Wind Farm Load usage calculation

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I never said all were net consumers. But just like any other venture there are failures, investor scams, stuff like that
 
David Castor said:
Also, the wind farm must BUY power from whatever utility service territory they are in. They SELL power to someone else, generally. So any period of time when the wind turbine is consuming power, it must be purchased from the local REA, regardless of the overall net output of the wind farm over time.
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So what? That is exactly what I would expect. Same as any peaker plant.
 
David Castor said:
I did not say that they are net consumers of energy. Wind turbines consume considerable energy when they are not operating, which is a lot of the time. There are auxiliary loads (oil pumps, heater, hydraulics, control systems, etc) that require power. Also, the wind farm must BUY power from whatever utility service territory they are in. They SELL power to someone else, generally. So any period of time when the wind turbine is consuming power, it must be purchased from the local REA, regardless of the overall net output of the wind farm over time.
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I had no idea they consumed power when off-line...something that has never crossed my mind. That just further reinforces the comments that come out of my mouth that the stupid things will never produce more energy or dollars than they cost to produce. What a racket that is.
 
4x4dually said:
I had no idea they consumed power when off-line...something that has never crossed my mind. That just further reinforces the comments that come out of my mouth that the stupid things will never produce more energy or dollars than they cost to produce. What a racket that is.
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Most power plants consume massive amounts of electricity. Just imagine all the pumps and fans and millions of other things that need power at a nuke or coal plant, even if it is offline. It is incredibly naive of you to imagine this is something unique to wind plants and that they consume more than they generate. Why don't you look into some charts
and stats for the energy production from wind in the state of Texas and come back and tell me if you think they are still "stupid"
 
electrofelon said:
Most power plants consume massive amounts of electricity. Just imagine all the pumps and fans and millions of other things that need power at a nuke or coal plant, even if it is offline. It is incredibly naive of you to imagine this is something unique to wind plants and that they consume more than they generate. Why don't you look into some charts
and stats for the energy production from wind in the state of Texas and come back and tell me if you think they are still "stupid"
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I think they are stupid because I spent 20+ years of my life building a property and now a brand new home only to have wind turbines being constructed right across the fence from the back porch overlooking a beautiful pond that I now get to spend the rest of my life looking at. That's factor #1. Texas can have ALL OF THEM....or they can all burn to the ground....either way...I don't really care. :cool:
 
4x4dually said:
I think they are stupid because I spent 20+ years of my life building a property and now a brand new home only to have wind turbines being constructed right across the fence from the back porch overlooking a beautiful pond that I now get to spend the rest of my life looking at. That's factor #1. Texas can have ALL OF THEM....or they can all burn to the ground....either way...I don't really care. :cool:
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Of course, those concerns you have don't have anything to do with whether or not they will be electrically and economically net positive contributors to the power grid. The people who design utility scale wind turbines and the people who arrange the financing for them are not stupid.
 
ggunn said:
Of course, those concerns you have don't have anything to do with whether or not they will be electrically and economically net positive contributors to the power grid. The people who design utility scale wind turbines and the people who arrange the financing for them are not stupid.
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I'm holding my "I told you so" comments for about 20 years from now when they are all out of service due to wear and sitting abandoned in the farm land that was once used to feed people. The companies promoting this stuff will all be bunkrupt and gone. No one will be left to clean this stuff up. Dang near every other one of them around here are leaking oil at the pivot. Blades are stained with oil and some even have it running down the pedestal. Move them all to California.

Solar makes more sense to me. Doesn't consume as much or any power when not in use (correct?), no moving parts to wear, doesn't require fossil fuels as consumables (oil, grease, etc), doesn't kill Bald Eagles (throwing that in there for laughing points), doesn't make the view of the country side look like total hell with flashing red beacons all night long, etc etc etc etc etc. Storage is a burden for either option.

Enough of my rant about making our beautiful view from our land look like Los Angles....moving along before I get my hands slapped for a thread derail. ;)
 
4x4dually said:
I'm holding my "I told you so" comments for about 20 years from now when they are all out of service due to wear and sitting abandoned in the farm land that was once used to feed people. The companies promoting this stuff will all be bunkrupt and gone. No one will be left to clean this stuff up. Dang near every other one of them around here are leaking oil at the pivot. Blades are stained with oil and some even have it running down the pedestal. Move them all to California.
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That sounds just like what the old horse guys said about cars 100 or so years ago.
 
4x4dually said:
Dang near every other one of them around here are leaking oil at the pivot. Blades are stained with oil and some even have it running down the pedestal.
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I'm having visions of public-works proposals with cost overruns, until some kind of friction-less, or magnetic bearing is used.

Doubling budget overruns every year is typical for transportation & energy sectors, including Nuclear, Solyndra, ITER, Crescent Dunes (CSP), with some subsidy incentives inspired by NASA and Science Fiction.

Failure to recognize the predator, or prevent industry from de/funding the regulator, favors politics of GDP expansion as it exploits ignorance of a blissful populous.
 
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ramsy said:
I'm having visions of public-works proposals with cost overruns, until some kind of friction-less, or magnetic bearing is used.

Doubling budget overruns every year is typical for transportation & energy sectors, including Nuclear, Solyndra, ITER, Crescent Dunes (CSP), with some subsidy incentives inspired by NASA and Science Fiction.

Failure to recognize the predator, or prevent industry from de/funding the regulator, favors politics of GDP expansion as it exploits ignorance of a blissful populous.
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The problem with magnetic bearings is that you can't get a high enough flux density to support the loads of a wind turbine rotor. Plus, they are absolutely lousy when it comes to end thrust.
 
The Salton Sea geothermal plants when offline need external power to get them going again. So, they have emergency generators just in case they can't obtain external power.
 
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Here is a good one

The electricity demand remains a challenge to African society, this project aims at saving energy by using natural renewable energy resource (wind) to supply enough energy to the passenger train normally known as a Coach or Motor Coach (MC). This is done by mounting specially designed wind turbines on the roof of moving locomotives. Transnet, which is the railway giants in South Africa, their officials agreed that only small specially designed wind turbines can be potentially viable and be implemented. Basically, a series of wind turbines will be placed on the roof top of the railway trains. The wind (kinetic energy) will be used as a source to produce the mechanical energy to the aero foil blades of the turbine. The energy will then be converted to electrical energy by the generator installed in the wind turbine. Therefore, the electricity produced will be used to run the various loads connected to the coach cabins, which includes; tubes lights, fans and etc.

ieeexplore.ieee.org

Green Energy for railway train mounted Wind Generator

The electricity demand remains a challenge to African society, this project aims at saving energy by using natural renewable energy resource (wind) to supply enough energy to the passenger train normally known as a Coach or Motor Coach (MC). This is done by mounting specially designed wind...
ieeexplore.ieee.org
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gadfly56 said:
The problem with magnetic bearings is that you can't get a high enough flux density to support the loads of a wind turbine rotor. Plus, they are absolutely lousy when it comes to end thrust.
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Yes, I see most applications for superconducting-magnet bearings are light-weight flywheels.
 
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