Wind Beats Natural Gas
Submitted by fyl on Thu, 2013/01/24 - 06:44.
As Nicaragua is heavily investing in wind energy to satisfy its future electricty needs, this article is of interest. It is about how in 2012 there was more new energy capacity installed in the US based on wind sources than from natural gas. While wind capacity is big news in Nicaragua, it seems to be all but ignored in the US.
The article does point out that the table shows installed capacity. Typical output for wind plants is a much lower percentage of the maximum than with natural gas. With the virtual constant wind where the new Nicaraguan wind farms are located, I wonder how the numbers comapre?
From the article:
One thing to note here is the issue of capacity factor: That’s how much power an installation actually produces as a percentage of its theoretical capacity. (Which is what’s listed in the table.) Natural gas plants do quite well in this regard: Their median performance tends to come out to at least 80 percent, and they max out at 93 percent, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s cost database.
Unfortunately, wind power doesn’t perform as well, due to the intermittency of, well, wind. Its median tends to be around 40 percent offshore. Onshore it’s been at 30 percent, though arguably onshore performance is pulling alongside offshore. And both max out at 50 to 54 percent. So even though wind beat out natural gas for new capacity in 2012, the new natural gas installation will almost certainly wind up generating more total electricity.
came down here...
20+ yrs ago on a sailboat..we had one..wind genny..it worked great when the windblows..but u need a back up when its not..same with solar..no sun..dead batteries..so u still need a natural gas,or something plant to back them up???
There Are Places
with constant or almost constant wind, but most is highly variable.
I HAVE been seeing more solar, parking lot covers, etc. Some variability exists there, but not to the same extent as wind. On the other hand the wind also blows at night.
This is becoming less of an issue than it was because of the recent prevalence of gas turbines and the competitive price of natural gas. These power plants can be turned on with the push of a button, are small, quiet, and low emission. They can quickly pick up the slack when the wind quits.
Prior to this, it was difficult for the coal power plants to respond to a short fall in the power needed, so they would have to be run at a higher capacity. This meant the wind people were getting a construction subsidy, an operating subsidy, and a private subsidy from the power generation industry.
I've read pre-subsidy costs of between 50 cents and $1 /kwh for wind . depending on which side of the environmental coin you happen to be on . . . .. .expensive power in the US with our abundant energy resources.
"These power plants can be turned on with the push of a button,
are small, quiet, and low emission."im glad our govt..i ssubsidizing wind and solar..the chinese need the money...nat. gas..for now..let someone else..figure out how to make wind and solar affordable
Yes US subsides for wind & solar are ridiculous.
Taxpayer dollars spent on most of the current projects are a complete waste of money. That has nothing to do with R&D but is instead money spent on known losing technology that has and never will have any value or ROI. OK maybe it reminds people that we need to develop cost effective alternate energy but there are cheaper ways to do that.
The US did not get to be a leader in technology this way - It was done instead by putting money into real R&D.