
- Denzel 2y ago
  Huh, thanks for that explanation, I didn't consider what happens when a grid generates excess energy that has nowhere to go. Makes sense that bad things would happen once you've exceeded your storage capacity, hence the real-time matching.
  - jasonjayr 2y ago
    You may have already seen it, but this timely story from Grady/Practical Engineering also goes into these details: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42183747 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42183747