Offshore Wind Energy Already Cheaper Than Gas-Fired & Nuclear Power Plants | CleanTechnica

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1. July 5, 2016 at 11:44 am

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   Wind energy surplus threatens eastern German power grid
   http://www.eurodialogue.eu/Wind-energy-surplus-threatens-eastern-German-power-grid

   More than one third of Germany’s 21,500 wind turbines are located in the nation’s east. This concentration of generating capacity regularly overloads the region’s electricity grid, threatening blackouts.

   German Economics Minister Rainer Brüderle recently warned that Germany faces frequent power blackouts because too much ‘green electricity’ is being pumped onto the grid.

   While this is a problem all four of Germany’s major electricity network operators have to deal with one time or another, Belgian-Australian company 50Hertz Transmission is particularly hard hit. It took over the monitoring and protection of the eastern German energy grid – which is home to more than 8,000 wind turbines – from Swedish company Vattenfall last year, and faces the threat of power outages much more often than its counterparts.

   In 2006, when wind farms were few and far between, coal, gas and nuclear power plants produced just the amount of energy needed in eastern Germany at the time, but also created large amounts of nuclear waste and carbon dioxide emissions. The system was relatively stable. One average, engineers took action to stabilize the eastern German grid roughly 80 times a year.

   Today, as the amount of electricity generated by the region’s 8,000 wind turbines rises and falls by the hour, engineers have to intervene every second day to maintain network stability.

   The Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) reports that in 2010, about 40 percent of Germany’s wind power production – or 6 percent of global output – came from eastern Germany. That figure is expected to rise dramatically as “Baltic 1,” a gigantic new offshore wind park in the Baltic Sea, enters operation later this month. Another 13 projects are planned for the next few years.

   Electricity ‘export highways’

   With no technical means of storing this surplus energy, 50Hertz safeguards the eastern German grid by managing production levels and exporting electricity to other regions.

   In 2009, exports to western Germany, neighboring Poland and the Czech Republic reached 6.5 gigawatts on days with strong winds. As more new wind farms go online, Erbring said, exports are bound to increase even further.

   “We will then have to transport 80 percent more from our control area than we did in 2009,”

   In theory, the control center at 50Hertz can order individual wind farms taken off the grid during strong wind phases. But in reality, that is a rare exception as 50Hertz is bound by German energy laws that stipulate that “green” power must always have priority on the grid.

   As a result, coal, gas and nuclear facilities should be shut down before wind turbines are taken offline, but operators say they avoid this because they rely on traditional power plants to produce a consistent level of base power at all times.

   50Hertz security expert Hans-Peter Erbring warned it’s a tense situation: “Eastern Germany will continue to have major grid stability problems if the links aren’t in place within the next few years.”

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2. June 28, 2018 at 7:19 am

   Tomi Engdahl says:

   5 Wind Turbines which Failed (Enviromental friendly?)
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVHzfUWul2Y

   Nearly 120 wind turbines catch fire each year, according to a research – ten times the number reported by the industry. The researchers claim that out of 200,000 turbines around the world, 117 fires take place annually – far more than what is reported by wind farm companies.

   Fire has a huge financial impact on the industry; Each wind turbine costs more than £2 million and generates an estimated income of more than £500,000 per year.

   Turbinas Eólicas – Energia Eólica
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VyrXAH-UpQ

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