
 Growth in wind power makes life difficult for grid managers - wglb
http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2010/07/too_much_of_a_good_thing_growt.html
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Groxx
Bring on the smart grid + power storage (ie, flywheel) industry! That way, not
only could it be absorbed and properly used, but info back to the turbines
could get them to throttle down before more than can be absorbed is created.
The power companies wouldn't have to worry much, and the power storage
industry could off such bursts, instead of the excess pretty much being
wasted.

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MikeCapone
One underrated source of storage in the grid is water heaters, fridges and
A/Cs. With some "demand response" technology (part of the smart grid), this
could be tapped.

See: [http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/06/smart-grid-demand-
re...](http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/06/smart-grid-demand-response-
renewable-energy-storage.php)

~~~
Groxx
Interesting, but labeling them "storage" is about as far down the path of
false advertising as you can get. They're just saying that by reducing a
commercial freezer's temperature by a fraction of a degree can result in
serious energy savings if the grid is feeling a squeeze.

 _Storage_ means you can get energy _out_ of it, not simply make it _use
less_. But yeah, a smart grid is effectively necessary for any possibility of
improvement.

~~~
delackner
If the commercial freezer is well-insulated, doesn't making it slightly colder
now allow you to draw less power for a while afterwards as the room slowly
rises back towards its acceptable peak temperature? Nothing harmed by taking
already frozen things and making them a bit colder for a while. Certainly it
is less efficient than just maintaining the desired temperature, but probably
more efficient than just throwing away all that wind energy.

~~~
Groxx
True, hadn't really thought of that approach.

Still, though, it's all about reducing _demand_ , not modifying _supply_.
Flywheel storage can literally pump juice _into_ the grid, temporarily raising
the net energy level (yes, by reducing it earlier, similar to the freezer).
And because of that quality there's a _huge_ potential market, because those
high-stress times are when electricity costs the most.

I guess my point is that, with flywheels, you can _make_ money through nothing
but the power grid. With a freezer, you can only reduce how much you _lose_.

~~~
delackner
Absolutely. I thought there would be more discussion of flywheels (or rather,
I thought the article itself would actually discuss them). The article alluded
to a long lead time for needed upgrades to transmission capacity, but I wonder
how long it takes from placing an order to getting a flywheel sitting next to
a windfarm?

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biturd
Is interim storage of electricity too costly? I never knew that power worked
this way. So power has no storage, we run this fine line of balance where we
hope supply and demand are within a few points of each other?

No wonder they like nuclear so much; not that I am against it, but we can
generate as much or as little as needed on demand. Seems to me this is an
issue of an antiquated grid system that needs an overhaul. We are still
running a 10Mb/s network and needs to update to Fiber as an analogy.

I would think hat if there is excess, it would be stored to use when there is
a demand for which we can't supply. Apparently that is not the case?

~~~
Tuna-Fish
> Is interim storage of electricity too costly?

For most intents and purposes, interim storage of electricity is science
fiction. Batteries are woefully inadequate, and the solutions that we do have,
like pumped storage, have so long turn-on times that they might as well not
exist for spikes that fast.

This is the biggest narrative about energy production that is left unsaid in
the general discourse. There are two distinct markets for energy -- the
baseline production, and peaker production. They are different enough to be
thought of as entirely different industries. Wind has the misfortune of not
belonging in either.

~~~
artpop
What about pumping water uphill, then using turbines to catch it coming down
when it is desirable to do so.

~~~
thingie
Of course. That's very common approach and there are many such power plants
("storage"). But as you can imagine, this cannot be built anywhere, cheaply
enough and in large enough quantities.

([http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Dlouhe_st...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Dlouhe_strane_horni_nadrz.jpg),
2 × 325 MW for 6 hours when full, ~250 millions EUR to build)

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StavrosK
Seriously? This is a problem? We have too much energy and we must tell people
to stop producing it?

The _absolute worst_ thing that can happen is that wind farm owners will have
to scale production down because they can't sell it. Sure, we'll be wasting
some energy but without storage, what can we do?

If this problem is so frequent, get more export lines and sell the excess
elsewhere (and, conversely, import when you're running low). Why is this
portrayed as a problem at all?

~~~
Sukotto
Yes, having too much energy in the grid is seriously a bad thing.

No. The absolute worst thing that could happen is BPA failing to curtail power
production spikes that end up disabling the entire network. If the spike of
power is big and sustained enough, and if the supply isn't cut back quickly
enough, you could blow out the whole grid. Want a couple of weeks of a state-
wide power outage?

The grid is just a large web of wires. Unlike packets in a tcp/ip network, you
cannot control which wire an electron will travel upon (except that you can
deny a wire _any_ electrons by severing it from the grid)

Each wire can handle a maximum amount of load, before it starts to heat up.
Heat it up enough, the line will short out.

The BPA balances the amount of electricity entering the grid against the
amount of demand. They need to worry about the overall grid, and also each
local area.

If a local area starts getting a lot more power, they have to make someone in
that area cut back production before the infrastructure gets damaged.

Power units generally don't just cycle on or off. There's a lot of work
involved in shutting down individual power units and some of them need a lot
of lead time to cycle back up to their normal output.

    
    
      get more export lines and sell the excess elsewhere
    

It's extremely expensive and time consuming to build long-haul transmission.
Between the environmental groups and NIMBY people, it takes 10 years to build
out additional capacity. What do you propose BPA do in the meantime?

[edit: spelling]

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derefr
You know how they're talking about using earth-based lasers to power
satellites, or, alternately, satellite-based power collectors to power the
Earth? I'm no engineer, but why not combine the two ideas, and create a
network of power reallocation satellites (essentially mechanically-operated
mirrors in space?) If the satellites could reorient quickly enough, you could
basically get "packet-switched wireless electricity."

~~~
Groxx
And lose _massive_ amounts of power in each direction. With a better grid in
the first place, and controls to prevent this, the loss is _far_ smaller (down
to "nothing", ideally).

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handsomeglances
i just made an account to post this question.

Why can't someone just build a wind turbine that has the similar function of
switching gears like the mountain bikes do?

If the blade moves too fast it can switch gears and makes it harder to spin
the blade - wouldn't that produce less energy and fix their problem?

~~~
gvb
Feathering the blades _is_ windmill "gearing". It matches the power available
from the wind to the power that can be absorbed by the generator. In the
overpowered case, it scales back the power converted from the wind: it
"spills" some of the wind energy by making the blades less efficient so that
less power is generated (totally feathered results in no power, but the blades
can be feathered to any degree necessary).

Adjustable gearing would add a _lot_ of complexity, weight, and reduce
reliability. Reducing efficiency by (partially) feathering the blades is a
much better method, especially since it is already a necessary capability of
the windmill.

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Mz
Very interesting problem:

 _On the afternoon of May 19, in a single chaotic hour, more than a thousand
wind turbines in the Columbia River Gorge went from spinning lazily in the
breeze to full throttle as a storm rolled east out of Hood River.

Suddenly, almost two nuclear plants worth of extra power was sizzling down the
lines -- the largest hourly spike in wind power the Northwest has ever
experienced._

And some potential partial solutions, if they can get them implemented:

 _Part of the problem is that utilities buy more capacity than they need, and
hoard it for emergencies. If that capacity can be freed up, BPA estimates the
lines could transfer 10 to 15 percent more power.

Another issue is that utilities are required to reserve line capacity an hour
ahead of time. By allowing them to adjust their orders more frequently,
utilities could accommodate unanticipated ebbs and flows in wind generation
and maybe free up another 25 to 30 percent of capacity on the power lines._

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ww520
It's good problem to have.

