Re: German Wind Power Experience

On 15 Feb 2006 18:58:40 -0800, "LongmuirG" <LongmuirG@xxxxxxx> wrote:

German electric utility E.ON handles more wind-generated electric power
than anyone else in the world, with:
"... an installed wind power capacity of over 7,000MW in the E.ON
Netz grid area. This acounted for over 40% of German wind power
capacities and more than the entire wind power capacity of the United
States."

E.ON's service area is ~42% germany.

As for US wind capacity,
at the end 2005 it stood at 9,149 MW,
with another 3000MW scheduled to come online in 2006.

http://www.awea.org/news/US_Wind_Industry_Ends_Most_Productive_Year_012406.html


E.ON has put out a brochure about their experience with wind power
(Wind Report 2005), downloadable at:
http://www.eon-netz.com/EONNETZ_eng.jsp

One of their principal conclusions from their substantial real-world
experience is that:
"Wind energy is only able to replace traditional power stations to a
limited extent. ... traditional power stations with capacities equal
to 90% of the installed wind power capacity must be permanently online
in order to guarantee power supply at all times."

Their other principal conclusions are (a) that wind power feed-in to
the grid can be forecast only to a limited degree, and (b) that wind
power needs an extensive grid infrastructure.

E.ON's experience with wind power was that the maximum feed-in to the
grid was around 85% of installed capacity; average feed-in was about
20% of installed capacity; and over half the year, feed-in was less
than 14% of installed capacity.

Germany is geographically much smaller, equal to the state of
Montana.. or 1/27th of US.

That makes E.ON's grid/service area equal to ~1.5% of the US..
Which is not enough surface area to average out the effects of passing
weather fronts.

Distributing wind generation capacity over a larger area makes it
more predictable and increases overall availability to supply base
load.

All that's needed is a decent HVDC grid to take advantage of that
surplus power
in particular region.

The issue of guaranteed capacity becomes more serious as the amount of
wind-power hooked to the grid increases, leading to declining returns
from further installations.

The same rule of "declining returns" applies to EVERY power source.
I.E. First 20% is always used.. next 30% is mostly used, the next 30%
is used for only a few hours a day and the last 20% is only used a few
days a year.

Take surplus wind & solar energy and use it to offset hydro, fossil
generation. After that dump surplus energy into pump back storage and
making H2 to store in depleted NG wells.

.

Relevant Pages

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