The Power Grid Can't Handle Wind Farms

DesScorp writes "The Times reports on the problems of adding wind farms to the power grid. Because of the grid's old design, it can't handle the various spikes that wind farms sometimes have, and there's no efficient way to currently move massive amounts of that power from one section of the country to the other. Further complicating things is the fact that under current laws, power grid regulation is a state matter, and the Federal government has comparatively little authority over it right now. Critics are calling for federal authority over the grid, and massive new construction of 'superhighways' to share the wind power wealth nationally. Quoting the article, 'The dirty secret of clean energy is that while generating it is getting easier, moving it to market is not.'"

Comments

The summary doesn't match TFA.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

The summary is a crock and doesn't match the quoted article.

Transporting large and variable amounts of generated power is the dual of feeding large and varying loads. The power grid can handle it just fine.

The problem TFA alludes to is that, while cities and industrial plants already have fat lines to them from the rest of the grid, windfarms are new construction generally sited in rural areas that don't already have a "fat pipe" available. So (for a wind farm bigger than about twice the local load) you have to run some new lines.

Just like you would if you built a new auto plant or aluminum smelter in the same location.

It's a regular line, just like the ones feeding loads. It just happens to be running the power the other way.

Of course some people would love to get the government to pay for the line to their new wind farm, rather than bearing that expense as part of the project. And some people in government would love to have more authority and a bigger budget. So we get FUD like this.

Nothing new here

[dj245]

This has been the case for years and isn't an inherent problems with wind farms. Many areas (California, Connecticut) are full of NIMBY people and large amounts of power must be imported. Quebec and New Brunswick Canada, have been exporting to us for a long time. One of the biggest problems is that some generation companies are also in the transmission business.

If area A has a surplus but area B needs power, and the lines cannot handle the transmission, then the price for electricity in B goes up. This is a complex case of supply and demand. The grid is a lot more fragile than it appears. In many places there is a desperate need for more generation/transmission, but the anti-infrastructure people are driving up the cost of electricity by not allowing infrastructure improvements to be made.

I worked at one plant that had to erect a huge sound wall around the entire plant. It worked great, but cost around $2 million including all the sound studies etc. The people next door claimed they never knew when the plant was operating (clear exhaust). We CAN build large power plants in your backyard, and you won't even know they are there- aside from the plant staff spending it up in local businesses.

Why yes, I do work in the power industry.

Stored power

[fyngyrz]

As of 2000, stored power to the tune of about 2.5% of the US load (19.5 gigawatts) was online in the form of Pumped Storage. The EU had 32 gigawatts.

There's plenty of room to do more of that out in the desert; it can be subsurface, so as to have little or no long-term impact on the environment (obviously construction would temporarily beat up the habitat, though.) All pumped storage requires are wires, pumps, generators, a couple of big storage systems (one uphill, one down), and water. Doesn't have to be fresh water, either. The larger the height difference, the more energy can be stored. It's lossy; but still, it is both clean and effective.

Companies like EEStor that are working to create ultracapacitors with storage capacities exceeding those of batteries may be key to storage; storage can be local, on a per-unit basis which insulates users from the myriad types of grid failures that occur. It also allows them to store power locally if they generate any themselves (solar, etc.) Ultracaps are good for moderate term storage without much loss, and they can be fused in such a way as to prevent huge power discharges in case of accidents, so they're pretty safe.

There are some other contenders - flywheels, for instance -- but do *you* want an aging flywheel, high mass, high speed, coming apart in your basement? Me either. I saw a 4-inch grinder wheel come apart once and chunks of it outright severed a 2x4 in the wall next to the workbench. So those are probably best left in large scale storage farms.

Aside from storage, the thing that has always amazed me is that solar never seems to become really affordable. No matter how many ways they make it, or what tech they use, somehow, I can't buy inexpensive panels that will cope with hot summers, cold winters, and rain. New printing process? Ultra cheap cells? Mass production? Sure, I hear about those. But for SOME reason, all their output is bought up, and I can't buy the stuff. Not to get out the tinfoil, but if nothing else, it is very annoying.

Re:Stored power

[timmarhy]

the problem with solar is everyones obession with PV solar. PV is useless for large scale operations and always will be. solar molten salt is where it's at. in a nutshell it's a few acres of mirrors focused on a tower with a line of salt in it that melts at 300c and gets pumped down into storage tanks enabling smooth energy production during the night.

the industrial components already exist for salt and it's fairly non toxic and cheap to operate and build.

Re:Ok...

[TapeCutter]

"Solar panels on every building in America? How do you propose to pay for it?"

That's for the Americans to work out. Meanwhile Germany is pumping ~1GW of EXCESS power from rooftop solar panels back on to their grid. They estimate they have cut their CO2 emmissions by ~100 million tons. This change has increased the average German power bill by about one euro/month.

Continental scale infrastructure is a long term thing for humans, you can't notice it changing until you have lived the several decades it takes to see the change. Nobody is talking about covering every US roof with solar panels before next xmas, even with huge subsidies it would still take decades.

So what is wrong with upgrading/extending the grid as the need from rooftop PV arises? - I'm sure the current grid has seen quite a bit of upgrading since 1958 and I would be surprised if any power plants from the 50's are still operating today, IIRC most plants have a planned lifetime of 30-40yrs.