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At peak, Spain gets 53% of its energy from wind

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Re: At peak, Spain gets 53% of its energy from wind

#11

Post by pieter »

ghshephard wrote: post #9
pieter wrote: post #8

I think this blogpost debunks this pretty good: http://uvdiv.blogspot.com/2009/11/spanish-wind-power-exposed... Spain only gets about 9% of energy from renewables on average, which is much less than a lot of other countries. The 53% number is very deceptive IMHO, and really shows that you can't count on wind for reliable energy.

Not debunking at all, the first words in the article were: "Ok, not all the time, but last weekend at 5:50am on Sunday morning (8th Nov) Spain set a new record, hitting 53.7%" Which instantly made it clear that this was an exception. I don't think anybody is suggesting that you can provide all of your power requirements from Wind, but - clearly, Wind can be an important part of your renewable portfolio in some cases.…

The title of this post was edited after I posted, it was something like "Spain gets 53% of its energy from wind" first.

Re: At peak, Spain gets 53% of its energy from wind

#13

Post by iujhgfvvgbhnj »

dbz wrote: post #10
chrisb wrote: post #3

Impressive. But the headline is slightly deceptive, as 53% is the maximum ever recorded. What's more impressive is the that over the 24 hours presented the contribution from wind never drops beneath 30%. Contrast this with the current UK renewables target of 15% by 2020 ( http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/what_we_do/uk_supply/e... )

I don't see how it is deceptive. It's stated quite plainly that it is a record, and not a normal occurrence. (None of this is spoken in a harsh, rude, or sarcastic tone.) How would you say it differently? (Real question.)

The title suggests peak energy demand, in fact it achieved it at minimum energy demand (early hours of Sunday morning)

It's like an airport saying that all it's flights were on time at peak - then saying that they didn't mean thanksgiving, they meant that on sunay morning they peaked by getting both flights out on time.

Re: At peak, Spain gets 53% of its energy from wind

#14

Post by kilps »

For everyone who keeps saying that this is only at peak, that doesn't mean that it isn't important. If you can generate that much wind, then store the energy with pumped storage - you are still getting far more overall renewable energy than you would have otherwise.

Re: At peak, Spain gets 53% of its energy from wind

#15

Post by narag »

electromagnetic wrote: post #4
chrisb wrote: post #3

Impressive. But the headline is slightly deceptive, as 53% is the maximum ever recorded. What's more impressive is the that over the 24 hours presented the contribution from wind never drops beneath 30%. Contrast this with the current UK renewables target of 15% by 2020 ( http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/what_we_do/uk_supply/e... )

Spain receives colossal amounts of wind energy from the Sahara. IIRC winds have been known to continue without a break for weeks, if not months. When you have 9 million square kilometres to your south and an oceanic climate to your north, you tend to get a lot of wind. The reason the UK gets so little wind in comparison is that the prevailing wind comes directly from Spain, just a lot later. Although anyone who's spe…

Where did you get your data from?

Most of the time, here in Spain, the wind come from the Atlantic Ocean, from an area a hundred miles to the west of UK. And it's nothing special, compared with France, AFAICT.

The wind from the east blows a half as often and it's only strong near Tarifa.

Re: At peak, Spain gets 53% of its energy from wind

#16

Post by narag »

I can't see it from the article: are they talking about total generated energy or consumed?

In Spain our government has banned new nuclear plants, so we have to buy electricity from France, that produces it using nuclear plants anyway.

The high percentages of wind power is no wonder. There are a lot of generators installed.

Re: At peak, Spain gets 53% of its energy from wind

#17

Post by chrisb »

dbz wrote: post #10
chrisb wrote: post #3

Impressive. But the headline is slightly deceptive, as 53% is the maximum ever recorded. What's more impressive is the that over the 24 hours presented the contribution from wind never drops beneath 30%. Contrast this with the current UK renewables target of 15% by 2020 ( http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/what_we_do/uk_supply/e... )

I don't see how it is deceptive. It's stated quite plainly that it is a record, and not a normal occurrence. (None of this is spoken in a harsh, rude, or sarcastic tone.) How would you say it differently? (Real question.)

The headline has been edited since I made the comment. It originally didn't start "At peak". It is now more representative of the article.

Re: At peak, Spain gets 53% of its energy from wind

#18

Post by pbhjpbhj »

ghshephard wrote: post #9
pieter wrote: post #8

I think this blogpost debunks this pretty good: http://uvdiv.blogspot.com/2009/11/spanish-wind-power-exposed... Spain only gets about 9% of energy from renewables on average, which is much less than a lot of other countries. The 53% number is very deceptive IMHO, and really shows that you can't count on wind for reliable energy.

Not debunking at all, the first words in the article were: "Ok, not all the time, but last weekend at 5:50am on Sunday morning (8th Nov) Spain set a new record, hitting 53.7%" Which instantly made it clear that this was an exception. I don't think anybody is suggesting that you can provide all of your power requirements from Wind, but - clearly, Wind can be an important part of your renewable portfolio in some cases.…

Some people do, not by living in perpetually windy environments but by reducing consumption and using stored energy supply (eg batteries but pumping water to provide hydroelectric which can be used at any time is also a possibility).

Re: At peak, Spain gets 53% of its energy from wind

#19

Post by adrinavarro »

narag wrote: post #16

I can't see it from the article: are they talking about total generated energy or consumed ? In Spain our government has banned new nuclear plants, so we have to buy electricity from France, that produces it using nuclear plants anyway. The high percentages of wind power is no wonder. There are a lot of generators installed.

> so we have to buy electricity from France

No, you're really wrong. Just have a look at our realtime demand & generation graphs: http://www.ree.es/operacion/curvas_demanda.asp (right side)

As I write this, it's 2h05 (15-nov).

We actually have some spare energy, and we only import energy when we expect spikes (mostly by night). Right now, we're using exactly 1% of imported energy (..who said from france?). Also, at 22h45 (14nov) we were exporting about 4% of our energy. And we exported between ~4% and ~3% of our energy on the 22h to midnight term.

Yesterday (14-nov) we used between 0.5% and 1% of imported energy between 21h and 22h. And between midnight and ~3h in the morning, we're expecting to import between 2% (that actually was at midnight) and 0.5% (for the next 4 hours).

By the way, there's a clear policy about new nuclear plants: avoided if we can (because we still have some spare energy). We rely on combined cycle (17% as I'm writing this), wind (18%) and nuclear (26%). So, nuclear is still here. But don't need more. And, what we import is pretty ridiculous (we export much more than we import).

... Hey, we have nice-looking, nifty graphics, with real-time data! Please, use them! :)

Re: At peak, Spain gets 53% of its energy from wind

#20

Post by adrinavarro »

pieter wrote: post #8

I think this blogpost debunks this pretty good: http://uvdiv.blogspot.com/2009/11/spanish-wind-power-exposed... Spain only gets about 9% of energy from renewables on average, which is much less than a lot of other countries. The 53% number is very deceptive IMHO, and really shows that you can't count on wind for reliable energy.

9% is the lowest value, not the average!
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