POWERFUL WINDS: In February wind generators delivered a record 6,242 megawatts of power to Texas population centers--22 percent of all the electricity consumed in the Texas grid.
Image: Environmental Energy Technologies Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
AUSTIN, Texas -- Feb. 28, 2010, was a banner day for Texas wind to set the clouds -- and electrons -- flying.
In the Panhandle, gusts reached 47 miles per hour and wind generators delivered a record 6,242 megawatts of power to Dallas, Austin and other population centers. At 1 p.m., 22 percent of all the electricity consumed in the Texas grid was coming from wind.
To proud Texans like Public Utility Commission Chairman Barry Smitherman, such records document the state's position as the "epicenter of land-based wind production" in the United States, if not the world, as the chairman put it.
At the end of 2009, the capacity of Texas wind turbines, reaching to the horizons of farm and prairie land, totaled 9,410 megawatts, well more than the combined total of the next three largest wind-power states, Iowa, California and Washington. Over the course of a year, wind power is providing 5 percent of Texas' demand, and that would more than double if the state's grid goals are achieved.
Is Texas the model for how expanding renewable generation and smart grid technologies could transform the nation's utility sector? Or is the ornery independence of the Texas grid a telling example of how regional differences confront the search for national policies on energy? Evidence for both cases jumps out from the Lone Star State.
It clearly is center stage displaying the engineering, industry and political challenges of a large-scale build-out of wind, as called for by President Obama and his party's leaders in Congress. "It is a laboratory, if you like, a pilot, a test case," says Gürcan Gülen, senior energy economist at the University of Texas, Austin.
The state's pioneering electricity deregulation statute in 1999 included, almost as an afterthought, a requirement that Texas develop 2,000 megawatts of wind power by 2009.
To prime the market, it created an energy trading program requiring power retailers to acquire -- and then retire -- renewable energy credits. Texas raced past that first renewable energy milestone in 2005, four years ahead of schedule, and is closing in on the new goal of 10,000 megawatts of renewable energy by 2025.
More than half the states now have renewable energy mandates or goals, but Texas was at the front of the pack.
Looking to Texas for answers
Deregulation in Texas has created competitive electricity markets at wholesale and retail levels that, while suffering some "tortuous" growing pains, as one expert put it, have invited innovation and experimentation. Millions of smart electric meters are being installed throughout the state. Austin is the site of the one of the nation's primary federal smart grid experiments, the Pecan Street Project, testing whether utilities can profitably switch from selling kilowatts to conserving them.
"We can bring new technologies very quickly into the market," said Warren Lasher, manager of system assessment for ERCOT -- the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state's grid operator. "If all these things come together, we could see significant changes" in the state's electricity system, Lasher said.
"You can't cut and paste from Texas to California or Pennsylvania. But Texas stakeholders have spent a lot of time learning how to evolve our markets," said Texas energy consultant Mark Bruce.
Perhaps the state's most striking advance was the approval by the Public Utility Commission of Texas in 2005 of a plan to build a matrix of new transmission lines across west and central Texas to tap the full potential of its wind power. The commission is overseeing the $5 billion construction of 2,300 miles of high-voltage lines into the wind zones. While some projects have been delayed by siting issues and court disputes, and the regulatory timetable is tight, the expansion is still headed for substantial completion by 2013 to 2015, experts say. Then the network will be able to handle up to 18,000 megawatts of wind power at peak output.
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry, the smart grid and wind experiments in Texas can service as an example and test bed for the Atlantic shore and other wind farms.
If it was wholly self-supporting, then the libertarians and Tea Party could possibly be brought on board. But the requirement for government intervention makes the project unpalatable in the current polarised atmosphere.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGood for Texas though, 20% is amazing. I wonder how many bats are getting chewed up though.
dskan - I suspected 50% of readers would fall into the trap: check the article - wind is really providing 5% of Texas' power, not 20%.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe cost and inefficiency of long distance power transmission and its accounting among multiple jurisdictional customers and providers will make wind very difficult to implement nationally.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou have to read on to the 3rd page, but it's there:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Wind could not compete if it were not for the subsidies and tax credits wind generators receive, said University of Texas professor Ross Baldick. These transfers from taxpayers bring the cost of wind power down from about $80 per megawatt-hour to $50 or $60, he said. To the $80 cost without subsidies he would add $20 to $30 more per megawatt-hour for the cost of additional transmission to the wind zones and for backup services required when wind isn't blowing. That takes the real price of wind power to more than $100 a megawatt-hour.
So, there you have it - $0.10 per kwh production cost. Compare that to $0.02 - $0.04 for coal and gas and you have a very expensive subsidy. Amazing the things you can make work if they don't need to be economically viable.
Coal and gas exploration and development are now and have always been heavily subsidized, too. Opponents of wind and other green energy sources like Prof. Baldick always ignore that when they present their price per kwh comparisons. They also ignore the external costs imposed on the rest of society by the pollution caused by burning fossil fuels. Factor in the REAL costs of coal and gas and you'll find that they are actually higher than wind.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUS Subsidies to Oil and Coal More Than Double That of Renewable Energies http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0921-hance_subsidies.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEnergy Report - Govt Financial Subsidies - Shows that federal subsidies account for 6.9% of all spending on coal, 11.6% of all spending on wind. This does not include direct payments like free access to federal land for mining interests; nor does it include the cost of programs to mitigate black lung disease. http://www.window.state.tx.us/specialrpt/energy/subsidies/
soccerdad, let me know when the TRUE cost of coal burning is factored into the price and THEN you'll have a fair comparison.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisand natural gas is heavily subsidized.
The never ending BS claims of fossil fuel subsidies continues. A piece on SciAm about a year ago ran a review of a study on fossil fuel subsidies. They were found to be only a couple of tens of millions of dollars per decade. And this study was critical of fossil fuels. Compare that to the actual taxes paid by just Exxon Mobil of billions of dollars per year. The subsidies for fossil fuels is less than round off error in their profit picture. However for wind and solar, subsidies are the only thing that makes the projects possible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's time for wind and solar to sack up and stand on their own instead of being like GM and AIG - wards of the state.
So, on a Sunday afternoon, in February when Wind is highest and power demand is lowest, Wind reached 22% of Texas Electricity consumption - 6242 MW. That's 13% of Texas avg Electricity consumption of 46 GW. And 9.6% of Summer Peak of 65 GW. Wind averages 8.7% of installed capacity during Summer Peak hours.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLatest & greatest Texas Wind Project. 240 Chinese Wind Turbines go to giant 600 MW peak Wind Farm in West Texas. Total Cost $1.5B including $450M (30%) from U.S. stimulus funding. Only 15% of the jobs will be in the USA.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125683832677216475.html
That's $1.5B/600MW = $2.5k per pk kw. Acc. to G. Preston, power engineer in Texas:
"...That is a good estimate for the $5 billion dollar CREZ lines in west Texas which I estimate will allow about another 5000 MW of new wind, and that is from my own load flow transmission analysis. So that also equates to $1/w transmission..."
So we have $2.5k+$1k=$3.5k per kwpk for Texas Wind. At 30% Capacity Factor = $11.6k per kwavg. Add 3% line loss = $12k per kwavg. There will likely be additional costs like Grid Stabilization Batteries or Flywheels to mitigate rapidly fluctuating Wind Energy. Altairnano is selling these at about $1k per kw for 15 min storage:
http://www.b2i.cc/Document/546/93806.pdf
So now we are up to about $13.5k per kwavg.
So now, our 22% Wind Peak drops to 2%, as it likes to do during the hottest times in the Summer. Where does the rest of the demand come from now? Answer: NG power plants. Because of the fluctuating wind - half will be low efficiency Open Cycle Gas Turbines. The OCGT's will consume 34% more fuel and the CCGT's will consume 17% higher fuel consumption running in backup mode. There will also be increased wear and tear on the turbines, which do not like varying output. So who's paying for that backup power? Including the necessary NG infrastructure marginal cost and loss of efficiency and capacity factor of the NG backup power, the TRUE COST of the Wind Energy is pushing $16k per kwavg. Add to that, at least 30% of the Maintenance on the Gas Turbine power plants must be added to the O&M of the Wind Turbines. And the additional fuel used due to inefficient operation of the Gas Turbines. Wind Turbine O&M is 3 cents per kwh over the 15-20 yr lifespan. Add another 2 cents for the NG O&M share and we're up to 5 cents per kwh O&M for the Wind Energy.
So there you are, an effective $16k per kwavg capital cost plus 5 cents per kwh O&M for the Wind Energy. 85% of jobs going overseas. CO2 emissions of 470 gms per kwh generated, including the NG backup share of the Wind energy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCompare with Nuclear, First-of-A-Kind USA $4-6k per kwavg plus 1.9 cents per kwh O&M for reliable 24/7, summer or winter, rain or shine power. CO2 emissions of 2-20 gms per kwh generated. About 85% of jobs going to the USA. The Wind option requires at least 2000X more land area than the Nuclear option.
The bible on Texas Wind Energy:
http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wp-content/uploads/2008-09-rr10-windenergy-dt-new.pdf
The ridiculously high cost of carbon abatement from Wind Energy:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2010/01/09/emission-cuts-realities/
Wind power integration in the grid may INCREASE CO2 emissions:
http://www.masterresource.org/2009/11/wind-integration-incremental-emissions-from-back-up-generation-cycling-part-i-a-framework-and-calculator/
Peter Lang shows that the CO2 AVOIDANCE COSTS OF WIND, including necessary backup are $830 to $1149 per tonne CO2 avoided, vs Nuclear at $22 per tonne CO2 avoided, compared with a standard Black Coal Power plant.
http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wp-content/uploads/lang-wind-power-co2-emissions.pdf
Damage to Gas Turbines caused by shadowing Wind Power:
http://www.ommi.co.uk/etd/Brief- CCGT Cycling Prop07.pdf
dwdb - I appreciate your analysis but it errs on the high side - the CREZ effort in Texas is $3BB and will accomodate approximately 12,000MW of additional wind generation so the nominal incremental cost is about $250/kW which is in the same ballpark of cost for a comparable installation of baseload power. This CREZ effort also eliminates many constraints on the existing grid so has benefits beyond just the new wind.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCappy McGarr appears to be no longer associated with US REnewable and the project sponsors announced that a major wind turbine plant would be built in the US and 70% of the turbines would be manufacturered here. cappy's original press release had many flaws around the expected employment. Always good to check your quotes to see if events have moved past your point.
and where do you get the need for this storage system - is not required now and would not be required until economics support storage which curiously would then allow high wind utilization and offset whatever costs are required.
also your O&M estimates are quite high - 1.5MW class wind turbines have had very low O&M costs, current actual data is way below $0.01/kWhr. The previous 600 kW generation of turbines was quite a bit more trouble-prone and have a fleet average cost of $0.0078/kWhr for the 15 years this class has been in commercial service. The 1.5MW class is running at $0.0030 for the first ten years of commercial service and the major operators continue to target O&M under $0.0057/kWhr of their 20-25 year expected commercial life.
your gas turbine data is also quite curious - the 7FA/FB class gas turbines have all-in O&M costs of about $4.00/MWhr or $0.004/kWhr. Their O&M is completely operating hour driven. You appear to imply somehow that the GT's would have O&M costs associated with the wind turbine operation - just is not correct.
You use terminolgy that is not used in the industry - backup mode is an example. I think you mean that the GT's operate at some partload point to allow quick response to grid demand - that would be correct. It is not correct however to state that somehow the GT's do not "like" variable loads - they are designed to follow load demand so do just fine responding to raise and lower pulses- and does not cause any unusual wear and tear.
I think general approach is good - build up the caputal costs and O&M costs for a technology and then do what you did not do and generate a cost per kWhr. The aformentioned 600 MW wind project would have an all-in cost of just over $0.05/kWhr.
"&.the CREZ effort in Texas is $3BB and will accomodate approximately 12,000MW of additional wind generation so the nominal incremental cost is about $250/kW which is in the same ballpark of cost for a comparable installation of baseload power&"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe quote I provided is from Gene Preston, noted Power Engineer in Texas. You ignored his statement. And claiming Wind generation transmission costs are similar to baseload power is just plain ridiculous and shows a lack of integrity on your part. Baseload power plants, in particular Nuclear located close to load centers and not spread out over thousands of sq. miles. And mostly we are talking about replacing fossil fuel power plants with Nuclear - little transmission upgrades required.
"&where do you get the need for this storage system - is not required now and would not be required until economics support storage which curiously would then allow high wind utilization and offset whatever costs are required&"
Another ridiculous statement. I showed you the link to Altairnano - they are already supplying these systems. As Wind becomes a more significant the fluctuations must be dealt with via either storage or fast spooling, fuel guzzling NG OCGT's. And this would not even come close to allow high wind utilization without MAJOR costs of using fossil fuel power plants to mirror the Wind Turbines AND throwing away either baseload Nuclear or Wind. Another article contradicting your statement:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=flywheels-electricity-beacon-power
Your O&M costs for Wind are obviously bogus. Just the land royalties, which are part of O&M, are about 0.5 cents per kwh. I think you confuse normally maintenance costs with the high cost of any major repairs to the turbines, which may be infrequent but boost average O&M costs way beyond your numbers. And you ignore land royalties. The Danish Wind Turbine site puts O&M at 1.5 to 2% of capital cost per year. Or $170 per avg kw or 1.9 cents per kwh. New Zealand study puts avg O&M at $42/pk-kw/yr or $140 per avg kw or 1.6 cents per kwh:
http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wp-content/uploads/leyland-cost-projecthayes-nz.pdf
"&the major operators continue to target O&M under $0.0057/kWhr of their 20-25 year expected commercial life&"
B.S. So thats why they have reduced the warranty to 2 yrs from 5 yrs. 20-25 year life is way optimistic speculation.
"… gas turbines have all-in O&M costs of about ... $0.004/kWhr. ..to imply somehow that the GT's would have O&M costs associated with the wind turbine operation - just is not correct…"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe EIA puts O&M on Gas Turbines at 0.53 cents/kwh plus 5.3 cents fuel for a total of 5.8 cents/kwh. Way beyond your numbers. You are once again being ridiculous, I linked two serious studies which completely contradict your statement - which you have ignored. I will link them again:
http://www.masterresource.org/2009/11/wind-integration-incremental-emissions-from-back-up-generation-cycling-part-i-a-framework-and-calculator/
http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wp-content/uploads/lang-wind-power-co2-emissions.pdf
"…It is not correct however to state that somehow the GT's do not "like" variable loads - they are designed to follow load demand so do just fine responding to raise and lower pulses- and does not cause any unusual wear and tear…"
You avoid the difference between inefficient OCGT's and efficient CCGT's – an obvious attempt at misinformation on your part. Once again you ignore reputable studies which I linked above:
http://www.ommi.co.uk/etd/Brief- CCGT Cycling Prop07.pdf
"…build up the caputal costs and O&M costs for a technology..did not ..generate a cost per kWhr. . 600 MW wind project would have an all-in cost of just over $0.05/kWh…"
Another ridiculous statement. The cost of a power source is a combination of capital cost and O&M. Joining them like you claim, especially for a high capital cost source, like Wind or Nuclear, is toying with interest rates. Your $.05/kwh is a joke. Please explain how you derive that ludicrous number. The Institute for Energy Research puts levelized cost of onshore Wind at 14 cents per kwh, 2007 dollars, ignoring the effects on the mirroring fossil fuel power source and backup power.
An example of what you claim won't happen, even when Wind Penetration is way beyond the meagre 2008 level:
".. February 2008 Texas power emergency is evidence of wind's variable nature: A cold front blew through West Texas on Feb. 26, temporarily lifting wind production. When it subsided, wind speeds dropped, turbines slowed and productivity dropped by 80 percent to 300 megawatts from about 1,700. The situation was exacerbated by greater-than-expected energy demand and by lower availability of some fossil-fuel units. To get the system back in balance, the grid operator declared an emergency and tapped big customers who had agreed to be cut in exchange for cash payments…"
The "final solution" is to get people to live responsibly and USE LESS ENERGY PER PERSON by living more wisely an simply. We might as well get used to it as the soon-to-come bankruptcy of the govt will force them to drop the subsidies and force the population to pay full-price for all power. That will suck!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRemember back in the day when long distance phone service was $.40/minute? Well, consider $.40/kwh for power. That would get me to turn out the lights quicker, and go to bed sooner just to save some power.
I agree with dwbd on most of his comments. Wind power is an expensive source of renewable energy; ;and the Wind Power lobby puts out very bogus, pro-wind information. The O & M costs for wind are in the range of 2 to 3 cents/kwhr (Reference IEEE Spectrum magazine, Nov-Dec 2007) where wind advocates were trying to state that on the most "recent" wind turbines, O & M costs were only 1 cent/kwhr. Just from a common sense point of view, O & M on thousands of geographically dispersed 2 MW turbines located 100 ft from the ground has to be expensive. Furthermore, I find this argument disingenuous where wind advocates identify an O & M cost with their most "recent" turbines; and do not want to identify an O & M cost on their "current" installed base, which would be more realistic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn summary, wind power is a renewable, zero emission power technology that should be used "judiciously" to avoid astronomically increasing the electric power costs for the consumer. Costs of electricity in Denmark (4 GW of installed wind power) are 29 cents/kwhr, mainly because of the large base of installed wind power. Wind is an intermittent, low efficiency, short lifetime, high cost renewable energy source that requires additional transmission lines and/or energy storage facilities to be utilized effectively. The latter two items increase the cost of wind power well beyond the cost of coal/gas/nuclear power. Moreover, the wind industry has a problem establishing reliability and O & M databases for the installed wind generation because the reliability and costs do not support large scale installation (Reference IEEE Power & Energy magazine, Sept-Oct 2008)
dwdb..nice comments and nice links....i can only hope florida embraces this as well as solar....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have a bit of bias here as I have some holdings in Montana of clean, low-sulfur coal suitable for strip mining. My little plot is close to the Crow Indian Reservation. The Crows have a lot of skin in this debate, as each family would reap millions if their coal could be sold at fair market value.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs it is, the government subsidizes the Crows to sit out on the reservation and be Native Americans. If they actually want to work for a living and can't get a BIA or tribal job, they have to leave and go elsewhere. I have heard speculation that the tribe might be interested in a Chinese buy-out of the coal in the ground, similar to what Chinese companies are doing in Canada and Australia.
I also suspect that when or if the Chinese take over, we will start seeing some political movement on all the federal regulations that prevent this resource from being developed. Far from subsidizing Montana coal, I (and the Crows) see the federal government as hindering and obstructing some of the cleanest-burning coal in the world.
More farm land in Montana is devoted to feeding Japan than there is farm acreage in Japan. Someday in the not too-distant future I expect to see mile-long trains carrying Montana coal to Portland for shipment to China.
DW - simple cycle and combined cycle combustion turbines have the same control systems so they respond to system load regulation equally well. I worked for a utility and am quite familar with this equipment. you really don't have much experience in this but like to attack people.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisregards wind O&M - my data comes from several years of real operations of wind farms in Texas, California and Europe 0- the data sources are company confidential but the numbers are just like I indicated - yours are way overstated.
My wife and I prefer to sign up for a year contract during the winter. Rates are usually lower at this time and you can lock the lower rate in until the same time the next year. We have been using Ambit Energy for the past 3+ years and are very satisfied. We sign up for the 100% green plan which only uses electricity produced from wind power. http://www.onlineambitenergy.com
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRenewable electricity is an option that more and more Texans are being drawn toward. However, for a lot of people it is still who has the lowest electricity rates. There are a lot of good websites that allow people to compare Texas electricity rates along with the plan details and for commercial customers using an energy broker can help them make an informed decision on which electric company to use. As far as Texas wind power, keep it coming!!! http://www.houstonelectricchoice.com
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