Rod Adams examines the real world of intermittent power in Washington State. Given the abundance of hydropower this area is nearly an ideal case for wind power economics. But even here, when wind becomes a non-trivial portion then grid balancing becomes very challenging. Rod (retired Navy nuclear power officer) writes:
(…) As a former operating engineer who believes that a good engineer is a lazy cheapskate, I could not help but cringe when I read the following quote:
It is the great economic and engineering challenge of our time, at least in this industry, to try to figure out how to make all this stuff work,” said Steve Wright, administrator of the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA). “It’s a thrilling ride. But if something goes wrong, we’re the folks that people are going to look at. So we take this very seriously.
Government appointed administrators might enjoy thrilling rides, but people who are employed to operate electrical power systems generally prefer boring jobs where trouble can be predicted, mitigated and avoided. Their job is to provide electricity at a constant voltage and a frequency solid enough to power accurate clocks. They (and there was a time when I could say “we”) do not actually enjoy the challenge of figuring out ways to produce steady power with wildly gyrating generators. I remember very clearly the feeling in my stomach when I had to watch my electrical operator synchronize with a diesel generator whose intake was being opened and closed by waves washing over the snorkel mast.
There is a lot of good, thought provoking information in the article. Please read it carefully and then ask yourself – why is it that federal taxpayers are putting in 20-30% of the initial cost of these expensive and ugly systems that are supposed to be producing power, but are actually producing some serious headaches? Why are states mandating their installation, even when the power is not needed or even wanted by the grid operators? Notice just how rapid some of the power ramps – both up and down – are in the wind data published by the BPA. Think hard about how much notice the operator might have received before having to respond.
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