Wind Power In Europe MORE Reliable than Nuclear Power in Japan

[kristopher]

Wind Power In Europe MORE Reliable than Nuclear Power in Japan

A lot of wind critics assert that wind power isn’t reliable. The wind power video above, however, does a great job of pointing out the differences between wind power variability and variability of traditional power sources, among other things. Paul Gipe of Wind-Works also recently got into this topic, in more detail, as compared to nuclear power:

Critics of wind energy often charge that wind energy is too “unreliable” to generate a large portion of a nation’s electricity and suggest that base load needs “reliable” sources of generation such as nuclear power.

While wind is a “variable” resource, that is, the wind doesn’t always blow and when it does it doesn’t always blow at the same strength, wind is far more reliable than the critics charge. In fact, wind is fairly predictable on long time horizons, especially from one year to the next.

In contrast, nuclear power is “reliable” until it isn’t as the units at the Fukushima nuclear power plant so dramatically demonstrate.

But the failure at Fukushima from the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami is not the only thing that has disrupted nuclear power output at Fukushima over the years....

http://cleantechnica.com/2011/06/16/wind-power-in-europe-more-reliable-than-nuclear-power-in-japan/

[nxylas]

1. And less explody

But I'm sure a nice fat check is already on its way to George Monbiot for an article explaining to "his fellow environmentalists" that these figures are misleading.

[Nederland]

2. What a joke

Hey, let's compare the reliability of nuclear plants to the reliability of winds farms, and let's make sure we use a huge scale on the time axis that hides the truth about just how unreliable wind power is. Furthermore, lets completely ignore the difference between planned outages and unplanned outages. Yeah, that would be a fair comparison...not.

A fair comparison of nuclear to wind looks like this:

Wind Reliability:




Nuclear Reliability:

[FBaggins]

3. The real joke...

...is that they don't get that it's such a joke.

[kristopher]

4. Are you saying the outages in Japan were planned?

The reliability of nuclear is being clearly demonstrated in Japan right now. The wider problem with relying on such a dangerous technology is also on display as most of the people there are showing a preference for enduring the real, long-term hardships of severely curtailed power generation rather than accept the risks associated with nuclear. The greater the penetration of nuclear power the more vulnerable to wide-scale, long term power disruption we become due to the failure of a single power plant.

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. No, of course not

What he’s saying is that since they’re long-term outages, they don’t count.

[Nederland]

11. Of course they count

If you'd like to compare the capacity factor of Japanese nuclear plants with the capacity factor of Japanese wind farms over the entire 20 year period displayed in the second graph, feel free.

[kristopher]

17. Capacity factor has absolutely nothing to do with reliability.

Capacity factor is an important economic and planning concept, but it has no more impact on delivered system reliability than the rate you pay.

"Electric system reliability is a measure of the system’s adequacy to meet the electricity needs of customers. It is a term used by electric system planners and operators to measure aggregate system conditions, and as an aggregate measure, it generally applies to entire service territories or control regions. As such, the reliability of the electric system depends on the reliability of that system’s component parts, including, for example, power plants, transmission lines, substations, and distribution feeder lines. To help ensure a reliable system, planners and operators prefer having as much redundancy in these components as can be justified economically." pg. 2-1

<snip>

Problems in system operational reliability can usually be classified as faults and failures. Faults are caused by external events, such as tree contact, animal contact, lightning, automobile accidents, or vandalism. Failures are caused by an equipment malfunction or human error not linked to any external influence.

Both faults and failures can cause outages. These outages can be short, lasting less than 15 seconds and quickly resolved by automatic switching equipment. When a fault or a failure results in a longer outage, it typically involves damage to equipment such as a transformer that must be repaired or replaced before service can be restored. The time required for such remedies can range from hours to days or weeks. Faults and failures, rather than capacity deficiencies, are the causes of most outages. Outages created by faults and failures in generation are rare. While transmission faults are somewhat more common, 94% of all power outages are caused by faults and failures in the distribution system (Arthur D. Little, Inc. 2000).

...In general, distributed generation can increase the system adequacy by increasing the variety of generating technologies, increasing the number of generators, reducing the size of generators, reducing the distance between the generators and the loads, and reducing the loading on distribution and transmission lines. pg 2-2, 2-3

<snip>

DG can add to supply diversity and thus lead to improvements in overall system adequacy. DG’s contribution is often assessed by comparing the DG solution to the traditional solution. In this traditional comparison, emphasis is often placed upon the reliability of the DG system itself, and the argument is sometimes made that the DG capacity cannot be counted because it is not 100% reliable. However, there are two other factors that must be taken into consideration for this comparison to be useful. First, multiple DG units provide an element of diversity that has an improved reliability compared to a single unit, and second, the traditional alternatives are also not 100% reliable.

Multiple analyses have shown that a distributed network of smaller sources provides a greater level of adequacy than a centralized system with fewer large sources, reducing both the magnitude and duration of failures. However, it should also be noted that a single stand-alone distributed unit without grid backup will provide a significantly lower level of adequacy (Apt and Morgan 2005). pg 2-6

THE POTENTIAL BENEFITS OF DISTRIBUTED GENERATION AND RATE-RELATED ISSUES THAT MAY IMPEDE ITS EXPANSION
A STUDY PURSUANT TO SECTION 1817 OF THE ENERGY POLICY ACT OF 2005
June 2007
U.S. Department of Energy

A non-copyrighted government report in the public domain.

[SpoonFed]

8. Nah... they are trying to make the brilliant and most salient point which...

is not blatently obvious to the most casual observer and that is that the wind is not blowing constantly and concurrently at all points within the known universe. It is from within that genius from which the pro-nuke talking points floweth.

[Nederland]

9. Were the earthquake and the tsunami planned? Um, no.

Now if you'd like to compare the frequency with which earthquakes happen with the frequency of wind speeds falling below a turbine's minimum operational level, feel free.

[SpoonFed]

10. By the same token...

Was Nukushima planned? Or if you like, was Nukushima the accident planned, or just Nukushima the lying, planned?

[Nederland]

12. I've never heard of Nukushima (nt)

[SpoonFed]

14. Warning...

insufficient sock puppet rotation detected!

[CJvR]

15. You are saying...

...that huge coast based windparks are immune to earthquakes and tsunamis? Otherwise what is the point of this rant?

[kristopher]

16. I don't understand your question to spoonfed.

What does "immune to earthquakes and tsunamis" have to do with either his/her post or the OP?

1) Wind and solar are distributed generating resources that create a huge amount of redundancy in the network that ties them together; meaning that you can lose any portion of that network without creating cascade failures in the portion that hasn't been destroyed. That is one reason that "distributed generation" built around variable renewable sources is poised to deliver MORE RELIABLE power than the current large scale centralized thermal system built around nuclear/coal.

Section 1817 of the Energy Policy Act (EPACT) of 2005 calls for the Secretary of Energy to conduct a study of the potential benefits of cogeneration and small power production, otherwise known as distributed generation, or DG. The benefits to be studied are described in subpart (2)(A) of Section 1817. In accordance with Section 1817 the study includes those benefits received “either directly or indirectly by an electricity distribution or transmission service provider, other customers served by an electricity distribution or transmission service provider and/or the general public in the area served by the public utility in which the cogenerator or small power producer is located.” Congress did not require the study to include the potential benefits to owners/operators of DG units.1

The specific areas of potential benefits covered in this study include:
• Increased electric system reliability (Section 2 of the Study)
• An emergency supply of power (Section 2 and 7 of the Study)
• Reduction of peak power requirements (Section 3 of the Study)
• Offsets to investments in generation, transmission, or distribution facilities that would otherwise be recovered through rates (Section 3 of the Study)
• Provision of ancillary services, including reactive power (Section 4 of the Study)
• Improvements in power quality (Section 5 of the Study)
• Reductions in land-use effects and rights-of-way acquisition costs (Section 6 of the Study)
• Reduction in vulnerability to terrorism and improvements in infrastructure resilience (Section 7 of the Study)

<snip>

...(Distributed Generation) can help decrease the vulnerability of users of the electric system to threats from terrorist attacks, and other forms of potentially catastrophic disruptions. In other words, DG has the potential to increase the resiliency of the grid and other critical infrastructure sectors , such as telecommunications, chemicals, agriculture and food, and government facilities. There are many examples of owners and operators of such facilities using DG to maintain “normal” operations when the grid is down during weather-related outages and regional blackouts. However, for a variety of factors, many of these units cannot be relied upon by electric utilities to help the system recover from such events.

The full study may be found at http://www.oe.energy.gov.

Note that it says "for a variety of factors, many of these units cannot be relied upon by electric utilities to help the system recover from such events". Those reasons go to the single point that there simply isn't enough DG yet to build the necessary redundancy into the network.

2) There are a pretty fair number of wind turbines right on the coast in the area struck by the tsunami. They ALL survived intact.

[CJvR]

7. Ouch!

Those graphs must be painful!

[miyazaki]

5. Recommend to expose more blithering idiocy. Keep it coming.

-Thanks.

[txlibdem]

13. Add to those charts the number of deaths and hospitalizations caused by fossil fuels.

Over those 20 years, that'd add up to a huge amount.

Let's see, in America alone the annual (unpaid) cost of using fossil fuels is $120 Billion, due to hospitalizations for lung disorders like asthma, heart attacks, etc.

So over those 20 years... let's see... carry the two and... well, well, well... 2.4 Trillion dollars in the US alone that's basically a freebie to the fossil fuels industry, since they sure as heck aren't going to pay your doctor bill.

Aint that nice...