Windturbines: the whole truth.
I2 The consequences of power variations in major national grids.
In the First Part of my story on windturbines it has become clear how great the danger is for a reliable electricity supply, caused by the uncontrollable variations of the total installed wind power. You have seen that we may not overlook the fact that the maximum power variations are of the same magnitude as of the aggregate installed windpower of all windturbines together. There is no guarantee whatsoever that those huge variations can be compensated for by upward and downward adjustments of the power of conventional plants in such a way that, from second to second, the balance between the total input power and output power of the grid is maintained, as you have already been able to read in Chapter VI of the First Part. An unbalance will undoubtedly cause at least part of our high-voltage grid to be disconnected. Chances are, though, that such a blackout, like the domino effect, will spread over the whole country, and within few seconds will spread to neighbouring countries connected to our high voltage grid. You can hardly imagine what the consequences of such a catastrophe will be. It is definitely no exaggeration to assume that it will affect millions of people and thousands of companies.
As was proved when, due to a failure in the high voltage connection between Switzerland and Italy which, incidentally, was not caused by "wind energy", a blackout spread over parts of Switzerland, Italy and France, and many millions of people were left without electricity. Such a highly probable risk caused by wind energy is also carefully ignored by propagandists.
How huge those variations of the aggregate wind power can be becomes evident from the information contained in the "Wind Report 2005" by the big German energy company E.ON on what happened in December 2004 when that total wind power of their supply area suddenly dropped sharply (no less than 4,000 MW) in one day, for two days in a row. So in two days, there was a sudden drop of the total E.ON wind power of 8,000 MW.
Such an enormous and unexpected variation in the aggregate power of windmills is not at all a rarity, as may be proved by the fact that no more than only three years later, in the winter of 2007-2008, a dangerous event took place. The next graph shows how in three or four days' time the total wind power of Germany dropped by approximately 12,000 MW, which is about as much as the total productive power of the Netherlands!
This graph shows better than a thousand words how irresponsible it is to keep telling what a fabulous substitute wind energy can be for conventionally produced energy. This is definitely nothing but a conscious and therefore shameless misleading by those people and agencies who ought to know what they are talking about.
Total German wind power in the period from 29.12.07 to 01.01.08
Data: Data: Published 6 January 2008
The following conclusions are drawn:
In the first place: on the day appearing in the graph, there was a sharp drop of the German wind power of no less than 12,000 MW! Apparently, and surprisingly at that, this still did not lead to a gigantic blackout in Germany and the surrounding countries.
That means that at least 12,000 MW must have been kept available as reserve power for immediate operation in order to compensate for this sudden decrease of the wind power. So Germany must have kept operative a reserve productive power of at least 12,000 MW that did not contribute to the regular electricity production. This proves the statement by the German technicians that at least 90 per cent of the total wind power must always be available, or must even be added, in the form of conventional power for fast adjustment. Never has been forgotten the many millions that have to be spent on the indispensable new 380 kV highvoltage power lines, transformers and switching stations. (See chapter VI of the First Part of my story).
This alone proves once again how misleading it is to talk abour a price per kWh wind energy without taking into account how much that whole series of extra facilities cost. The price of a "wind-kWh" and a "conventional kWh" can never be compared either in monetary value or in reliability of the supply. Wind energy can never be of any other than unreliable quality.
You will imagine the frustration of the German technicians responsible for a reliable and efficient electricity supply, forced by an imprudent political decision to invest heavily in wind energy, without taking into account the unavoidable most complicated and costly technical provisions act to keep the electricity supply regular reliable. Over an affordable technical solution, prepared for all unexpected situations, the E.ON. Windreport 2005 says: "Dafür sehen wir keine Lösung" ("We see no solution for this problem") . Very realistic, as there indeed is no solution for that. Nowhere, also not in the Netherlands.
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