Wind Farms

[d-ray657]

Just got back from a 560 mile round trip today to watch a college soccer game. On the way to western Kansas, I saw a most fascinating sight. There were miles and miles of wind turbines. I know I saw several hundred of them, but I can't find anything to verify that many. On the way back, I stopped to take a few pictures. The scale of these is incredible. You can see a small truck at the bottom of the third picture for some indication of the scale. I tried to capture a shot showing the density of them, but it really doesn't convey it. But the number represented in the wide shot goes on for miles and miles. I can tell you after sitting through the soccer game (37 degrees at game time) that it is quite windy in western Kansas, and those things are putting out some power.

Regards.

D-Ray

[finnbow]

There are a few on mountaintops around here as well. In Europe last summer, the flat plains of northern Europe were covered with wind turbines.

[BlueStreak]

One of my sisters and her husband worked security at a windfarm in Texas over the summer. IIRC, she said it covered over 650 acres.

Is this where the "clean energy" money went?

Dave

[Boreas]

Lot of them out here, especially in Altamont, between San Francisco and Tracy, CA. When they're spinning they appear to be turning slowly and they are in terms of RPMs but the tip speed of the rotors can get to well over 100 MPH.

John

[JBS...]

Could this be it...?

Smoky Hills Wind Farm
North of I-70, 20 miles
west of Salina, Kansas

The newest wind energy project in Kansas is the Smoky Hills Wind Farm along Interstate 70 in Ellsworth and Lincoln Counties. Smoky Hills Wind Farm is located 20 miles west of Salina.

Smoky Hills is the largest wind farm in Kansas and more than 100 landowners are participanting in the project. Including the land used for roads, turbine foundations and maintenance buildings, less than two percent of the 20,000 acres covered by the wind farm will be removed from agricultural service.

The first two phases of the Smoky Hill Wind Farm have been completed and at peak production the wind farm can generate 250 MW of electricity. The electricity is produced by 140,000 pound Vestas V80 1.8-megawatt wind turbines.

The energy is being delivered to five local utilities: Sunflower Electric Power Corporation, Midwest Energy, the Kansas City Board of Public Utilities, the City of Independence, Missouri and the City of Springfield, Missouri.

[d-ray657]

Originally Posted by JBS...

Could this be it...?

Smoky Hills Wind Farm
North of I-70, 20 miles
west of Salina, Kansas

The newest wind energy project in Kansas is the Smoky Hills Wind Farm along Interstate 70 in Ellsworth and Lincoln Counties. Smoky Hills Wind Farm is located 20 miles west of Salina.

Smoky Hills is the largest wind farm in Kansas and more than 100 landowners are participanting in the project. Including the land used for roads, turbine foundations and maintenance buildings, less than two percent of the 20,000 acres covered by the wind farm will be removed from agricultural service.

The first two phases of the Smoky Hill Wind Farm have been completed and at peak production the wind farm can generate 250 MW of electricity. The electricity is produced by 140,000 pound Vestas V80 1.8-megawatt wind turbines.

The energy is being delivered to five local utilities: Sunflower Electric Power Corporation, Midwest Energy, the Kansas City Board of Public Utilities, the City of Independence, Missouri and the City of Springfield, Missouri.

I'm pretty sure that's it. Thanks for looking it up. I found some info on it when I was looking around, but I couldn't find anything that showed the actual number of turbines in operation in that project. I talked to my wife about it again today, and she is with me in estimating that we must have seen close to a thousand of the windmills. It was an awfully impressive sight - much more impressive than my limited photography skills reveal. (In my defense, it's hard to get settled in for shot when cars and trucks are zipping past at 75-80 MPH. )

Regards,

D-Ray

[ebacon]

Wind turbines are huge.

My uncle in Germany is a greeny. He maintains the solar farm for his village. The village also has one wind turbine. Last year he took me to the base of it and all I can say is that it is Las Vegas size. Pictures don't do these things justice.

[bobabode]

We need to sprout 'em like weeds. The Dutch get a huge amount of their elecricity from them. Those Dutch are a pretty smart bunch in my book.

For other reasons other than great coffee shops...well, those coffee shops were pretty cool when I visited there back in the mid '80s.

[bhunter]

There are far too many people and websites that promote wind power as the panacea for our energy problems. Unfortunately, most are taking advantage of preferential treatment from governments. The only viable option for reducing fossil fuel use in generating electricity is nuclear. If wind is economically viable without needing subsidies, then it will be used as an adjunct to other production sources. That said, I like to watch them spin and even kind of like the "wooshing" sound of the blades. The really large models are quite an incredible engineering feat.

Here are some known problems of wind power:

How many homes can a wind turbine power?

Proponents often express projected output as “enough to power x homes.” According to the Energy Information Agency, the average US household uses 888 kWh per month, or 10,656 kWh per year. An average 1.5-MW turbine (26.9% capacity factor) would produce the same amount of electric energy as that used by almost 332 households over a year.

It must be remembered, though, that wind power is intermittent and variable, so a wind turbine produces power at or above its annual average rate only 40% of the time. That is, most of the time, it is not providing its average power to its average number of homes. And the times of high wind production rarely correspond with times of actual demand on the grid.

It must also be remembered that residential use accounts for only a third of our total electricity use.
How does wind variability affect wind power reliability?

A wind turbine’s production is usually expressed as an annual average, which masks its highly variable output. But because production falls off dramatically as the wind speed drops (by a factor of eight for every halving of the wind speed), most of the time the wind turbine is producing well below its average rate. The average rate of output or more is seen only about 40% of the time.
How does wind power’s variable output affect the grid?

Wind turbine production of power responds to the wind, which even at the “best” sites varies dramatically from hour to hour and minute to minute. The grid, however, must respond to user demand. Since the grid dispatchers can’t control wind power production any more than they can control user demand, wind turbines on the grid do not contribute to meeting demand. By pushing power into the grid, they simply add another source of fluctuation that the grid must balance.

Also see intermittency in “The Grid” FAQ.
What is wind power’s capacity credit?

Wind power has a very low “capacity credit,” its ability to replace other sources of power. For example, in the U.K., which boasts of being the windiest country in Europe, the Royal Academy of Engineering projects that 25,000 MW of wind power will reduce the need for conventional power capacity by 4,000 MW, a 16% capacity credit. Two studies in Germany projected that 48,000 MW of wind power will allow reducing conventional capacity by only 2,000 MW, a 4% capacity credit (as described in “Wind Report 2005,” Eon Netz). Similarly, the Irish Grid calculated that 3,500 MW of wind power could replace 496 MW of conventional power, a 14% capacity credit, and that as more wind turbines are added their capacity credit approaches zero. And the New York State Energy Research & Development Authority found in March 2005 that onshore wind power would have a capacity credit of 10%, based on a theoretical capacity factor of 30%. (See some of these and other documents here at National Wind Watch.)
How much back-up power is needed for wind power?

According to Eon Netz, one of the four grid managers in Germany, with 7,050 MW of wind power capacity installed in its area at the end of 2004, the amount of back-up required was over 80%, which was the maximum output observed from all of their wind power facilities together. That is, for every 10 MW of wind power added to the system in this case, at least 8 MW of back-up power must also be dedicated.

In other words, wind needs 100% back-up of its maximum output.
Doesn’t a unit of electricity produced by wind turbines reduce a unit from another source?

Because the grid must continuously balance supply and demand, yes, it must reduce the supply from somewhere else when the wind rises enough to start generating power.

If there is hydropower on the system, that is the most likely source to be reduced, because it can be switched on and off the most readily. Some natural gas plants can also switch on and off quickly (though at a cost of efficiency, i.e., burning more fuel). Otherwise, the output from fuel-burning plants is ramped down or it is switched from generation to standby. In either case, it still burns fuel.
Can wind turbines help avoid blackouts?

No. Wind turbines themselves need power from the grid to work. A blackout knocks them out, too. If they were providing power at the time, that loss aggravates the effect of the blackout.
http://www.wind-watch.org/faq-output.php