Anton Lang
comments using
the screen name of
TonyfromOz ,
at the website
www.JoNova.com,
Australia's best
climate science blog,
which has had
good coverage of
COVID-19 too.
Lang also writes at PA Pundits
International, on topics related
to electrical power generation,
from all sources, concentrating
mainly on renewable power.
Following are quotes from
an Anton Lang / Jo Nova
article at www.JoNova.com
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/08/wind-power-failure-100-times-a-year-we-get-a-500mw-outage/
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/08/wind-power-failure-100-times-a-year-we-get-a-500mw-outage/
The article is
a little complex,
so I've tried
to simplify it
with my choice
of quotes
(and I've added
a few clarifications
in parentheses):
Title:
"Wind Power failure:
on average every 3 days,
there is a 500MW fail"
Quotes:
"On average, every 3 days,
wind farms generating
as much as one coal fired unit,
fail on the Australian grid"
(fail = fails to generate electricity)
"That’s four full wind farms
or about 250 spinning turbines
that stopped spinning."
"A few wind farms are bad
for the grid. More wind farms
are worse."
"100 times a year
we get a 500MW outage".
"The largest and
longest outages
are when wind farms
are becalmed.
But there are
many more short sharp
and very sudden failures
in high wind conditions
where wind farms cut out."
The sharpest power cuts
are happening in between
the high pressure cells.
As the wind picks up,
(electricity) production
maximizes, only to crash
as turbines hit their
safety cut off points
and drop out
of production suddenly.
About 50 times a year
generation across the
entire Australian wind farm
grid falls by 500MW
or more within one hour
or less."
"Those long term losses
are happening
with every
High Pressure system
crossing SA and Victoria
from West to East,
and they last around
one a week .
Some pass more quickly
than others and some
hang around for up to
a couple of days."
"For four years I have been
collecting data on wind power
generation in Australia."
... "Keep in mind
here that there
were 265 occasions
in the last 800 days
where the power loss
exceeded 500MW."
... "Every time one of those
large High pressure
weather systems
came into an area
in the South of the Country,
then wind generation
would fall away
by a large amount.
... "The short time frame
power losses are related
to the weather as well.
We have been told
often enough
that these wind towers
only operate between
specific wind (speed)
ranges.
When the wind
gets too high,
then the wind towers
automatically turn off,
and the same happens
when the wind
is too low,
they also turn off
automatically."
... " the problem we have
with the intermittency
being supposedly
resolved
by constructing
more of them
(wind farms),
has in this case,
also been made worse,
as now there are
more wind towers
in that area,
(and then)
more
(manufacturing)
plants are constructed
in that area,
and now they are
more susceptible
to large scale losses
in shorter time frames
when the wind gets
too high."
... "This data
I have collected here
shows that the
intermittency problem
is getting worse,
as there are
more occurrences
of power losses,
and those losses
in power generation
are becoming larger."