Wind Provides Record 40 Percent of Grid in Texas

Subtitle:  Flexible Gas-powered Grid Manages Quite Well

It was a typical winter cold front that came barreling into North Texas in late December, 2015.  Windy.  Cold.  For hour after hour after hour (approximately 20 consecutive hours.)   Western novels describe such cold winds and how cowboys and settlers cope.   This one was real.  The key point is that the wind turbines in Texas cranked it up and sent the power down the lines.  The electrical grid responded, with other generating plants backing down to keep the grid balanced.   There were no blackouts.  No brownouts.  No problems. 

An article from Scientific American see link describes the wind, the generation, and the Texas grid response.   ("Texas Sets New All-Time Wind Energy Record"). 

From the article:

"The latest record is news not only because wind provided nearly half of Texas’s electricity needs, but also that it did so for so many hours in a row. The sustained winds brought on by the low-pressure front caused wind energy production to exceed 10 gigawatts for essentially the entirety of December 20.

The duration of the record is a big deal because it shows that the rest of the Texas grid can handle a whole lot of wind energy for an extended period of time without suffering instability or brownouts that some predicted. Texas was able to balance the intermittent wind because it has a lot of natural gas power plants, which can adjust their power output more quickly than coal-fired power plants. Considering this fact, it seems like a happy coincidence that market forces are transitioning the U.S. electricity system toward a mix of renewable energy and natural gas."

There has been some activity in the blogosphere discussing renewable energy on the grids, and how the grids simply cannot handle more than some percent of intermittent generation such as wind and solar, once that percent reaches a tipping point.  Some articles discuss 20 percent as the point where problems begin, others suggest 30 percent.   Yet here, we see that Texas (a pretty big grid, by the way), managed 40 percent not just for a few moments, but for many hours, almost a full day.  

It is quite clear that grid designers and planners made a robust grid in Texas.   It is also notable that Texas has, as written here on SLB, a grid that by design can handle the intermittent renewables: very little coal and nuclear, the stubborn baseload plants that refuse to reduce their output.   Coal power is only 28 percent in Texas, and nuclear is only 11 percent.   Flexible-output natural gas power is the biggest source of generation at 48 percent.   

Related articles on SLB:

see link   Wind Energy Increasing in US - Grids Are Fine
see link   California Renewables Not Crashing the Grid  - 31 Percent and Grid is Fine
see link   Energy Supply in Post-Coal America - Renewables to Replace Coal in 20 Years
see link   Climate Denialism - Nuclear vs Renewable Energy
see link   Nuclear Until Renewables Can Shoulder The Load - A Bad Idea

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.
Marina del Rey, California
copyright (c) 2016 by Roger Sowell, all rights reserved

Response To Levelized Cost of Electric Generation

Response to WUWT post of 2/16/2014 by W. Eschenbach (see link)

I browsed through, looking for something else, and saw the linked article on levelized costs for new power plants from EIA in 2013.  I am too late to add a comment, so offer this as a response.  There are many points made by the author of that article that are simply wrong, or misleading. 

Pumped Storage Hydroelectric Plant - Lake Michigan
approximately 1,900 MW of energy production

Eschenbach writes: “The power grid is a jealous bitch, there’s not an iota of storage.”   That statement is simply not true.  US data shows pumped storage hydroelectric plants presently provide 20 GW (20,000 MW) of energy. [Update 4/26/14: EIA shows 22,368 MW installed as of 2012 see link - end update] That is grid-scale storage.   For some perspective, 1,000 MW is the output from a typical nuclear-powered single-reactor plant.  The photo nearby of the Ludington, Michigan plant shows Lake Michigan in the foreground, and the elevated storage lake in the background.  Off-peak power at night is used to pump water up into the upper reservoir, then the water generates power the next day during peak demand.  It is one of the largest such grid-scale power storage systems in the US.   There is also a battery-based storage system in use on Santa Catalina Island, offshore Los Angeles, California.  

Eschenbach writes: “when demand goes up, as it always does…”   Again, simply not true.  Electric demand historically has followed the population trend, roughly.  When Cleveland, Ohio, for example, experienced its 50-plus percent population decline in the 20th century, the demand for electricity also declined.  More recently, many utility planners remark that decreased demand is confounding their estimates for future needs. Eschenbach ignores the concept of cogeneration, also known as CHP for combined heat and power.  (see link to Truth About Nuclear Power – 7 for chart on CHP growth).    CHP capacity is currently around 100 GW   82 GW [Update 4/26/2014]  That also represents 20 percent of US electric power, not an amount to ignore.  EIA shows 160 billion kWh produced via CHP in 2013.  Total US power generated was 4,058 billion kWh.  That is 160 / 4058 = 3.9 percent or almost 4 percent of all power sold.   The trend is to more CHP, or distributed generation as it is also called.  This also reduces grid demand. 

Eschenbach writes:  “if you add a hundred megawatts of wind at $0.09 per kWh to the system, you also need to add a hundred megawatts of natural gas or geothermal or nuclear to the system.”   This is simply not true.  In fact, the opposite is occurring in today’s market.  In Texas, for example, 12,000 MW of wind-based energy has been installed to date.   The market added additional, non-wind-based capacity (primarily natural gas power plants) but it would have added that capacity in any event.   In Texas, the regulating body is ERCOT.  Their considered assessment of wind energy plants in Texas is that almost 10 percent of installed wind capacity can be included as dispatchable, what they refer to as ELCC, effective load-carrying capability.  This (8.7 percent) is presently at 920 MW out of an installed base of 12,000 MW wind energy.  That 920 MW is non-trivial, almost equivalent to one nuclear power plant.  See link  

Eschenbach writes: “As a result, for all of the non-dispatchable power sources, those gray bars in Figure 1,you need to add at least seven cents per kilowatt-hour to the prices shown there, so you’ll have dispatchable power when you need it.” [emphasis in original]   The opposite is shown for actual prices in states with substantial wind:  Iowa, 5.45, South Dakota, 7.03, Texas 6.4, and US avg 7.12 cents per kWh for industrial price in Feb 2014, latest figures from EIA.   Industrial prices best represent the cost of power production, since there is very little added for transmission and distribution costs.  Iowa and South Dakota each have more than 25 percent wind power on their grids at the present.  Texas has only about 9 percent grid power, but has the most wind energy of any state at this time, at 12,000 MW.   see link 

Eschenbach writes: “Finally, I’m not sure I believe the maintenance figures in their report about wind.”  The value he refers to, of 1.3 cents per kWh, is the same as California’s Energy Commission reported in 2009.   This is based on actual operating experience and millions of hours of operation.  The statement from AWEA is:  “A typical wind turbine requires routine service once or twice per year. Oil and filters need to be changed, operating components need to be inspected, and bolts need to be torqued.”  Also, some parts require replacement after 5 to 15 years, depending on the part.   Unusual environmental or electrical damage also requires replacement.  (AWEA is the American Wind Energy Association)

I write this with the knowledge that Mr. Eschenbach is quite sensitive to any criticism.   He frequently uses capitalized words to indicate shouting in internet useage.  He has, in the past, been quite rude in responses to my comments on his writings.  Quite recently, however, he has shown a more civil tone, and I hope he continues the civility if he chooses to respond to this article.

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.

Marina del Rey, California

Texas Sets Wind Energy Record

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, ERCOT, said that at 8:48 p.m. Wednesday, March 26, 2014, wind farms connected to ERCOT’s transmission network generated a new high of

1.5 MW Turbine
photo: NREL

10,296 megawatts. The previous high was 9,689 megawatts.  ERCOT also said that at 3:14 a.m. Thursday, wind produced 38.4 percent of all the power on its grid, the highest share ever.  (link here)

With just over 12,000 MW installed capacity in Texas, the new peak in generation represents almost 86 percent of potential generation.  

Wind power is performing exactly as it is designed to do:  it produces power when the wind blows.  Critics scoff at wind power, saying it is unreliable and too costly because conventional generating plants must be built to carry the load when wind cannot.  That argument has no validity, because one cannot expect windturbines as presently designed and installed to serve as baseload or load-following generating systems.  At present, windturbines perform exactly as designed.  An analogy would be expecting a delivery truck to perform like a race car and win a Formula One race.  No rational people would ever expect a heavy delivery truck to win such a race.  The truck was designed for a completely different purpose.  How then, can windturbines be expected to provide baseload or load-following capability? 

Wind power will someday provide such power, but only when cost-effective, grid-scale energy storage is available.  Over time, wind energy economics will continue to decrease the cost to generate from wind, as economies of scale and economy from mass production continue to reduce costs.  Also, as more transmission lines are built, the economics of wind energy improve.  At some point very soon, the full production costs of wind energy (capital plus operating charges) will be low enough to begin justifying the high costs of grid-scale energy storage.  When the combined cost of wind energy generation plus grid-scale energy storage reach parity with conventional generation, the real boom in wind energy will begin.  

Grid-scale storage will allow power produced from windturbines to be stored as the power is generated, typically at night for on-shore systems.  Night power prices are usually low, so windturbine operators would prefer not to sell the power at night.  However, the next day, power prices increase.  The storage system will then release the stored power in a controlled manner, producing reliable, even load-following, power into the grid at high on-peak prices.  The drawback is that some energy is lost in the storage and release steps.   The overall economics will depend on the prices and energy losses.  

For now, the Texas windturbines are proving that wind energy is viable, wind energy works as designed. 

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.
Marina del Rey, California

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/03/27/5687340/wind-power-sets-new-daily-records.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/03/27/5687340/wind-power-sets-new-daily-records.html#storylink=cpy