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Introducing Amazon Wind Farm Texas

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Re: Introducing Amazon Wind Farm Texas

#31

Post by throwaway7645 »

mtmail wrote: post #8
johnm1019 wrote: post #3

Are these wind farms located near data centers and such use the power directly? Or do they dump into the grid and sell it as power then claim all their power usage is renewable because it is "offset"?

The press release itself reads "Amazon will purchase about 90% of the power generated by the wind farm." so I assume the primary purpose is their data centers.

They might be buying the output, but it is unlikely that the actual MW output will be what is feeding their data center. A lot of people have trouble understanding that.

Re: Introducing Amazon Wind Farm Texas

#32

Post by throwaway7645 »

regularfry wrote: post #27
brianwawok wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It perhaps Texas better than average? 30% seems too round to really be across all areas of the country.

Yeah, that's not altogether unlikely. Kinda hoping someone more locally-versed will chime in.

Not sure of the exact figures, but whether or not the wind farm is in a constrained area or not generally determines if they can generate full out or if they will be capped at a lower level to keep from overloading the transmission grid.

Re: Introducing Amazon Wind Farm Texas

#33

Post by Reason077 »

dmclain wrote: post #17
achow wrote: post #15

Seems that in a single swipe Amazon would more than double the total USA’s wind generation capacity when this goes into production in 2017. A really fantastic achievement (or am I missing something in the data?). Total US wind energy in 2015: 73,992 megawatts [1] Amazon’s Scurry County Texas capacity: 1 million megawatts [1] http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/7-Charts-That-Sh... Edit.. From the replies it se…

They listed MWh/y which is a pretty strange unit. The farm is 253 MW, so not a significant percentage of total US generation. Source: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-ne...

Nothing strange at all about MWh/year. A MWh is just 1000 kWh, which is a very standard unit of energy.

With wind farms it makes more sense to talk about it's production in MWh rather than it's capacity in MW. The actual energy produced by a 253 MW array will vary significantly based on where it is sited, etc.

Re: Introducing Amazon Wind Farm Texas

#34

Post by greeneggs »

brianwawok wrote: post #13
regularfry wrote: post #6

From the press release: Amazon today announced “Amazon Wind Farm Texas,” a new 253-megawatt (MW) wind farm in Scurry County, Texas, that will generate 1,000,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of wind energy annually Seems optimistic. Rule of thumb is that onshore wind generates 30% of its plate rating. That's 660GHw, not 1000, for a 253MW plant. Still a nice, impressive number, just seems over-cooked.

It perhaps Texas better than average? 30% seems too round to really be across all areas of the country.

For 2015 the average across the country was 32.5% for wind. [1] Texas appears to be several percentage points above the average, and newer plants often are better than old plants (if they have similar sites).

Here is state data from 2011-2012 [2], with a handy map [3]. It looks like Scurry County might be in a good part of Texas. In principle, the data for 2015 is available here [4], although one would have to process it.

[1] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cf...

[2] http://www.windaction.org/posts/37255-u-s-average-annual-cap...

[3] http://s3.amazonaws.com/windaction/attachments/1962/US-WINDm...

[4] http://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/eia923/

Re: Introducing Amazon Wind Farm Texas

#37

Post by spsgtn »

regularfry wrote: post #6

From the press release: Amazon today announced “Amazon Wind Farm Texas,” a new 253-megawatt (MW) wind farm in Scurry County, Texas, that will generate 1,000,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of wind energy annually Seems optimistic. Rule of thumb is that onshore wind generates 30% of its plate rating. That's 660GHw, not 1000, for a 253MW plant. Still a nice, impressive number, just seems over-cooked.

Some areas of TX have a capacity factor of 50% !

Re: Introducing Amazon Wind Farm Texas

#39

Post by karma_vaccum123 »

orliesaurus wrote: post #38

I wonder why they went for Wind farms over anything on the sea or solar powered

They mention their existing solar capacity in the article. Presumably this will also grow over time.

Doing anything at sea would surely be 10x as complicated and expensive...Texas has wind and open space and roads.

Re: Introducing Amazon Wind Farm Texas

#40

Post by tlb »

Reason077 wrote: post #33
dmclain wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They listed MWh/y which is a pretty strange unit. The farm is 253 MW, so not a significant percentage of total US generation. Source: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-ne...

Nothing strange at all about MWh/year. A MWh is just 1000 kWh, which is a very standard unit of energy. With wind farms it makes more sense to talk about it's production in MWh rather than it's capacity in MW. The actual energy produced by a 253 MW array will vary significantly based on where it is sited, etc.

hours/year (= 1/8765.76) is a strange factor by which to multiply a perfectly good SI unit (MW).
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