On Fri, 7 Mar 2008 11:27:20 -0000 someone who may be "Doki"
wrote this:-

If you have a look on Tim Hunkin's website there are figures from Eon in
Germany. They basically find wind power to be nigh on useless.

Not quite.

However, those with an open mind will note the differences between
Germany and the UK and thus avoid the elementary mistake of thinking
that Germany is precisely the same as the UK. This is summarised by
the following critique of their report of a few years ago, in "Wind
Power in the UK" the references to which I provided in another
thread.

"A critique of the E.oN Netz study

"A recent report from the German network operator E.on Netz, ‘Wind
Year 2003 – an overview’, appears to suggest that capacity values
are much lower, and additional balancing costs much higher, than the
figures quoted above. The report also highlights a low energy
productivity of German wind. It claims that the utility needs
reserve capacities amounting to 50-60% of the installed wind power
capacity, and that the extra balancing costs (for 6% wind) were
about €12/MWh of wind – over six times the estimates of Figure 6. On
closer inspection, there appear to be several reasons why the
numbers are quite different from the ‘consensus’ data discussed
above.

"Firstly, low wind speeds in Germany mean that the system operators
will experience more fluctuations in wind output than in windier
regions. To illustrate this point, assume that the average capacity
factor across Germany is 15% and the corresponding capacity factor
in Britain is close to its long-term average of about 30%. To
generate 8.5 TWh of wind in Germany requires 6250 MW of wind plant,
whereas only half that amount of plant would be required in Britain.
The power swings from 6250 MW of German wind would therefore be
higher than from 3125 MW of wind in Britain.

"Secondly, it appears that some of the apparent difficulties the
utility has with wind are more to do with administrative procedures
and barriers; the network operators tend to operate independently,
so some of the benefits of an integrated network are lost.

"Thirdly, plant commitments are made several hours ahead, and the
extent to which schedules are revised nearer to ‘real time’ is not
clear. The concept of a ‘one hour gate closure’, as in Great
Britain, or revising a schedule up to one hour before production,
appears not to be used.

"It may also be noted that the report does not discuss the
all-important question of the interaction between variations in
consumer demand and variations in wind output."

I will add that we already know how at least 8% wind works in
Scotland. I think we can conclude that Scotland is rather more
representative of the UK than Germany.




--
David Hansen, Edinburgh
I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54