Old Rocks
Diamond Member
A little on how Wind Energy is integrated into the grid.
Imagine you need to fill up your car with fuel, and that fuel comes from wind, when do you think you might be able to fill up your wind powered car, would you look to a weather forecast to see when they are predicting the wind to blow. I guess you would need five cars, one will be outside when no clouds are out, for its solar powered, the others will be placed in windy areas, waiting to be fueled by wind.
Wind is about the stupidest idea on the planet, using the most resources, for the smallest return, at the greatest expense.
National Wind Watch | The Grid and Industrial Wind Power
How does wind power affect peak load?
Unlike conventional power plants, wind turbines cannot be "dispatched" in response to fluctuating demand needs. Wind turbines respond only to the wind, so their contribution to supply is essentially random. The wind may be high when demand is low, or vice versa. If there is sufficient demand when the wind rises, wind power may reduce the need for other plants to supply power. On the other hand, if the wind drops when there is still demand, other plants must quickly jump in to cover the loss. The more frequent ramping or switching of these other plants raises costs and may lower their efficiency and increase their emissions.
Of course, were we to build a real national grid, we could have enough wind, solar, nuclear, geo-thermal, and other clean sources of power in place to ship power wherever needed. As it is, often the windmills in Texas stand idle, their potential power going nowhere, even as the East Coast is short on power.
Roger Anderson: Making a Smarter Power Grid | The Fu Foundation School of Engineering & Applied Science - Columbia University