US Wind Capacity Surpasses Hydro, Overall Generation To Follow (arstechnica.com) 172
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Wind power is now the largest source of renewable energy generating capacity, passing hydroelectric power in 2016. And since the two sources produce electricity at nearly the same rate, we'll soon see wind surpass hydro in terms of electricity produced. Wind power capacity has been growing at an astonishing pace (as shown in the graph above), and 2016 was no exception. As companies rushed to take advantage of tax incentives for renewable power, the U.S. saw 8.7 Gigawatts of new wind capacity installed in 2016. That's the most since 2012, the last time tax incentives were scheduled to expire. This has pushed the U.S.' total wind capacity to over 81 GW, edging it past hydroelectric, which has remained relatively stable at roughly 80 GW. Note that this is only capacity; since generators can't be run non-stop, they only generate a fraction of the electricity that their capacity suggests is possible. That fraction, called a capacity factor, has been in the area of 34 percent for U.S. wind, lower than most traditional sources of electricity. But hydropower's capacity factor isn't that much better, typically sitting at 37-38 percent. As a result, wind won't need to grow much to consistently exceed hydro. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electricity Data Browser
Tax Incentives (Score:2, Insightful)
What will happen though when tax incentives fall away?
Re:Tax Incentives (Score:5, Funny)
Then we'll be left with a lot of wind plants, I wonder how they'll be able to afford to provide fuel for them...
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
So job creation, then?
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, yer right. If we could just eliminate greed, then we could eliminate technology's forward progress. What were we thinking?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Wind generators have a finite lifespan usually in the 20 year range upon which time they need to either be replaced or refurbished in addition to ongoing maintenance, things with moving parts breakdown!
What you said is very true but that also applies to all power generating and distribution infrastructure. When considering power generation and distribution you have to consider the overall cost/benefits. In some places wind, hydro, coal, gas, nuclear, solar arrays etc are more viable long term or even short term solutions.
All energy generating plants require distribution infrastructure be it above ground or underground and there are pros and cons with each, likewise with the energy generation plant thems
Re: (Score:3)
Wind is already cheaper than fossil fuels when all subsidies are removed and externalized costs considered. In 20 years time the cost of the turbines will have fallen even further.
Re: (Score:2)
Then we'll be left with a lot of wind plants, I wonder how they'll be able to afford to provide fuel for them...
We'll build a lot of nukes, then run windmills as fans and cool the earth. :)
Re: (Score:2)
Windmills do not work that way! [youtube.com]
Obligatory XKCD. (Score:3)
https://xkcd.com/1378/ [xkcd.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Why do the tax incentives have to fall away? That has never happened for the oil industry and it is the main reason why the price of energy is so low. If you remove the wind subsidies, remove the fossil fuel subsidies as well and you will find that the price of generation goes up for all sources and wind will remain competitive.
Of course this is not likely to happen since Republicans will cut wind while continuing to give huge tax breaks to their buddies at ExxonMobil, etc.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
It's below $100/MWh for O&M costs now. But that curve has flattened. So given that US electric energy prices have generally been less than that except during peak periods, I suspect wind energy will plateau. Especially if tax incentives are reduced.
Also in each ISO there still has to be spinning generation to maintain voltage and VAR support. So that adds to the cost of wind generation - it's not fossil fuel free.
Solar is in the same boat. As long as natural gas prices stay low, combined cycle plan
Re:Tax Incentives (Score:4, Informative)
This is why hydraulic fracturing has been attacked in order to drive the prices back up.
No. Fracking has been attacked because it runs the risk of poisoning the groundwater.
Re: (Score:3)
The fracking issue comes down to conflicting narratives, both of which are true:
Pro fracking: "Fracking is proven safe!" This is true!
Anti fracking: "Fracking is fucking up our water!" This is also true!
The problem is that yes, while fracking can absolutely be done safely, our fracking industry is not doing it safely. The answer is not to ban fracking but to make the fracking companies comply with safety standards and slap them with huge lawsuits should they fuck up.
Re: (Score:3)
And how do you propose to do that when the party in-power is threatening to do away with departments like the EPA whose job is to regulate this stuff?
Re: (Score:3)
Beats me, but they weren't doing it before, either. Odd. It's almost as if the two party system is a sham, where they rile up the public to fight over tranny bathrooms while the industries that fund both parties capture the regulatory agencies...
As a thought, I'd bring attention to the actual, solvable problems. My impression of Trump is not that he wants to eliminate all regulation, just unnecessary and over-burdensome regulation. I'd recommend the environmental lobby switch from screaming about doomsday s
Re:Tax Incentives (Score:4, Funny)
Also in each ISO there still has to be spinning generation to maintain voltage and VAR support.
No, it's just a file when it's an ISO. It doesn't start spinning until you burn it to the CD.
Re:Tax Incentives (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
What is so hard to understand about this? Wind farms are located in remote areas, have tall structures with high-performing mechanical components in them, and are necessarily exposed to weather. The structures are subject to significant stress and have a limited lifetime.
I think the source of your doubt is limited information or imagination.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure. And they're bolted to footings that are either piles driven into the earth or are poured reinforced concrete.
It's reasonable to consider standardizing on a mounting system for the pylons so that most pylons could mount to most bases. It's also reasonable to maintain pylon and blade maintenance equipment with a ratio of so many generators to a set of maintenance equipment, so that large plants will have the necessary equipment on-hand and smaller plants in close geography may share a set. If the fou
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Getting people to "remote areas" to service the things can be achieved by means of a wonderful invention called a road.
Or if we want to get really crazy, we could hire local people to maintain them. Imagine. Rural jobs for the mechanically inclined...
Re: (Score:2)
And operations & maintenance are only part of the picture as I said originally.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Then the coal and oil industries will be in a whole lot of trouble? Or were you talking about the incentives given to renewables?
Re: (Score:3)
What will happen though when tax incentives fall away?
Wind can be economically viable in the right location. Hopefully without the incentives people will stop putting them up where they will never pay.
Re:Tax Incentives (Score:4, Insightful)
What will happen though when tax incentives fall away?
Check with the Oil and Natgas industry and ethanol industry. Cancel that, they're still getting subsidies.
Re: (Score:2)
The majority of 'subsidies' given to the oil and natural gas industry are not actually subsidies in any real sense. Most of the 'studies' that like to report such enormous world wide subsides inflate their figures by defining a subsidy in such a way that even if when gas companies themselves don't get any money out of it it's added to their totals.
For instance the top 3 'subsidies' in the US, making up half +/- a few percentage points every year are, the strategic oil reserve, farm fuel tax credit and the
Re: (Score:3)
The majority of 'subsidies' given to the oil and natural gas industry are not actually subsidies in any real sense.
I don't look at it the same way some people do. Let me illustrate.
In Pennsylvania, the Republican Governer made certain that there was no state extraction fee for the Gas companies who were fracking here. Pennsylvania was teh only state in the union that didn't have one.
According to his expressed logic, if Pennsylvania had any extraction fee whatsoever, the companies wouldn't drill here. The logic is compelling, since all other states had fees, it didn't stop the companies from drilling there. That pr
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What will happen though when tax incentives fall away?
Then coal will come back to polute you and to shorten miner's lives due to cancer.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, anything you build eventually has to be taken down, or falls down But decommissioning a wind turbine is a pretty straightforward process -- all you need is a pair of cranes and it takes just a few hours.
How long till the eco human haters attack this? (Score:1, Troll)
You know it going to happen.... we're harvesting the natural flow of energy around the globe and hence harming nature... changing weather patterns... blah blah blah
Re: (Score:2)
Won't someone please think of the birds! [thehill.com]
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, I've given this some thought. We should treat the potential bird mortality like we do carbon release and sequestration. There's a ready solution that actually solves another large problem, unwanted kittens. Cats kill birds. Domestic cats, if allowed to roam the neighborhood kill hundreds of birds throughout their lifetime. If we were to provide bird life credits for euthanizing kittens (has to be kittens, before they start their life of serial killing), we solve two problems at once. We'd have to come
Re: (Score:3)
The above note is not a serious proposal.
But it has much in common with a modest proposal [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Things are going to change - special interest groups that make these dinosaurs will get mowed down eventually.
Wait... I thought that the moving down of flying dinosaurs WAS the problem with windmills?
Re: (Score:2)
MoWing down of flying dinosaurs...
Re: (Score:2)
Eco nuts already hate wind turbines because they kill birds that fly into them.
Just like buildings, trees and mountains.
Birds are stupid.
Re: (Score:3)
"Birds eat up a lot of food"
-- Monolithic Oil - "We want you to pay"
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, nukes are about 60% capacity
You have nuclear's capacity factor way wrong. According to this report [eia.gov], these are the average capacity factors in the US:
Nuclear–90.3%
Coal–63.8%
Natural Gas Plant–42.5%
Hydroelectric–39.8%
Renewables (Wind/Solar/Biomass)–33.9%
Oil–7.8%
If you have different data that shows otherwise, please provide it.
But, unlike nukes, renewables peak when demand is highest
Nope, hydro is the only major renewable that peaks when demand is highest, and that's just because it's dispatchable. Solar peaks earlier in the day than the peak demand and win
Re: (Score:2)
You can not put Wind, Solar and Biomass into one kettle regarding CFs.
Solar e.g. is usually just above 10%, Wind is around 35%, and biomass is dispatch able, that means you can have what ever CF you want.
Solar peaks earlier in the day than the peak demand and wind has random peaks. Solar peaks for every plant individually depending into wich direction the panels are pointing. Big plants usually follow the sun, especially molten slat thermal ones. In general solar energy peaks around noon, obviously.
When you
Poor Timing (Score:2)
I would think this is a Taco Tuesday story...
BFD (Score:2)
BFD wind just surpassed the measly 6% generated by hydro... Call me when it surpasses natural gas. We are stuck with fossil fuels or nuclear until we can commercialize the technology to store large amounts of electricity (real efficient storage, not compressed air).
Re:BFD (Score:4, Informative)
I did some work at one of those places you appear to think don't exist in 1996, and that pump storage plant was not new at the time. We certainly have the technology but you are looking at things the wrong way around. Since all storage methods are lossy the answer that has already happened is having a lot of little distributed generators (since gas is currently cheap that's where that huge percentage of gas has come from) that can be switched in as required by demand. The problem you are going on about has really already been solved at both ends.
What I see in a lot of posts here is one dimensional thinking of single windmills (what do you do if there is no wind people cry - the blatantly obvious answer, already done, is build in more than one place!) or similar that ignore the existence of grids and interconnections between grids so assume that their single generator from their 1D thinking should have it's stuff stored when there is no demand for it. That's a very limited way of looking at things and it's almost always going to lead to very unrealistic conclusions. For a start, the low hydro number ignores the vast amount of power coming into the grid from Canada.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
LOL, I will not go into my qualifications to discuss the issue, but they are significant, I will allow my arguments to stand on their own.
The problem with wind is that even if you build a shit ton of wind turbines all over the place, you can still have slack times where there is not enough wind on enough turbines to meet demand. You reference using gas turbines as backup, and while it is true that that is what takes up the slack now, it highlights the fact that wind/solar are not viable without fossil fuel
Re: (Score:2)
I mentioned gas as well (not as a backup but as it's actually used, as a peaking power source) to avoid smug little rants like yours. What's with all the charging at windmills?
You have a fucking enormous grid spread over a lot of timezones with HVDC links all over the place reducing the losses to the point where storage looks incredibly stupid unless there is some other way around it. Storage is very lossy, even liquid metal batte
Re: (Score:2)
In power generation, you must always be able to generate the entire load of the grid, or you have brown outs or forced blackouts to balance the load with the supply. This means that things like wind must be backstopped with 100% capacity gas/coal/storage, not peak load gas as you assert. It may only happen a few times a year, but if you EVER have a moment when wind generation drops to zero (and you will), your gas turbines have to generate 100% of that load (not peak load) or bad things happen. The only
Capacity factor misused again! (Score:3)
Base load is the minimum demand and it's handy having stuff running 24/7/365 to produce it. Thermal power (coal/nukes/gas when gas is cheap) and hydro are good for that.
Peak loads are when demand is higher and you switch in other generators as needed.
If you only need something for a few hours a day it has a low capacity factor no matter whether it's capable of running 24/7/365 or not.
It's that simple.
Think of that when somebody uses "capacity factor" to push an agenda and pretends it's an indication of downtime due to mechanical failure or a lack of wind/sun/gas/water. It appears to be the term of choice for political opposition to various sources of electricity generation and the misuse probably came from some pimply Washington intern who thought he was being deviously clever instead of a manipulative prick.
Re: (Score:3)
Capacity factor absolutely matters when it comes to solar and wind because they are not dispatchable. The power they generate is at the mercy of the conditions, they generate when THEY want to generate, not when you want them to. The other types of generation you mentioned (hydro, coal, gas, nukes) are dispatchable so capacity factor is related to business needs and technical needs, not the weather conditions. A certain amount of solar and wind can be incorporated into the grid with good forecasting and
Re: (Score:3)
Capacity factor absolutely matters when it comes to solar and wind because they are not dispatchable
Are you sure you wanted to write that? This makes no sense.
CF is completely irrelevant regarding dispatchability.
Re: (Score:3)
Absolutely dispatchability is relevant when discussing capacity factor. For example, the reason that hydro's capacity factor isn't near 100% is that it can be dispatched to load follow [wikipedia.org] so it's not running all the time, decreasing its capacity factor. When building a hydro installation they size the generators for a higher load than the inputs can provide. If CF wasn't related to dispatchability the generators would just be sized to generate the amount of power the input river generates on average and run
Re: (Score:2)
Absolutely dispatchability is relevant when discussing capacity factor.
Discussing? No idea what you want to discuss there.
For example, the reason that hydro's capacity factor isn't near 100% is that it can be dispatched to load follow [wikipedia.org] so it's not running all the time
Depends on the plant. Dams are usually load following and river flow crafts are usually base load.
The CF is a result how you run the plant.
Dispatchability is related to the load factor in all three types of generation that I m
Re: (Score:2)
Depends on the plant. Dams are usually load following and river flow crafts are usually base load.
Yes, because run of the river plants have limited dispatchability (no dispatchability if they have no impoundment at all) so they are run as base load. Which point are you arguing? Originally you said that CF has nothing to do with dispatchability but then you post an example where the capacity factor is directly related to how dispatchable the plant is (RotR vs dams). Which it it?
The CF is a result how you run the plant.
Exactly. And how you run the plant is predicated on its dispatchability.
Re: (Score:2)
Originally you said that CF has nothing to do with dispatchability ...
Because they have not? They are orthogonal concepts? I can have a non dispatchable solar plant with 12% CF and a highly dispatchable bio mass plant which I use for balancing power with 12% CF
Why don't you simply go back in the chain of posts and check the post I answered to?
Re: (Score:2)
People who honestly doubt what I've written should just look it up.
I really can't understand why some people today have such a naive idea about capitalism and also state run generators. In the former, they have to generate when wanted or they don't make money, in the latter they have to do what they are told or people get fired. There's no magic independ
Re: (Score:3)
GP's comment had nothing to do with human choices or desires but all about the variability of nature and the direct impact it has on wind and solar.
Re: (Score:1)
Most of the time the stuff is offline because the are not needed at that moment FFS - hence the low capacity factor that manipulative folks pretend means the generating source is no good.
The GP's comment was really just pushing a political party line and was somewhat orthogonal to reality. I didn't point it out because is
Re: (Score:2)
What the fuck are you talking about? I didn't say anything at all about politics. As dwilden stated, I only pointed out capacity factor is relevant when discussing wind or solar. You partisan fucks that can't even discuss a technical issue without determining which "team" the other poster is on make me sick.
The GP's comment was really just pushing a political party line
Nope
and was somewhat orthogonal to reality. I didn't point it out because is should have been obvious.
What did I say that is "orthogonal to reality"? It's not obvious to ME (the person who actually posted the comment) so please point out where you think I erred, but please provide your sources and
Re: (Score:2)
It's even more annoying that you cannot work that out from a more polite post.
Re: (Score:2)
Nope, sorry no political agenda. The fact that you see a political opponent any time someone disagrees with you might point to you being the problem, not everyone else.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Try running a hydroelectrical power plant 24/7/365 and see what happens.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't have a hydroelectrical power plant handy to find out. What happens?
Re: (Score:2)
The reservoir gets empty.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The reservoir gets empty.
Cool - so with that Niagara plant running all the time that means you'll be able to walk from Cleveland to Canada across the bed of Lake Erie? Or does it mean you are incorrect?
Hoover would have thought?
How about those Canadians running hydro all the time - dam nation!
Re: (Score:2)
There is no point in replying to you, since you are just playing dumb.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I was simply not expecting you to deliberately misunderstand me, so I didn't write precisely enough. Sigh. It's much easier to have a constructive discussion when there is a minimal amount of goodwill.
What I meant is that you cannot run a hydroelectric power plant at full power all the time, as this would quickly drain the reservoir. And it is not even useful to do that, as you would just waste the energy produced at night. So lacking water for producing energy is actually a thing, unlike for example a nuc
Re: (Score:2)
Many do.
It's best not to just make things up on a site like this where others actually know something about the topic.
Re: (Score:2)
[citation needed]
Re: (Score:2)
It drains energy from athmosphere! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe after some use.
The alternative is not to harvest any from the atmosphere and brun something in order to "immediately turn it into waste-heat".
The idea is to subtract energy from the atmosphere, convert (part of) it into energy and use it.
Maybe I am wrong, but I don't see this plan any worse than any other plan about renewables. This very one has this plus to drain energy from atmosphere: do you know any other way to do it?
Re: (Score:2)
Capacity factor (Score:2)
I think hydro at least in cases where water is available, can be used for peaking. I think equating the cap factor of wind and water is somewhat misleading. I know locally the generation is targeted to meet demand for the hydro. Its hard to store up a big gust of wind for later use.
Re:And then... (Score:5, Funny)
Why? He's supplying enough pressure to keep 'em running his whole presidency.
Re: (Score:2)
Something-something golf course something-something Scotland. [bbc.com]
Re: (Score:2)
8.7 divided by 1.21 = 7.1900826446281
Re: (Score:2)
That reply is so Slashdot
Re:Nuclear (Score:4)
The issue with Wind and Solar is that they require large areas to be installed on (and power distribution, but I'll focus on the former).
That is an issue. Fortunately there are large areas available to install them on, both on land and at sea.
Progressives have been brainwashed by the Renewable cartel, just like Conservatives were by the Fossil Fuel Cartel.
Or, they realize that we'll continue to want to use energy long after fossil fuels are no longer practical to use, and are making sure we'll have the ability to do so.
Would nuclear plants help solve that problem? They absolutely would, but only if they get built -- and post-Fukushima/Chernobyl, not many people want them built; fewer still want to pay the huge amounts of money it takes to secure them forever against all conceivable failure modes. Is that "brainwashing"? I guess you could call it that; another way to look at it is that people have seen what nuclear power is capable of, and decided they don't want it.
I'd say that nuclear-fission power is in a similar position to fuel cells -- advanced technology with lots of promise, but trailing so badly behind the competition at this point that (barring some miraculous technological leap forward) it probably won't ever catch up and be competitive against other approaches.
Re: (Score:1)
That is an issue. Fortunately there are large areas available to install them on, both on land and at sea.
So there are, in the US. We are also blessed with natural resources; should we squander those too? It is baffling how willing greens are to turn a blind eye to resource use, even as it directly relates to environmental impact. Using large geographical areas to farm energy also engages NIMBYs on a large scale, both for the generators and transmission network.
Nuclear has the smallest environmental impact of any energy source, requiring the least land and resources. A wind turbine or solar panel may not loo
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The issue with Wind and Solar is that they require large areas to be installed on (and power distribution, but I'll focus on the former).
That is an issue. Fortunately there are large areas available to install them on, both on land and at sea.
Progressives have been brainwashed by the Renewable cartel, just like Conservatives were by the Fossil Fuel Cartel.
Or, they realize that we'll continue to want to use energy long after fossil fuels are no longer practical to use, and are making sure we'll have the ability to do so.
Would nuclear plants help solve that problem? They absolutely would, but only if they get built -- and post-Fukushima/Chernobyl, not many people want them built; fewer still want to pay the huge amounts of money it takes to secure them forever against all conceivable failure modes. Is that "brainwashing"? I guess you could call it that; another way to look at it is that people have seen what nuclear power is capable of, and decided they don't want it.
I'd say that nuclear-fission power is in a similar position to fuel cells -- advanced technology with lots of promise, but trailing so badly behind the competition at this point that (barring some miraculous technological leap forward) it probably won't ever catch up and be competitive against other approaches.
I'm going to laugh when "eco people" blame the changes in the localized weather patterns on global warming and other shit before accepting that their disruption of the boundary layer (surface-> ~= 0-100-1000ft) winds is absorbing energy that fuels weather. (Planetary Boundary Layer [wikipedia.org])
I'm "crazy" because I can see the future, but I already see lawsuits being filed against companies and neighbors for disruption of outdoor comfort at home (in the future, less than 20 years away).
Re:Nuclear (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm all for nuclear as a source of clean energy, but having multiple sources of clean/renewable energy is a Good Thing.
Re: (Score:3)
Considering solar is used in summer at the Dome A camp a long way south in Antarctica it's not such a silly idea to use solar cut down on fuel usage for power generation in Alaska which gets far more sunlight. Apparently the panels were incredibly easy to install at Dome A - mounted vertically on poles!
Re: (Score:2)
I'm all for nuclear as a source of clean energy, but having multiple sources of clean/renewable energy is a Good Thing.
I've never understood why we don't use spacecraft to transport depleted uranium into space, given how much "space" matter enters our atmosphere and increases the volume of our planet on a daily basis. I guess that's technically interfering with the normal processes of natural design because at the moment, our planet keeps gaining mass (the loss of atmospheric molecules to solar wind is much less than the amount of accretion via meteors/meteorites every day). If we "make it lose mass", we're interfering.
Re: (Score:2)
In the case of solar, you can install it locally, it scales up & down quite well.
For wind turbines, bigger is better but that tends to upset of lot of people
Re:Nuclear (Score:5, Insightful)
The issue with Wind and Solar is that they require large areas to be installed on
Why is that an "issue"? Do you actually believe that we are running out of land?
Windfarms can have co-use as grazing or cropland
Solar panels can go on rooftops, over parking lots, or in deserts.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Read it again. The claim is that capacity factor for both is not that different. Hydro tends to be seasonal, especially if you're doing run-of-river but even reservoirs have low periods so you can't get close to 100% for very long
Re: (Score:3)
with the new requirements to keep "spinning capacity" at a higher level than used to be required. Hydro is a *really* nice way to do that. just run enough water through the turbines to keep them in sync with the grid with basically zero load on them and you can drop a full load on them pretty damned quick if you lose a transmission line or see a spike in demand.
Re: (Score:2)
"with the new requirements to keep "spinning capacity" at a higher level than used to be required"
What's the reason & what's the diff between old requirements & new?
Re: (Score:2)
It will. You won't know it, though, because your head is stuck in a hole in the ground.
Re: (Score:3)
More probably the new machines the coal operators have planned for when the Trump Gravy Train leaves the station. The coal workers will get nothing, and then get screwed out of ACA benefits by the new Republican ACA Light Plan for not working yet obstinately continue to suffer for the conditions they received from digging said coal before gas stole their lunch. They can always petition the Baby Christian in Chief but it won't do them any good.