Nash, or Polyanna, as you should be named, “will now generate free and clean electricity for 20-30 years”… you’re taking the p1ss? Why are they heavily SUBSIDISED by taxpayers then if it’s free?

You didn’t answer this, “What are you “for” when the wind isn’t blowing?”

Nash,

These companies arent powering their plants with them – they are just collecting the subsidies. Their turbines are connected to the grid , not to themselves. I would be all for them if they did that.

Ray,

As far as I know these companies have a net feed in tariff, they will only get paid for excess electricity produced. It is not accurate to say that production and consumption on these sites operate independently.

Aside from this, as long as these turbines are spinning, there is less gas/coal/turf burned in power stations in Ireland. That is the benefit of these turbines.

Nash,

In Ireland, the gas/coal plants are paid capacity payments to keep running at a certain level incase the wind goes outside cut in/out suddenly. The cycling above this level results in a lot of fuel burning like driving your car through a city as opposed to a motorway. So the savings is not on a 1:1 ratio. This makes fossil fuel savings pretty small relative to the cost.

” they will only get paid for excess electricity produced.”

Again, this is deceiving, they are not actually powering their plant/units. The wind energy is going the grid, the turbines could never produce more electricity than the electricity they are using in the plant.

“It is not accurate to say that production and consumption on these sites operate independently.”

Thats the problem and where the scam works – if it operated independently they would be in trouble. For a start, the turbines need grid electricity.

Hi Ray,

You are making an argument against something that I never said. I have a general understanding of how the Irish Grid operates and I am aware that a non renewable backup is always needed. Also that wind will never make up more than perhaps 20% of any countries electricity generation system.

However I think that where these can be installed without impacting on anyone’s home or certain scenic viewpoints they should go ahead. I prefer wind to burning imported gas or oil, I am not blindly defending all aspects of wind generation.

If you put a value on that saving it would be alot less than what we actually pay for it.

If they had done the proper legally bound assessments on NREAP, including cost benefit analysis / consideration of alternatives, we wouldnt have gone down this road.

If you live in the midlands they are a scam, if you live elsewhere they are the power God

Spot on William

I am involved in these projects and can tell you that one of them doesn’t have an export agreement and is being used solely to power the factory. The other 2 have a factory load of 2.5MW and the turbines will produce 3MW maximum. So there is very limited export. The cost of the turbines will be repaid within 3-4 years. They are getting no subsidies whatsoever.

Hi ray, you are wrong on the above. In the last few weeks there have been days when 96% of the factories load has been produced by the turbine. Don’t let the facts get in the way of scaremongering.

Kevin, FANTASTIC! This is clearly the breakthrough everyone in cloud cuckoo land have been waiting for.

“The cost of the turbines will be repaid within 3-4 years.” Obviously they are producing magical electricity. Can you tell us how it’s about 10 times more valuable than “normal” electricity?

PS I hate to be a spoilsport but, “there have been days when 96% of the factories load has been produced by the turbine”, where did you get your power on the other more common days?

William, how do you have time for anything else in your life when you devote so much time to bashing wind energy- or is it your actual job? Pretty much every single article on renewable energy on the journal has at least 10 comments from you spouting your usual anti-wind agenda. I suppose I have to salute your consistency. If you are pro-nuclear why not just be pro-nuclear? Why do you have to be so vehemently anti-renewable? Do you not understand or support the merits of having a diverse energy mix?

Brigid, how I spend my time is my own business. I’m afraid the trust of your post is completely illogical. I can be anti-wind and pro-nuclear. I don’t have to pick and chose. One can follow rugby AND football. The reason I oppose wind is that it is a scam and I fight against all scams. You can fool most of the people most of the time.

Is there any statement I have made on this topic that is inaccurate or wrong?

One can follow Rugby and Football!!!?..-.A Shocking New twist in the energy debate.
I think you missed the point of my question William. The credibility of your comments on nuclear energy is seriously undermined or negated by your Anti-wind status.
The statements you make are usually misleading, nearly always without context and occasionally plain wrong. You ask questions like, ‘What will we do when the wind isn’t blowing??’, as though it would be somehow a catastrophic event – which of course it wouldn’t. Electricity is generated from a number of sources. If the wind isn’t blowing then gas or coal generation will be generating a larger % of the electricity demand at that time. You failed to answer my question on your thoughts about having a diverse energy mix.

Brigid, I was trying to point out that anti-wind farm isn’t mutually exclusive to being pro-nuclear. My position in wind farms is nothing to do with NP. If NP didn’t exist I would still be opposed to wind.

I asked you where I was wrong and you’ve only made generalisations such as “the statements you make are usually misleading”. Which one is misleading and why? Be specific…if you can.

The unique problem with wind is that for every MW that is built you ALSO have to build another MW of some alternative to use when there’s no wind, little wind or too much wind. Furthermore that capacity has to be manned and left running or idling so it can come on stream quickly. Wind is therefore USELESS. The more percent of wind there is built the more useless it gets.

Can you tell me in the case of the factory you are familiar with, how many turbines are there and what is their total capacity? In the case of this factory, can you give a rough estimate of the number of 3 phase electric motors installed with a break down of total rated watt rating (or horse power) and individual watt rating. You will be aware that the speed of a polyphase electric motor is directly related to the incoming frequency and I am intrigued to learn how such motor’s speed is maintained using variable wind energy.

Ok William. The turbine costs approx 5million ( this is the entire project cost including transport civils etc, keep in mind these are the biggest and most expensive turbines in Ireland). The factory with the lowest energy consumption spends €12,000 a day on importing from the grid. The capacity factor of the 3MW turbine on average is 33% ( for this site it will actually be closer to 40%). So the daily average savings spread over a year is €4,800 per day or 1.75 million a year. The largest of the factories spend up to €36,000 a day on electricity so the pay back time will be even less.
You seem to be unable to separate the difference between a wind farm exporting to the grid and a turbine being used to cut the electricity bill within a factory. Subsidies have nothing to do with this case and you’re obviously not an expert so you should do some research before spouting your cynicism. Oh and aren’t you very clever pointing out that the wind does not blow all the time you really got me there! You can see my calc above takes this into account. I honestly believe for a heavy industrial user of electricity it is a no brainer to install one provided the local community accept it. And yes, any electricity is magic. It is one of the wonders of the world and the human race would be a lot poorer without it.

The wind turbine produces ac at 14-15 hz, is then converted to dc and back to ac at 50hz. The inverters ensure that the frequency will always be 50hz ( or 60hz for North America) regardless of the wind speed. Of course the turbine would be useless if the frequency changes with wind speed.

I have no problem with wind energy used for your own consumption. The problem I have is when it is connected to the grid. So assuming what Kevin says is true then best of luck with it.

I presume parasitic power comes from the grid ? And is metered and paid for.

You should note that Fr Collins Park had a similar wind venture which proved an expensive disaster as the turbines needed constant maintenance. Be interesting to see how Cork Harbour goes.

The capacity factors appear huge, usually the capacity factor is around 13-15%. If your getting this high CF, then maintenance may be a problem but lets see what happens.

I’m not sure what you mean by parasitic power? Reactive power? The turbine can actually produce reactive power to improve the pf in the factory. It is only turbines connected purely for export to the grid that are obliged to import reactive power to stabilize the grid. Even so , this is minimal (0.95 pf usually) not sure where fr. Collins park is? Maybe these were older turbines. Modern turbines come with an availability guarantee of 97% ( not including scheduled maintenance of 2 days in total per year). So the manufacturer has to pay if this percentage isn’t met. Several factories around the country have these operating for years: astellas in killorglin, Munster joinery, Brett Martin and Michelin in Antrim for example.

In Germany yes, this is part of the reason why are they stepping back from wind a bit. Ireland and Scotland have the best wind speeds in Europe, particularly the west coasts so there is much more bang for your buck

Parasitic power is the power wind turbines consume from the grid for the yaw mechanism, to stop the blades freezing in winter, magnetizing the stator and various other things.

Fr Collins Park is in Dublin . There was also a problem of houses getting in the way of the wind.

Ok. The power consumption of the biggest machines (3MW) is 30kW when at standstill. This includes everything from powering the control sytem to pitch motors/ yaw motors etc. The turbine needs this to start up but once generating it goes into self supply mode. Blade heating is not generally installed in Ireland as there is no need( more prevalent in Scandinavia and Canada for example) this would add about 100kW to the consumption. If houses were affecting the wind I imagine they were smaller units. The ones I am talking about are 100m tall. Now I honestly don’t think they are a blight on the landscape as long as they are not too close to houses but everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Kevin, a 3MW turbine might at best product 16KW hours per day or €1,600 worth of electricity, probably a lot less if it just happened to be sited where their factory was as opposed to a good wind site. (The silliest example are turbines on the North Circular Rd in London.) I can’t see where you are getting your figures from. A €5 million turbine costs more like €10 million to pay for taking financing etc into account. Therefore it’s more like 17 to 34 years to get back the investment and that’s ignoring all other costs such as maintenance. The life expectancy is 25 years so there’s no benefit. Furthermore you couldn’t do it unless someone else paid a large capital sum to build generators for you to use when the wind isn’t blowing. I can’t imagine the power companies are too happy to supply large industrial users on such an ad hoc basis. Their attempt to balance demand would be shot to pieces if everyone tried that wind option.

16kWhr???? I assume u mean MWhr. As I said a cap factor of 33% means on average spread out over the year 1MW is produced at any one time. What do you mean the maximum it can make is 16kWhr a day?Obviously it can make 72MWhr on a very good day but on average it is 24MWhr. The rate per kWh for industrial use is around 15c as far as I know. That’s a saving of €3,600 a day. I made a slight error in the first calc in that I used 20c per kwhr which is the household rate. The payback time is still no more than 4 years. If you read what I said I stressed the TOTAL cost is €5million. This includes EVERYTHING. Grid connection agreement, road transport permits, planning, equipment supply, finance the whole shibang. Have you evidence that 1 turbine can cost 10 million because is like to see it?? On your logic, Why on earth would a company put up a turbine with no grid connection agreement thus no subsidies if it would not be worth their while financially!!!! You’re clinging at straws here! And to say a new generator has to be installed for each and every embedded generation turbine in a factory is absolute and utter nonsense and scaremongering. Eirgrid are already balancing the transmission system and have taken 40% wind generation on to the system on several days in the last 6 months. Look at the Eirgrid app which shows forecast wind and actual wind. Obviously this will never be 100% correct but you will see the deviation in general is quite small. Or else 40% on d system wud cause a

Blackout! Ran out of space!

Kevin , yes M not K. Ignoring web sites set up by those selling turbines can you show me one where a turbine can pay back it’s costs ever? The real farce of companies putting turbines on their plants is that those locations are more or less random vis a vis wind energy and when the perfect site is picked turbines still do not pay back their costs. A badly located turbine might produce virtually no electricity and claiming 33% on a random location id ridiculous. Wind Power has to be subsidised, if your claims were correct it wouldn’t need to be.

I could give you several examples but unfortunately I cannot post internal company documents on a public forum.i have seen turbines that have been up 6 years and resulted in a 35% saving on electricity bills. If you want, call Munster joinery ( one example)in cork and get it straight from the horses mouth. Conversely, you are making outlandish sweeping statements without having any evidence whatsoever to back it up. These are not ‘random’ locations. A met mast is put up ( a requirements from the banks) for up to 3 years before they will agree to finance. The study for this site has shown a 33% average output.so far the return is more than 40% but that us because the wind has been quite strong the last few weeks. Banks would not be financing these if they were going to get no return! You haven’t answered the question: why would a factory put one up if they were not going to save money????you seem to be sticking your head in the sand as I have explained from the start the embedded generation I am talking about is NOT subsidized by anyone as they are not selling the power to the grid!!!!I don’t know what else to say here as I’m obviously not getting through. I am involved in these projects and see the evidence. Saying these produce ‘virtually no’ electricity is an absolutely brainless comment and is typical of the backward thinking people who proclaim themselves experts despite having no experience or knowledge of what these machines can do.

Kevin, the Munster Joinery wind turbine project cost €6,000,000 and the web site of the wind company says there WILL BE savings of €1,000,000 on energy costs over the first 5 years. That means the payback time is 30 years, more than the life of the turbines, and that’s a projection by the sellers of the scam.

The site also says that excess electricity is fed into the grid presumably obtaining the inflated and subsidised price for that electricity. They also say that only 30% of MJ’s electricity will come from the turbines, hardly worth the effort.

There’s isn’t a puff of win today. How much are the turbines generating I wonder?

I just checked Eirgrid. As I type this Wind is contributing just over 1% of our electricity. Totally useless!

William, I just did a very quick read about that project as something sounded exceptionally off about the numbers you deduced regarding the payback period. The company Wind energy direct seem to be the ones who paid for this project. Munster joinery will save almost 1m over the next 5 years for purchasing this electricity directly from WED as opposed to from the grid. I’m pretty sure if something was saving you 1m in 5 years you wouldn’t be calling it useless. Again any thoughts on energy mix…if you can..

Brigid, they are saving €200,000 per year on their electricity bill but the thing costs €6,000,000. That’s a 30 year pay back. AND AND AND that’s the projected savings, not actual.

Brigid, any comment that as of this minute less than 1% of Irish electricity is coming from wind even though we have something like 2,000 MW of wind installed installed it’s generating less than 25 MW?

What sort of a MIX is that??

Yes I see that you came up with this figure of 30 years from dividing those two numbers. But 200000 is not the annual income of this wind site..it is the savings that Munster joinery are making for buying the electricity directly from the company wind energy direct. You can not deduce the payback from these two figures alone. If you can generate electricity from wind then it is useful. You are very outraged that wind dare be intermittent but the whole demand size of our grid is intermittent. It is of vital importance that Ireland continues to diversify its energy mix and the more it can exploit native renewable resources the better. Electricity is as far removed from the word useless as it gets..

Brigid, the €200,000 year is only that sum that the turbine generates. It’s not the savings after capital costs. If they buy from the electric company directly then they are subsidised so people who do not own MJ are paying towards their electricity bill. Fools! This is all smoke and mirrors. There is no savings. There are extra costs, just paid for by the fools who subsidise wind power.

How can you claim something that today can only produce 1% of our electricity a mix? It can’t be it’s not generating anything. Those that spent large capital costs on fossil plants are filling the gap.

Wind ONLY can exist by penalising the general public and robbing them to fund this foolish nonsense.

William, the Munster joinery had an annual electricity consumption of 26GWh ..that would have equated to a huge electricity bill of around 5m euro..200k is the annual savings in electricity costs to Munster joinery. Wind energy direct build operate and maintain these projects. Just visit the home page of the company for a brief explanation. The only foolish nonsense here is your bizarre distrust for a technology that is proven.

Bridget, so 4% projected saving from two huge wind turbines. Is that what you are saying? FOUR PERCENT?

Before, I only guesstimated the annual electricity bill using a 20c per kWh tariff. However, I have since taken the time to try and find a more accurate tariff. A comprehensive report for business electricity prices in Europe shows that the prices for businesses in Band IE ( annual consumption between 20,000 and 70,000MWh). Between Jan 2011 and June 2013 in Ireland the average price was 10.11c per kWh for Band IE. This puts the annual electricity bill to around 2,629,000. Only 34% or the electricity demand for Munster Joinery is coming from on-site wind Turbines. So, the other 66% of the annual 26GWh is coming from the grid. From all of this we actually work out that the cost of the wind energy per kWh to Munster Joinery must be in the region of 5.31c per kWh and the cost of the grid energy is 10.11c per kWh. From this I can work out that in this particular scenario the on-site wind energy is actually 47.5% cheaper than the energy coming from the grid. Magical stuff indeed.

William, You can divide numbers all you want and attempt to come up with %’s which will fit in with your world view but you might aswell be dividing your shoes by your hat and yelling ‘trousers…TROUSERS’ when you don’t understand or wish to understand what these figures actually mean. You did ask me last week to point out when you were making comments which were inaccurate or out of context well this is an excellent example.

Brigid, is that projected or actual? Does the cost include the subsidies? Then we can look at what that saves of the only 34% PROJECTED to come from the turbines.

William, I took my figures from the case study fact sheet on the SEAI website. It stated that the turbines had provided (past tense) 34% of the factory’s energy needs. It also stated annual savings of approx 150,000Eur. But my guess would be that 150,000 would be the savings if electricity prices stayed the same and the higher number of 200,000 would be if electricity prices increased as per the previous trend. This project is paying for itself and bringing Munster Joinery significant energy savings in the process. The project was the recipient of SEAI grant of 1m.
I sense that your stubbornness to take on board what I am saying is more to do with your dislike for the type of people who are pro-renewables. In this way you are unable to actually think critically for yourself and have instead allowed your opinions to be formed on the basis of opposing the opinions of those people you don’t particularly like. Before replying with some sarky comment and the odd capitalized word I suggest you reflect on what I have said and if their is some truth in it.

Brigid, so the €200K is now down to €150 and there was a grant of €1 million or nearly 20% of the capital costs. I wonder what MJ’s competitors think of them getting a million towards their electricity bill from their taxes? Hardly naked capitalism.

I notice the savings were estimated between €100K and €200K even though up to now the figure of €200K has been bandied about.

This project is spun for maximum benefit by all parties so any figures are suspect. We have a private company trying to sell wind energy and organisations that promote wind hoping against hope that the figures will work out.

BTW Reading anything to do with MJ I see this phrase, “hedging their future energy costs”. I get the impression the wind decision was taken primarily to avoid what was perceived to be future increases in electricity costs. That’s always a gamble as if prices fall the project might become a white elephant. Quote from Sean Michael, Client “Changes in the electricity market in Ireland were imposing increases of 20% – 25% on our energy bills. The installation of these turbines gives us the opportunity to break the link with energy inflation, to reduce our carbon emissions and is consistent with our product marketing messages.”

I still can’t see any figures that indicate this is a sucess. Even at €150K, it’s a payback nearly double the life expectancy of the turbines.

William…Sigh…I have tried my very best to explain this to you but you either are pretending to not get it or you actually do not understand it. Payback is based on the annual income of the turbines and the cost of money and the actual cost of the building the turbines. The annual income of the turbines is not a published figure as it is sensitive financial data. However, based on the information that is available and some simple calculations I can work out that :
*The turbines provide 34% of the 26GWh annual demand of MJ – this is 8.84GWhs
*73% of the energy the turbines supply goes to MJ – ergo the other 27% is going to grid – 3.27GWh
*This means that annually the turbines are producing 12.11GWh (incidentally that would give the turbines a capacity factor of 34.5%).
*If that was all sold for an average of 6c per kWh that would yield an annual income of 726,600. *Incidentally, investing or subsidizing distributed generation can often be many times cheaper than adding additional capacity to the grid.

Brigid, you’re throwing out figures there that I cannot see any backing for.

Do you agree with this, “the wind generation capacity factor for 2010 (in Ireland) was approx. 23.5%”

You are claiming that turbines that were not build on a selected windy spot but on the spot that a factory happened to have been built on exceeded the average of well located turbines by 33%? Pull the other one.

PS It’s closer to 50% more energy than average from that random spot.

http://www.seai.ie/Publications/Renewables_Publications_/Wind_Power/Munster_Joinery_case_study.pdf
The annual consumption of electricity for MJ was in the region of 26GWh – thats 26,000MWh or 26,000,000kWh.
The turbines provided 34% of the electricity demand (multiple 26GWh by 0.34 to get 8.84GWh)
73% of the electricity the turbines produced was consumed on site . IE 8.84 GWh is only 73% of the total electricity generated by the turbines. To get 100% of the electricity generated by the turbines we divide by 73 and multiple by 100 to give us 12.11GWh
Capacity factor is actual energy produced (12.11GWh) divided by the potential max output ( 4MW*24*365 = 35GWh) and then multiple by 100/1 to get a percentage.
Simples…

Brigid, the 34% is based on only 10 months. Interesting. Why?

73% of the electricity the turbines produced was consumed on site . Does the plant run 24 hours a day 7 days per week, 365 days per year? If not it couldn’t possibly use 73% of the energy the turbines produced as 2/3rds approximately would be outside a normal 9-5 day.

Brigid, from MJ’s web site

The turbines have provided us with up to 30% of our total energy requirements during May to Nov 2009

That “up to” is VERY interesting. It means the turbines AT BEST supplied 30% on any one, what minute, hour? Therefore what did they actually supply as a percent of power consumed?

Just catching up on this thread, debate still going strong a week on I see! I am lucky enough to be able to access the scada data from here so I think that can give some clarity on the comments from Brigid and William. It might be Friday before I can access them so bear with me. I haven’t seen the figures on their website but will look them up. I think on your last comment William you threw the old ‘ sure wind energy produced nothing on this particular day’ I must admit you got me there I never thought that there are times when the wind doesn’t blow, very clever. There are also days ( like yday) where 1.5 Gw was being made, cutting down on an enormous amount of fossil fuel. And despite being a popular tool that is used by the anti wind movement, the cost of the spinning reserve is minimum compared to what is saved on importing fuel. Wind has produced an average of 25% of the countries load in the last 4-5 months which I think is pretty impressive.

I started commenting originally on factories that have no export agreement with the ESB and still haven’t for an answer as to why companies would do this if they weren’t going to pay themselves back in energy savings.
On the export of wind, developers get in the region of 7-7.5c per kwhr. The utility sells it at 20c ( 20c is an estimate, don’t know the exact unit cost at the mo). If wind is so useless why are you worried about the curtailment subsidy which is only paid when the grid can’t take all of the wind produced.

At the moment the grid can take 40% of its capacity from wind so this subsidy is only paid when this value is exceeded. Surely not a concern when wind turbines produce ‘virtually no electricity’!

Kevin, you said “Wind has produced an average of 25% of the countries load in the last 4-5 months” however the wind generation capacity factor for 2010 was approx. 23.5%, giving an annual average wind energy penetration of approx. 11% of total KWh consumed. Are you cherry picking when you select those 4 months?

11% from an installed capacity of over 2.2GW. From 2.2GW of gas we would get 95%.

Businesses and people get fooled all the time by salesmen. I haven’t read anything from Munster Joinery about their project other than when it was planned. MJ’s project received a million euro grant AND the promoters get subsidised when they sell their electricity.

Furthermore wind does pay BUT only when heavily subsidised and grant aided AND because we have built and spent billions of the existing generation structure. Wind capital costs hasn’t added single KW to that capacity.

William, Quite a lot here:

1).”Brigid, the 34% is based on only 10 months. Interesting. Why?”
The report was publish on in October 2010 – October is the 10th month of the year, it is reasonable and logical to assume the figure was just quoting YTD output.

2).”73% of the electricity the turbines produced was consumed on site ……It couldn’t possibly use 73% of the energy the turbines produced as 2/3rds approximately would be outside a normal 9-5 day.”
I do not know the exact load demand profile for MJ but it would be a safe bet that they have a sizable baseload- so even if the turbines are generating electricity outside of peak load hours there is still a load. (Baseload of plants is a deciding factor in planning the size of the autoproduction power plant)

3).”The turbines have provided us with up to 30% of our total energy requirements during May to Nov 2009″.
Maybe in the months May-Nov 2009 30% was the highest achieving % of the wind meeting their total energy demands. That’s not the whole year and when averaged out over the year the number is 34%

4). This issue of the site being randomly chosen – You can review wind maps of Ireland they will clearly show that this region on the Kerry/Cork border has excellent wind resource. Before the work on the turbines began an extensive and lenghty study was conducted to evaluate the location (as is standard)- they didn’t just put them up and hope for the best.

5)”Are you cherry picking when you select those 4 months?” He is probably just picking the last 4-5 months as he said – if he said in Oct, Dec, Jan and March then maybe you could reasonably accuse someone of cherry picking.

6).There was a grant given to the project but so what – it was the first project of kind and scale in Ireland it would be seem to be a reasonable time to give a grant. Also I mentioned before that investment or subsidizing distributed generation is often a incredibly cheaper than providing extra capacity – which might well be required by a factory of this size in the future.

Brigid, (1+5) picking 4 months and 10 months sounds like cherry picking to me. Kevin quoted a 25% figure for a cherry picked period, I picked a whole year and got 11%.

(2) You didn’t address how 73% of electricity the turbines produced in a 168 hour week was used by the plant in 24% of the time the plant operates, i.e. 40 hours.

(3) So they say only 30% of their electricity was provided by a €6,000,000 investment. Doesn’t make sense. This means that they are hedging 30% of their costs against price rises. So if electricity goes up say 10% over the next three years they save 5%. Hardly worth the effort. They could have got that discount by switching suppliers or looking at energy savings.

(4) When the plant was built it was not built after doing wind tests, therefore it was random. One doesn’t normally place turbines in random locations. As I said before placing turbines on factory roofs is complete nonsense.

(5) Take out the value of the grant and what are the savings? 20% less. Take out the subsidies and what are they?

The taxpayer is paying for MJ’s savings, not the wind.

There’s lies, damn lies and statistics.

There are people who understand statistics and mathematics and there are people who do not!

Brigid, I program computers to generate statistics :)

You still need to explain how in 40 hours of a 168 hour week, the plant uses 73% of the turbines output. Do they store during the night and at weekends it in a magic box?

Quite frankly I would not believe a word about this project unless I had a detailed spreadsheet showing all relevant up to date data. Too many people have a financially vested interest in twisting the data. It needs to be peer reviewed.

I repeat. There’s lies, damn lies and statistics.

PS I would be trilled if wind worked out. It doesn’t. I actually looked years ago at installing a turbine and the figures didn’t stack up one bit.

“You still need to explain how in 40 hours of a 168 hour week, the plant uses 73% of the turbines output. Do they store during the night and at weekends it in a magic box?”
I thought I did explain it. A factory like this will have a load profile for its energy consumption – use google images – It will look like a tooth. So at 8am in the morning your will see a sharp rise as everyone gets to works and machines are turned on etc. The load will probably have small fluctuations throughout the day and then dip down at 5pm when workers go home and machines are put to sleep. But there will be a constant baseload required by the factory. So even at nighttime there is a energy requirement by the factory. There is no energy storage on site.

As you pointed out to me in an earlier comment some things are not mutually exclusive for example a random location of a factory and being a poor location for a wind energy resource. In this case the place they built their factory happened to be located at one of best points in Europe for wind energy.

Of course wind is not going to work out everywhere. But that doesn’t mean that it won’t work out anywhere!…

Brigid, sorry but that’s a poor attempt. The use of power after 6:00pm and before 8:00am and Saturday and Sunday would be such a tiny amount in comparison to the plant running at full tilt that it can be regarded as zero. So you still haven’t explained. In a private house at some times of the year power may not vary too much but somewhere that uses €3,000,000 worth of power hardly wastes it when the lads are gone home.

I emailed MJ and asked home they were getting on with their turbines. I got no reply. Why I wonder?

PS I was joking about the energy storage. Although many people think that there are energy storage places all around Ireland, just as they think the Sun is the same size as the Moon.

I have not been involved in the mj project enough to get into details about what their load is, both on and off peak. Will try and get figures on what the turbines have produced as I said. From the point of view of cork harbour, 1 factory has a load of 6MW and is a 24/7 facility. They did not even go down the road of trying to get a conn agreement as the site will always consume the energy produced. The other 2 are also 24/7 and have export agreements. their minimum load is 1.8 mw and max is approx 2.5mw. So any export is going to be minimal and they will get 7.5c per kwhr. The esb have yet to install metering for the export and the turbines are commissioned. Believe me when I say getting a good price for any export is only an added bonus for these sites. The main benefit is the cost savings. They are also luckily located in extremely good wind locations. There were no grants involved either. Obviously, as Brigid said it won’t work everywhere. The wind studies carried out for these sites confirmed the viability. I’m sure the site you carried out the study for was not suitable, that’s fair enough but you can’t say it won’t work anywhere. As for cherry picking figures, it was in response to your ‘ the wind didn’t blow today’ comment which was the very definition of cherry picking! I don’t have the figures for the last year but I’m sure you’ll accuse me of cherry picking and look for 2 years data. It’s now 2014 so there is much more penetration than 4 years ago.

IKevin, I wait with bated breath. As of noon today Friday the all 2.2MW of wind turbines in Ireland are producing 18MW. 0.08% of their maximum Capacity.

Maybe you can tell me how a plant can consume 73% of the wind produced in 168 hours in 40 hours of operation? PS The Interest and capital repayment over 20 years on say €5 million is about €1,700 per day.

Looking at the value of the electricity produced again. If the 4MW maximum capacity delivered the Irish average for turbines I get 4,000KW*8Hrs(the plant operates)*.23.5%(Irl Average)*15c(per KW)=€1,128 of electricity per day for 5 days per week. Where have I got this wrong? That’s only 10% of their electricity bill. It’s less than the capital and interest on the turbines.

You obviously ignored my last comment on cherry picking days and 24 hour more or less constant plant load in cork harbour. Do you not think its a good idea for a plant with constant load and a good wind location?

On mj, they get 7.5c per kwhr at the times they are exporting which is great for them as you say. Esb sell it at 20c to the consumer, more questions should be asked of them as regards high prices( bearing in mind no capital investment was required by esb for the mj project)

You seem to have gotten obsessed with mj ! The thread started out on cork harbour which I have more detail on as regards load/ export etc.

Unfortunately my computer is being upgraded so I have no scada access, hoped it would be done by today. Don’t worry I will post it next week, have a good bank hol!

Any one who understands large wind turbines should know about parasitic power. Its suspicious when Kevin never heard of it. Its nothing to do with reactive power. Small wind turbines can run without any imported power. They use permanent magnets and yaw using a tail fin. Large turbines with permanent magnets need to be driven by a motor to start and stay turning in low wind speeds. If the rotor is a wound type, a permanent supply of dc current is needed from the grid to energies it.
On board computers, the yaw mechanism, brakes, heating the lubrication oil, de-humidifying the necelle. About 10 % of the power produced by a turbine is used as parasitic power. In the case of our 1900 mw of wind last year, 40,065 mwh of grid power was supplied.

Wind is not an alternative to burning fossil fuel, if a large ratio of wind to fossil is installed wind results to burning more (not less) fossil fuel. Wind farms are actually appliances similar to washing machines.

Suspicious!!!???? Did you even read my reply? I have never heard of the term parasitic to refer to consumed power by a machine, apologies. To turn it around and say its suspicious and that it means I’m not aware turbines consume power is ridiculous!! The 3MW turbines I work with consume 30kw on average at standstill. This includes the yaw motors, pitch motors, control system hearing etc. yes, the turbine rotors are not permanent magnets. When the turbine is starting from standstill ( blades pitched in and the rpm is sufficient) current is imported from the grid to excite the rotor. When the turbine is then in production, the grid contactor for the excitation opens and a contactor linked to the generator closes meaning the turbine provides its own excitation. So the turbine imports excitation current for a maximum of 5 seconds ONLY when it is starting from standstill. Similarly, the turbine is able to self supply the control system via a different contactor at the base of the tower. To say 10% is consumed is ludicrous. Where is your evidence for this !???? If there is manufacturer out there where this applies they shouldn’t be on the market!The only thing i can think of is if blade hearing is installed it brings the load up to 130kw. Again, this is self supplied when the turbine is in operation. There are no turbines installed in Ireland with blade hearing as there is no need. Despite the parasitic supply from the generator

You will still see 3MW at the mv side of the transformer. So even after all losses and parasitic power, 3MW is sent to the grid
!
On certain days when no wind blows in Ireland yes, they will consume more than they produce. These things are up for 25 years, to say that the turbines will consume more than they produce over this period is idiotic. Please say you are not spouting this nonsense to people who don’t have the technical background????

* heating

Parasitic power is a very common term in the industry. Its also called “house power”. I have some figures from and access to information request for this country. with roughly 1900 mw of wind capacity the power used in 2012 was 40,065 mwh. 1900 x 8750 = 16,644,000 mwh at full capacity. At say 26% factor its 4,327,440mwh so 40,065/4,327,440 = .009 or .9 , which is small. It appears some operators get this power cheaply and use it to permanently excite the rotors, but self supply is feasible too. I have observed local wind farms turning briskly in near calm conditions. Then there is a thud, like taking it out of gear and the blades stop. In marginal wind speeds they keep the blades turning so as to be able to avail of any little wind there to get paid. Otherwise it would take time to bring the turbine up to speed.

%.http://falmouth.patch.com/groups/opinion/p/parasitic-wind-turbine-consumption

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/10264185/The-wind-farms-that-generate-enough-power-to-make-a-few-cups-of-tea.html

If turbines are a swindle, why should they be put up at all. I have encountered several men who told me about a successful turbine powering a house or a factory. I always ask to be allowed go and examine. So far no one took me up on that offer. I had one myself. The question is why are so many people, with nothing to gain so obsessed with renewable energy? Is it group think, is it the story of the Emperor has no clothes, or is it a type of religion where it is hoped god will see us though?

When I post under another poster, the post never comes up as expected. This is for Nash Bridges.

Just because you visited a wind farm and liked what you saw does not mean wind farm work. The fact is they do not work and are merely ornaments. There is no formula to quantify what fossil fuel or co2 emissions is saved by wind farms. The law on projects which have a significant impart of the environment are proceeding in contravention of the law and is non compliant with the law. The idea that we should have wind farms because they are popular is ludicrous. If you had to have an operation on your eye, and you had to select a Surgeon to do it, how would you select him / her. Would you hold a poll to see who is the most popular? and go with that. When the south american miners were trapped underground it was engineers who organised the rescue, well wishers were not consulted.

Don’t know if anyone is still following this thread but here we go: unfortunately I have not been able to get the data from mj as the scada connection there has been down. I put a question to someone in the factory last week to get the data so I am awaiting that. I have checked another factory, Brett Martin in Antrim. They have 1 x 2,3 mw machine and do not export to the grid. In the 2 yrs and 11 months since it was commissioned it has produced 11,500,000 kWhrs. The running hours of the turbine are 21,740 hrs. These figures are from 2 weeks ago. This leaves an average of approx 24% average of rated power. As regards their energy usage and savings made I don’t have the info. I also don’t know what their load profile is at different times. If their load decreases at night the turbine would decrease output to match via an RTU as they can’t export. This means a larger figure than 24% was possible if they were allowed export. Over the lifetime of the turbine it would produce approx 80,000,000 kwhr based on these figures. I don’t know how much a unit costs in NI but I imagine there is a significant saving for the company since the turbine cost 2million sterling according to their website. If for example the cost is 10p per kWhr they would save in the region of 8 million sterling over 20 years ( minus 2 million). Not to be sniffed at.

James lovelock described the massive developer led policy shift towards wind as “a scam”. The chief adviser to our government on energy policy is SEAI. The chairman of Seai is Brendan halligan. He owns 500,000 shares and is on the board of mainstream electric, a huge multinational utility conglomerate that has plans for 100′s of massive wind farms in Ireland. Meanwhile, our government has been found to be breaking international environmental law because it conveniently failed to correctly carry out an Strategic environmental assessment. Most alarmingly, our government has not done a cost benefit analysis to calculate exactly how beneficial their policy will be to our economy. If you are interested in finding our more about this issue..please visit http://www.windawareireland.com for credible evidence based information and links to peer reviewed reports..

Thanks Dave. Will do.

No science chewy..10 times the distance comes from a 2006 guideline when developers were guided to not put turbines within 500mts of a dwelling house.this was when the average height of a turbine was 50 Mts. Now they are up to an truly gigantic 182mts, so they need to be built further away from houses. The very powerful and well funded wind lobby has thus far been very successful in lobbying the department of environment ( planning) in keeping the set back distance at 500 mts. Please visit http://www.windawareireland.com for further info. They have scaled photos to illustrate the scale of these giants..

The cost per mega-watt of energy produced from coal/gas is still cheaper than wind, (despite rises in fossil fuel prices).

Anyone interested in forecasting ability of wind should check Eirgrids site today

http://www.eirgrid.com/operations/systemperformancedata/windgeneration/

Forecasting all over the shop – this will cause the gas plants major cycling resulting in increased fuel use and CO2 emissions.

Increases in the wholesale cost of gas have been the main driver of electricity bills increasing: http://oireachtasdebates.oireachtas.ie/Debates%20Authoring/DebatesWebPack.nsf/committeetakes/TRJ2013121100003?opendocument#H00100

Wind energy, while currently more expensive per MW than gas, helps to keep down the wholesale price of gas. It also acts as a hedge against higher gas prices in the future.

Wholesale cost might be cheaper but the end user cost of wind is much higher at least 121%

Coal prices have been in steep decline since the US started using their own shale gas supplies . Because of this Coal power stations are cheaper to run than more efficient gas powered units even when you factor in the carbon credits they have to buy.

JP,

i’m going to have to stop you there. your talking any nonsense. do you have anything to back up your ridiculous claim?

i do ;) it actually has a neutral cost on the price of electricity.

http://www.seai.ie/Publications/Energy_Modelling_Group/Energy_Modelling_Group_Publications/Impact_of_Wind_Generation_on_Wholesale_Electricity_Costs_in_2011.pdf

*****************************************************
Key Messages
• The wind generation expected in 2011 will reduce Ireland’s wholesale
market cost of electricity by around €74 million.
• This reduction in the wholesale market cost of electricity is
approximately equivalent to the sum of Public Service Obligation (PSO)
costs, estimated as €50 million, and the increased constraint costs
incurred, due to wind in 2011.
• The total cost of generation is the sum of the wholesale cost of
electricity, the PSO cost of wind and the dispatch constraint costs. The
total cost does not increase with the inclusion of the 2011 wind capacity.
****************************************************************************************

Ryan, its actually the opposite.

Wind causes price volatility in the gas markets, because it creates uncertainty for gas plant operators. They cant predict when their marginal power will get on the system. (depends on weather)

This creates uncertainty in contracts for the gas producers who do not like storing gas as it costs extra.

Wind is a volatile product, so naturally, it creates instability in gas markets. This also applies to the grid, hence the grid upgrades required along with the extra back up plant, usually gas, to stabilize the grid.

SEI are a vested interest lacking in credibility. Look up the Brendan Halligan affaire!!

In economic science, a rise in price of one produce such as oil, coal and gas only effects the value of an alternative. i.e. if the price of meat goes up, consumers will buy more fish and drive its price up too forcing down the price of meat until equilibrium is restored. Wind is not an alternative to fossil fuel generation. If anything its a complimentary good like syrup of an ice cream cone. It is there to make us feel less guilty. The price of wind is strictly subsidy based. If fuel prices double, wind operators would persuade government to increase their product but that is not a market based increase. If the price of fuel halves, wind is still kept at 7 cent, so there is no market reaction allowed.

Not a bad documentary that. But the subject isn’t really about any problems with turbines or wind power. It was a good example of what happens when a business venture fails to engage with the whole community.

Windfall wouldn’t be a reliable documentary to base your opinion on.

Don’t understand this idea that windmills spoil a view, I think they look magnificent

Well if they actually were of much use, then maybe people could put up with them

I hope this gives you an idea of the actual scale involved. Eirgrid, in their 10 year forecasting report revealed there is a queue of 23,000MW waiting for connection ( that’s why they are building grid 25). That’s about 10,000 turbines. Windmills are what you see in tourist spots in Holland. What’s being built in Ireland right now are industrial wind turbines. Please follow the link to see a picture of the scale of them…http://www.windawareireland.com/gallery/#gallery-1

I believe they are real eye opener. Rabbitte’s name will never be forgotten in Rural Ireland. Lord Leitrim was a gentleman compared to him

…there is no wave energy technology.

William, not the most convincing of arguments, if you don’t mind me saying. Want to have another try ?

Joe, that there is actually NO wave energy facility in the world isn’t a convincing argument, then what is?

William, Attached link thrown up by the shortest of searches.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wave_power_stations

Joe, pathetic! Can’t you read a bit further?

The Orkney Wave Power Station is a ***proposed*** wave power station
The Portuguese one went bust and was shut down
SDE Sea Waves Power Plant produced 40 kW for a period of a year and then closed
Islay LIMPET, “Scotland’s first wave power company is facing closure for the second time in eight years.”
Mutriku Breakwater Wave Plant – “The plant will generate an output of 300kW to power 250 households. An investment of €6.4m was made to the facility”. That’s €25,000 per HOUSE.

All the above are experimental and mostly have failed and with no realistic possibility of large scale success.

When I start to tackle people about wind being useless, they then say ah, but wave energy is the thing. Then I explain the wave is just a form of wind energy which is hard to harvest, and they shout about bio fuel. I would use the following analogy.
A man finds himself in a village and wants to buy a pair of socks. He goes into a draper. I want a pair of socks: The draper says I dont have any socks in stock but I can order them in from Dublin and they will be here in a week. He then goes into another shop where he is told: We don’t have any socks, but we sell can you a new hat and it will look so good you wont miss the socks.can sell. He goes into another shop and is told “we dont have any pairs of socks but we have one sock and we can let you have it for half price.

Its all a way of getting out of having to think long and hard and realise that wind energy cannot be converted to mains electrical power.

Subject them to the legally binding assessments required for plans or programmes having a significant impact on the environment. with public participation and see how they will handle my submission

The simple answer is to test them. They do that with the banks in stress tests.

Why do you not mind your money being wasted on off shore turbines which have never been assessed?

http://toryaardvark.com/2011/11/17/14000-abandoned-wind-turbines-in-the-usa/

Good for you Jack, Hopefully your dream will come true. Do you think these things of beauty would have an effect on the value of your property in the future? Or do you plan on staying in the same house for the rest of your life?

Jack wants to get bribed with his own money , like all the other wind mad people !

Derpy – I can assure you that you would not like one within a mile of your home.
It’s our factual experience that the depreciation in value suffered , is generally between 30/50%.
We conduct between a hundred and 150 opinions of value, per month and when trying to subsequently sell such properties , unfortunately , there is a huge resistance in the marketplace towards such located homes, from potential buyers!

Ipsum, you’re doing it again. Posting factual stuff. Hardly in the spirit of the game. :-)