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Windmills Overload East Europe’s Grid, Risking Blackout

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Re: Windmills Overload East Europe’s Grid, Risking Blackout

#11

Post by celticjames »

TamDenholm wrote: post #3

Theres gunna be big money to the company that can figure out how to store huge masses of energy for months, but no doubt thats decades away. However, is there a more simple solution to this problem, like approaching an industry that already uses masses of energy and seeing if they can encourage them to use the energy when there is overloading? I'm unsure what that industry would be. Surely using an overabundance of e…

There's a great sci-fi novel, The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, set in a post-oil world where tightly wound springs are used to store energy, as we do now with clocks. One of the subplots deals with a character trying to develop a material that can be wound tighter and more compactly without breaking. Or explosively unwinding. I'm not an engineer or physicist, so I've wondered, what is the theoretical limit for storing energy in a spring. Sci-fi stories usually do a bit of handwaving with nano/bio/quantum-tech to make magic materials, but what is the real science? Cars and laptops powered by springs sounds plausible (and awesomely steam punk) to me.

Re: Windmills Overload East Europe’s Grid, Risking Blackout

#12

Post by tvladeck »

ck2 wrote: post #6
TamDenholm wrote: post #3

Theres gunna be big money to the company that can figure out how to store huge masses of energy for months, but no doubt thats decades away. However, is there a more simple solution to this problem, like approaching an industry that already uses masses of energy and seeing if they can encourage them to use the energy when there is overloading? I'm unsure what that industry would be. Surely using an overabundance of e…

I think the working theory is heating molten salt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_energy_storage

There are a bunch of competing technologies: flywheels, water pumps, electric arcs, etc. It's a really interesting space.

Re: Windmills Overload East Europe’s Grid, Risking Blackout

#13

Post by tvladeck »

46Bit wrote: post #10
octatone2 wrote: post #8

They have to shut down coal fired power plants when the windmills produce excess power. Oh, the humanity!

I wouldn't call that a good thing. You generally can't turn off/on a coal plant in a hurry. What they're probably doing is just braking the turbines and still burning some fuel. (Edited, realised it sounded confrontational to begin with.)

This is correct. In addition there are a number of other ways that grid operators can displace power. This has happened a few times before in Western Europe, and prices have even gone below zero, incentivizing industrial facilities to do things like turn up their refrigerators to soak power

Re: Windmills Overload East Europe’s Grid, Risking Blackout

#14

Post by tvladeck »

octatone2 wrote: post #8

They have to shut down coal fired power plants when the windmills produce excess power. Oh, the humanity!

You generally leave the baseload (coal + nuclear) on, and shut down "peaking" capacity, which is, at least in the US, mainly natural gas. Coal is more expensive to build, more expensive to turn on, and cheaper to operate. Nat Gas is cheaper to build, cheaper to turn on, and more expensive to operate

Re: Windmills Overload East Europe’s Grid, Risking Blackout

#15

Post by JimmyL »

TamDenholm wrote: post #3

Theres gunna be big money to the company that can figure out how to store huge masses of energy for months, but no doubt thats decades away. However, is there a more simple solution to this problem, like approaching an industry that already uses masses of energy and seeing if they can encourage them to use the energy when there is overloading? I'm unsure what that industry would be. Surely using an overabundance of e…

There was a successful experiment doing something very similar to this - although I can't find the article - with cold storage facilities in the Netherlands.

Cold storage is apparently a pretty big industry there, and all those buildings are designed to be highly thermally-efficient anyways. There's also a huge segment of the cold storage market where the exact temperature of the storage doesn't matter, it just needs to stay within a specific band.

So what happened? The experiment (which was successful) effectively turned the freezers into batteries. The control systems were set to lower the temperature to two or three degrees lower than usual during the night (which made the cooling plants run longer then), and the plants were scaled back to maintenance power-levels during the day, when demand was higher. The grid was happy, since it moved the load to a low-usage time. The storage owners were happy, since they got a deal on the evening electricity. And the things being stored didn't care, since they were all so far frozen anyways. I wonder if you could do a similar program to get them to cool down further when there's excess power on the grid?

Or to solve this at an earlier point, why not just turn off the windmills when the power's not needed. All the windmills in my community have setting that when the wind is too high, the blades on the windmills pivot to the zero lift axis, and they don't spin.

Re: Windmills Overload East Europe’s Grid, Risking Blackout

#16

Post by tvladeck »

TamDenholm wrote: post #3

Theres gunna be big money to the company that can figure out how to store huge masses of energy for months, but no doubt thats decades away. However, is there a more simple solution to this problem, like approaching an industry that already uses masses of energy and seeing if they can encourage them to use the energy when there is overloading? I'm unsure what that industry would be. Surely using an overabundance of e…

This is also one of the main environmental premises behind electric vehicles. They charge themselves overnight, soaking up excess baseload power that is producing emissions but is not really going to productive uses. That is, the power they consume is not "additional", or just marginally so. Then during the day many of them will also be plugged in and they could serve as a distributed "soak or supply" asset for the grid.

Re: Windmills Overload East Europe’s Grid, Risking Blackout

#17

Post by raverbashing »

silvestrov wrote: post #4

It's like the writer doesn't know that windmills can be stopped. In fact, they have builtin brakes which autoengage and stops the mill when the wind becomes too powerful.

No, this sounds like the "oil fans" "analysis"

Most of them will come with bs excuses for why only oil is the solution and everything else doesn't work.

There is no such thing as "too much energy produced" for a start. As you said, they can brake the blades, or just disconnect the generators, easy.

Storage and variation of power are real problems, but they can be dealt with.

Re: Windmills Overload East Europe’s Grid, Risking Blackout

#18

Post by jakeonthemove »

That's your problem? Too much energy? Why not create some buffers of sorts - wind energy CAN be stored, you can use it to charge battery banks, extract hydrogen, or even compress air or gas for later use. Obviously, it's not that easy, but it's doable.

By the way, all the wind turbines I've seen can rotate their blades 90deg, so they come to an almost full stop if/when necessary.

Re: Windmills Overload East Europe’s Grid, Risking Blackout

#19

Post by uvdiv »

JimmyL wrote: post #15
TamDenholm wrote: post #3

Theres gunna be big money to the company that can figure out how to store huge masses of energy for months, but no doubt thats decades away. However, is there a more simple solution to this problem, like approaching an industry that already uses masses of energy and seeing if they can encourage them to use the energy when there is overloading? I'm unsure what that industry would be. Surely using an overabundance of e…

There was a successful experiment doing something very similar to this - although I can't find the article - with cold storage facilities in the Netherlands. Cold storage is apparently a pretty big industry there, and all those buildings are designed to be highly thermally-efficient anyways. There's also a huge segment of the cold storage market where the exact temperature of the storage doesn't matter, it just needs…

Or to solve this at an earlier point, why not just turn off the windmills when the power's not needed.

Because the subsidies in Germany are tied to the amount of electricity sold. That's why they're selling even at negative market price -- to collect the feed-in tariff.

Re: Windmills Overload East Europe’s Grid, Risking Blackout

#20

Post by [deleted] »

JimmyL wrote: post #15
TamDenholm wrote: post #3

Theres gunna be big money to the company that can figure out how to store huge masses of energy for months, but no doubt thats decades away. However, is there a more simple solution to this problem, like approaching an industry that already uses masses of energy and seeing if they can encourage them to use the energy when there is overloading? I'm unsure what that industry would be. Surely using an overabundance of e…

There was a successful experiment doing something very similar to this - although I can't find the article - with cold storage facilities in the Netherlands. Cold storage is apparently a pretty big industry there, and all those buildings are designed to be highly thermally-efficient anyways. There's also a huge segment of the cold storage market where the exact temperature of the storage doesn't matter, it just needs…

[deleted]
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