"We could add more examples, but we’re bored now – we’ve made our point. Wind power is intermittent, unreliable and insanely expensive. No 1st World economy can operate with power delivered at crazy, random intervals – like that shown above. ALL of the power – chewed up by SA’s power punters – that wasn’t supplied from SA’s 1,203 MW of wind power capacity came from fossil fuel sources. When wind power goes AWOL – ALL back up comes from fossil fuel sources. The first line of defence comes from coal fired power stations bringing “spinning reserve” into action – often in a heartbeat and in response to the huge fluctuations in wind power output on a minute by minute basis. “Spinning reserve” involves a coal or gas thermal plant running its boilers around the clock – but disengaging the generator from the boiler – with the steam produced being “vented” to the atmosphere. When wind power drops out – steam is fed to the generator which is engaged to make up the shortfall and keep the grid from collapsing. Keeping adequate “spinning reserve” to back up intermittent and unreliable wind power means that millions of additional tons of coal are being burned in Victoria every year without generating a single spark. This Dutch study deals with the increase in Co2 emissions due to increased wind power penetration in a coal/gas fired grid. South Australia is connected to the Eastern Grid and imports large volumes of coal fired power from Victoria through the Heywood and Murraylink Inter-connectors – it’s what keeps the lights on in those remaining homes in SA that can still afford the most expensive electricity in the world. The next line of defence comes from quick start-up Open Cycle Gas Turbines which cost a bomb to run (in the order of $300 per MW/h) – which are highly inefficient generating systems – but which make their owners a handsome little profit making up missing wind-watts. AGL runs a stack of them at Hallett and elsewhere in SA. Last in the line-up are diesel generators which cost even more to run (in the order of $500 per MW/h) – believe it or not Australia has substantial generating capacity available from diesel generators – which have been installed for no other purpose than to back up the grid when wind power goes missing. All of that INSANE cost is passed on to power punters. No wonder that SA has the HIGHEST power prices in the world. We’ve covered the impact of exorbitant peaking power costs on SA’s power prices here , here and here. These posts deal with the FACT that when wind-watts go missing 80-100 times every year, the dispatch price rockets from an average of $40 per MW/h up to $12,500 per MW/h. And we’ve looked at how wind power’s crazy fluctuations are causing nightmares for grid managers in this post: Where will you be when the lights go out for good? No amount of crowing by ruin-economy, yes2ruining-us or the Climate Speculator changes the inescapable FACT that wind power was a technology that was redundant before it began. STT’s content to let these greentard “Gamblers” crow about the very occasional “win” – but STT says that next time you’re on a train bound for nowhere, make sure you ask these Gamblers to tell you about the “losses” too. Don’t expect a straight answer – as Kenny warned – Gamblers make a lifetime out of readin’ people’s faces. If a greentard Gambler hits you with his poker face, lay this post on the table – STT thinks it’ll beat 4 greentard Aces every time."
Posted on: Wed, 18 Sep 2013 12:52:23 +0000
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