When the wind turnines fail though through lack of wind what happens to all the homes across the country? are they thrown into darkness? are their cookers switched off? Do theie television screens go blank and the kettle goes quiet? No what happens is the normal bog standard power station kicks in with immediate effect to take up the slack.
How is a coal, Gas or Nuclear fired power station about to take up the slack immediately? surely it takes a while to warm things up to power the turbines as we dont switch on the kettle or the electric shower and have instant hot water do we?
What happens is these lovely green wind turbines which rotate away in the wind and make us all feel good when we flick the light switch are sold to us as a lie. Wind Turbines are a costly way of providing power to the grid as to be in a position to take up the slack at the drop of a switch the conventional power stations are running away at the same time as the wind turbines but not adding their power to the grid but none the less they are ticking away on idle ready for when they wind drops.
Now tell me how green is this? also do the energy companies actually want the energy that domestic houses generate surplus to their needs and send back into the grid? I suspect not as they have over capacity when its windy anyway otherwise their conventional power stations wouldn't be ticking away.
When the old steam engines generated too much pressure they released steam to stop the engine blowing up much the same happens at our power stations and one only has to look at how Power rationed on 'green island' Eigg after mild weather caused drought to know that green wind energy can be very unreliable.
Wind Turbines may be suitable to supplement a domestic homes energy needs but a reliable source of energy for the national grid it is not.
Sorry, but you are wrong. The grid has long managed to cope with fluctuations in supply and demand. Every skoolboy kno that they have to be ready to pump up the supply at half time in a cup final, when everyone pops out to make a cup of tea with their electric kettles. They fire up the gas turbines, which can react quickly. So the Grid is balanced second to second. Wind fluctuations are broadly predictable, and the grid can cope with it. It is true that we need more storage capacity, and huge HVDC supergrids will smooth out the supply/demand further.
ReplyDeleteHope this helps.
Cheers
Richard
I recently went around Radcliffe on Sour Power Station a Coal Fired station near Nottingham and they told me that they have to maintain a level of power regardless of if it is needed or not so that they can step in when wind levels fall. It would take a considerable time to fire up a power station like Radcliffe so regardless of the wind turbines in the area it still has to be kept running or it wouldn't be able to take up slack in say the same way as Hydro Power which could produce instant power
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