Introducing Amazon Wind Farm Texas • Hacker News Board

Re: Introducing Amazon Wind Farm Texas

#111

Post by windchick » Tue, Sep 20, 2016, 4:08 AM UTC

imglorp wrote: post #23

Oilman T. Boone Pickens almost made a big investment in Texas wind in 2008. Could be he missed the boat. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/pickens-plan-for-huge-wind-farm-...

T Boone was too far ahead of the transmission infrastructure with his plan. The SPP lines were not capable of moving much wind (pre ITP build-out) and the ERCOT CREZ plans were just a twinkle in our eyes at the time. We came up with ERCOT CREZ prelim plans about 2006 but it took until 2013/14 to get em built and energized. So, he launched his boat too early, he did not miss the boat.

Re: Introducing Amazon Wind Farm Texas

#112

Post by windchick » Tue, Sep 20, 2016, 4:14 AM UTC

mark_l_watson wrote: post #16

It seems to me that the long term value of wind farms is locations with a lot of wind at night, to keep generating electricity when solar systems shuts down for the night. This helps solve the energy storage problem.

There will be a few hour lull after Texas solar goes dark and before night wind kicks in. In Texas, all of our wind is night peaking with the Gulf Coast having a significantly better curve for servicing ERCOT day load. So storage will play a very big role in ERCOT as we move more towards renewables.

Re: Introducing Amazon Wind Farm Texas

#113

Post by windchick » Tue, Sep 20, 2016, 4:43 AM UTC

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.

We are seeing capacity factors well over 45% in Panhandle now. ERCOT rated the various windy areas of the state back in 2006. Scurry Co. was 10th or 14th if I remember correctly. Not as high cap fac as Amarillo and other areas north of Lubbock. But CREZ Panhandle is already constrained due to the nature of putting lines in the middle of nowhere with no load and no inertia. Scurry Co is on the other side of the constraint, so good move on Amazon's part. Great location with respect to wind resource and transmission access and deliverability.

Re: Introducing Amazon Wind Farm Texas

#114

Post by windchick » Tue, Sep 20, 2016, 5:05 AM UTC

Retric wrote: post #19

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…

No, "1,000,000 megawatt hours of wind energy annuall ." / 365 / 24 = 114 MWh per hour on average. Or ~250 MW nameplate power depending on capacity factor. Ed: They list 253 MW.

They imply 45 cap factor with the 1,000,000 MWh which is expected for Scurry Co and the newer turbines. 1000000/(253*8760) ...rounded ignoring leap year.

Re: Introducing Amazon Wind Farm Texas

#115

Post by Reason077 » Tue, Sep 20, 2016, 4:06 PM UTC

tlb wrote: post #40

Reason077 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

The watt (and hence kW and MW) are measurements of power, not energy. kWh (and MWh) are common, internationally accepted units for measuring energy.

Wind (and solar) energy production tends to vary seasonally, so it makes sense to use a year rather than some other time unit when discussing how much energy these things can produce.