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Wind Power Myths Debunked
A free special issue paper from a group of the world's foremost experts on integrating wind energy into the grid.
Wind Power Myths Debunked
THE RAPID GROWTH OF WIND POWER IN THE UNITED STATES AND worldwide has resulted in increasing media attention to —and public awareness of— wind generation technology. Several misunderstandings and myths have arisen due to the char- acteristics of wind generation, particularly because wind-energy generation only occurs when the wind is blowing. Wind power is therefore not dispatchable like conventional energy sources and delivers a variable level of power depending on the wind speed. Wind is primarily an energy resource and not a capacity resource. Its primary value is to offset fuel consumption and the resulting emissions, including carbon. Only a relatively small fraction of wind energy is typically delivered during peak and high-risk time periods; therefore, wind generators have limited capacity value. This leads to concerns about the impacts of wind power on maintaining reliability and the balance between load and generation.
This article presents answers to commonly asked questions concerning wind power. It begins by addressing the variability of wind and then discusses whether wind has capacity credit. The article addresses whether wind can stop blowing everywhere at once, the uncertainty of predicting wind generation, whether it is expensive to integrate wind power, the need for new transmission, and whether wind generation requires backup generation or dedicated energy storage. Finally, we discuss whether there is sufficient sys- tem flexibility to incorporate wind generation, whether coal is better than wind because coal has greater capacity factors, and whether there is a limit to how much wind power can be incorporated into the grid.
Can Grid Operators Deal with the Continually Changing Output of Wind Generation?
The power system—even before the development of wind- energy technologies—was designed to handle significant variability in loads. Demand varies over timescales that range from seconds to years. System operational procedures are designed around this variability and, based on analysis and operational experience, much is known about how loads vary. Very short-term changes in load (seconds to minutes) are small relative to the system peak and consist primarily of many uncorrelated events that change demand in different directions. Over longer periods (several hours), changes in demand tend to be more correlated, such as during the morning load pickup or evening load falloff.
The output of a wind power plant, or multiple wind power plants, is variable over time. Because the variability of wind is added to this already variable system...
THE RAPID GROWTH OF WIND POWER IN THE UNITED STATES AND worldwide has resulted in increasing media attention to —and public awareness of— wind generation technology. Several misunderstandings and myths have arisen due to the char- acteristics of wind generation, particularly because wind-energy generation only occurs when the wind is blowing. Wind power is therefore not dispatchable like conventional energy sources and delivers a variable level of power depending on the wind speed. Wind is primarily an energy resource and not a capacity resource. Its primary value is to offset fuel consumption and the resulting emissions, including carbon. Only a relatively small fraction of wind energy is typically delivered during peak and high-risk time periods; therefore, wind generators have limited capacity value. This leads to concerns about the impacts of wind power on maintaining reliability and the balance between load and generation.
This article presents answers to commonly asked questions concerning wind power. It begins by addressing the variability of wind and then discusses whether wind has capacity credit. The article addresses whether wind can stop blowing everywhere at once, the uncertainty of predicting wind generation, whether it is expensive to integrate wind power, the need for new transmission, and whether wind generation requires backup generation or dedicated energy storage. Finally, we discuss whether there is sufficient sys- tem flexibility to incorporate wind generation, whether coal is better than wind because coal has greater capacity factors, and whether there is a limit to how much wind power can be incorporated into the grid.
Can Grid Operators Deal with the Continually Changing Output of Wind Generation?
The power system—even before the development of wind- energy technologies—was designed to handle significant variability in loads. Demand varies over timescales that range from seconds to years. System operational procedures are designed around this variability and, based on analysis and operational experience, much is known about how loads vary. Very short-term changes in load (seconds to minutes) are small relative to the system peak and consist primarily of many uncorrelated events that change demand in different directions. Over longer periods (several hours), changes in demand tend to be more correlated, such as during the morning load pickup or evening load falloff.
The output of a wind power plant, or multiple wind power plants, is variable over time. Because the variability of wind is added to this already variable system...
http://www.ieee-pes.org/images/pdf/open-access-milligan.pdf
10 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Of course one is too many. Sadly that was not mentioned in the article at all. 
