The previous entry on our attitudes to the future (Global Warming; it’s the end…), produced a considerable bag of responses (by my modest standards). It’s clearly a subject which many climate bloggers hold dear to their hearts, myself included.
It would have been easy to be discouraged by some of the opinions expressed, the gist being that we probably can do something to mitigate against dangerous change, but few of us have much confidence (in the political process, at least), that enough will be done in the time window available, which most are comfortable to agree is around ten or so years.
But, through a peculiar chain of circumstances, the Old man found himself reading up on wind. That’s the energy source, not the digestive by-product. And hope starts to spring again, albeit merely a moderate hope. Why? Because, in wind, we have the means to act fast, act big, and act together, in a way which is not allowed by any other energy strategy (as I understand it).
It is true that wind energy has taken a while to find its feet, and that it cannot replace all of the other energy sources required, but it is also true that both ‘large wind’ and ’small wind’ have come on a long way in the last few years and, now that energy prices have leapt, technology and understanding has improved, and public resistance has, to some extent, abated, this energy source is now both economically viable and environmentally friendly. It also has the added advantage of not being a ’security threat’, and being widely (though not universally) available.
So where are all the wind projects? Where are all the turbines? California has led the way for a long time (in spite of having a relatively poor wind resource compared to some). Iowa and some other states are making moves; Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands are already heavily committed and making progress, whilst the UK, which has at its beck and call around 40% of Europe’s total available wind energy resource, is lagging somewhat behind.
In terms of cutting emissions, the advantages are obvious and (relatively) immediate. Even a complex wind farm project need only take a year or so from inception to construction, if there isn’t too much interference from what appears to be irrational NIMBYish objections. Setting up an installation is not a trivial matter, but it is considerably simpler than building a power plant, or a reactor. Carbon footprint is also excellent; generally, the entire footprint (including decommissioning) can be accounted for in the first months of operation. It is also considerably easier to set up in otherwise little-used area, so long as the important environmental considerations are not otherwise problematic (and they rarely are).
Best of all (to me), is that wind energy is now something which many more people can participate in on an individual, business, community or group level. Efficient and cost-efficient products, tested by time and shown to work, already exist, in ranges from about 5-6kW up to 250kW, perhaps beyond. This means that homes can have them, small businesses, branches of corporate entities (such as discount warehouses or shopping malls), villages and towns, schools and police stations… actually, the list is very long.
There are still problems. Urban wind – arguable the place where the most potential need exists – still presents some logistical difficulties (wind shear, turbulence, surface roughness, etc…) , but even in a large town or city, it is still possible to find high rises, blocks of flats or apartments, and, perhaps most usefully, industrial/commercial estates, where an installation would cause few if any problems, and where the energy returned would more than match the cost of installation.
So why aren’t wind turbines of all sizes springing up everywhere? Well, the main problems are twofold: in the case of large installations such as wind farms, the planning process can be hopelessly slow; apparently, there’s a backlog of about 2gW of apllications in the UK alone waiting for completion of the planning process. In the case of smaller installations, the cost has been high in relation to the return expected, and little or no incentive has been offered in terms of grants or discounts, so far.
But I think all this is about to change. First, several energy companies have emissions reduction targets to meet, with penalties for non-compliance. Some of these also offer green tariffs, which are in high demand, but for which they currently lack the capacity to satisfy. At least two energy providers are now offering around 9pence (18cents) per kWh for any excess energy returned to the grid. On top of this, they are compelled, through ROCs, to credit wind users at least 4.5pence/kWh for the energy they use (though these companies also offer a better rate than this). Businesses can claim full credit for the CCL tax (about .45p/unit) on all the energy they use, if they source at least a proportion of their energy from renewables. A couple of companies are now manufacturing turbines on a production line, which reduces the cost, and there is much less resistance to installation from energy companies (in fact, they generally try hard to be helpful, now, for the reasons above).
So, both ’small’ and ‘large’ wind power installations are now economically viable. Payback times vary with installation size, but the range goes from around five years up to around twenty, for good quality, well-sited and well-installed projects. These vary mainly with the available wind regime, but small turbines should pay back in regimes with a mean wind speed at hub height of around 5.5-6 metres/second, and large ones at regimes around 3.5-4 m/s.
So, here’s the Old man advocating a rapid acceleration of the wind energy programme, at all levels, at least in the UK, and arguably in several other countries where the energy source is viable (by no means all countries, or all regions). So, what has he overlooked? Where’s the problem? Critically, why aren’t there more active governmental incentives programmes to support the (perceived) high installation cost? If you are willing to accept that the Old man has done his background reading on the subject, and that the ’standard’ objections are, by and large, mostly disguised prejudices against change, rather than reasons not to go ahead, what is stopping us, as either individuals (as long as we own a big enough space in a ‘good’ wind area), companies/institutions, or, critically, nations (especially the UK), from doing this?
As ever, my prognostications are fraught with the potential for error and misunderstanding, but I’d like to know from anyone why they think we should not see a very rapid acceleration of wind installations in the coming ten years, starting more or less immediately. Go on; make me miserable again…
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November 22, 2007 at 11:39 pm
guthrie
THe major problems with wind in cities is that there are not necessarily many good locations; the winds can be fitful due to the surrounding buildings, and the engineering necessary to bolt a large sail onto the side of your house.
Basically, as far as I can see, its a non starter. I know you mentioned those problems, but really, you can get better results by building larger more efficient turbines in areas with guaranteed high wind levels. Then use a DC cable to transfer the energy to high demand areas.
Have you read George Monbiots book “Heat”? That has all you need to know to educate yourself on how we can cut Co2 emissions fairly quickly. Unfortunately, one of the important ways of reducing CO2 production from housing by building efficiently insulated etc houses, is completely blocked by the developers.
November 23, 2007 at 12:15 am
fergusbrown
You’re right about the first problem, the second can be taken into account, but the third is less of a problem than you might think. Probably, apart from the turbulence issue, the bigger problem is space.
I’m not really advocating urban wind as such here, since it is intrinsically more risky a prospect (in principle, not in practice) than rural or suburban sites, but there are plenty of towns and communities where it really is a viable prospect.
One of the advantages of local generation is that it is much more efficient than transferring electricity long distances; losses from this can run into several percentage points (ie, as much as 60% in ‘worst-cases’). It is true that, in purely investment terms, large wind works better than small, but this is rather missing the point. It’s also overlooking the impact of multiple, distributed, localised generation points, which can add substantially to CO” emissions reductions. The benefits of ’small’ are that it is personal, direct, in sufficient numbers, meaningful, and, due to the recent changes I mentioned, no longer an expense; it will give payback to the owner. You also need to remember that we cannot build enough renewable sources in the next ten years, whatever we try, but a large increase in such a technology can only help.
I’d not necessarily place wind as higher in priority than thermal efficiency, which has huge savings potential and at reasonable cost, but I am suggesting that, as a visible, cost-effective, zero-emissions energy source, it has enough going for it to justify the commitment. If you’ve already insulated your home, changed your driving habits and done the basic energy-saving measures, this is as good a next-step as anything out there…
Sorry to admit that I haven;t read ‘Heat’, though I do occasionally read GM’s column.
November 23, 2007 at 12:29 am
William Connolley
There is quite a shortage of turbines and bits. A good sign, I suppose, as it means they are popular.
November 23, 2007 at 12:37 am
S2
I rather like wind turbines.
My local wind farm is a couple of miles away, a nice walk on a sunny afternoon. It’s built on the remains of a WWII airforce base. Its seven 2MW turbines sit in fields between the old runways, and the fields are farmed right up to the concrete plinths at the base of each turbine. When you get really close you can hear the swish of the blades and an electrical hum from the innards of the tower, but it’s by no means loud. And getting close up and personal provides some good photographic opportunities.
The farm produces enough power for “8,500 homes” (or about every home in a 10 kilometre radius).
On my last visit (with the aid of a small telescope) we could also see the two 5MW experimental offshore turbines in the Beatrice oilfield, about 30 km away. With 63 metre blades, these are (I think) the largest in the world at the moment.
There are several other farms nearby.
An admittedly parochial view:
Scotland has a target of meeting 18% of it’s electricity production being generated by renewable sources by 2010, rising to 40% by 2020. We’re already at the first target, with over 1GW of wind and 1.3GW of hydro-electric power.
There is a NIMBY influence, but in my (highly subjective) view much of this comes from people who have bought property in Scotland as holiday or retirement homes (the south-west corner of Skye is known as “Little Sussex” by the locals). Traditionally Scots welcome technology (we invented a lot of it) and recognise economic opportunities.
The biggest drawback, though, is distance.
The best sites for wind farms happen to be in the more remote and sparsely populated areas of the country – which just happen to be the places where the grid is weakest. We need a huge investment in infrastructure to allow power generated in the North to reach the power-hungry South.
November 23, 2007 at 1:11 am
S2
In terms of micro-generation, I must admit I’m tempted – but at the moment it doesn’t seem to make sense financially. I might also struggle with planning permission (I live less than 100 metres away from a 17th Century harbour).
If I erected a turbine it would have to be in the garden, which happens to be at a higher altitude than my house.
In passing, my central heating is still off. I’m not sure how long I can keep this up, getting into or out of the shower is “bracing” (for want of a better word), but it has resulted in an energy bill some 65% less than this time last year.
November 23, 2007 at 10:17 am
S2
Some idea of the impact of an expansion of wind generation on the National Grid can be found here:
Evidence Received for Renewable Energy in Scotland Inquiry: submission from National Grid Transco on the Scottish Parliament site. Possibly dated (it was published in 2004), but interesting reading.
Wind Power in the UK from the Sustainable Development Commission is also a very good read, although again some of the figures are out of date (it was published in 2005).
November 23, 2007 at 10:50 am
Aaron Lewis
The key word is “read”. In 1938, my mother wrote an essay on rural electrification and won a prize – a “wind charger” with its own tower. It was noisy, did not produce much power, so in 1946 my grandfather paid to have a power line run in. When I was a child in the early 1950s, the tower stood abandoned, and nobody seemed to have a good thing to say about it. I got beaten for climbing up to investigate the machinery (Dangerous for a boy to be so high.) Jump ahead to the 1990s, and one of my climbing buddies persistently invested in the wind farms that were spring up across California. Despite being a lawyer that worked for a large engineering firm involved in energy project finance, generally, he lost money on his wind farm investments. Each generation of wind technology seemed to have surprisingly similar maintenance issues.
The lesson is, spinning in the wind is a surprisingly brutal environment. These systems neeed to be robust. If capital costs go up, the project does not get done. If initial design and installation is compromised then maintenance costs go up and the project loses money. If maintenance is not done on schedule, then availability goes down, and the project loses more money.
The problem is that wind power is competing with coal energy systems that are subsidized by not recognizing the full cost of putting CO2 into the atmosphere. As long as we are subsidizing fossil fuel plants by allowing then to dump pollution into the air, financing alternative energy will be difficult. As long as financing alternative energy is difficult, projects are going to tend to make compromises with the initial designs that will jeopardize the ultimate success of these projects.
Alternative energy needs a level playing field.
November 23, 2007 at 12:07 pm
fergusbrown
Morning, all. William has an important point; at least one manufacturer in the UK is increasing capacity next year, from around 50 units a month, to around 250. Whilst component prices (such as copper) are rising, industry development which allows for production-line economies should compensate for this. At the other end, there’s a lot of R&D going on to make bigger turbines, but the defining limitation at the moment is prop size – as Aaron points out, it can be a hostile environment, but development has come on apace in the past few years, and many turbines are both very strong and reliable.
I’d point out that the type of windmill that was popular in the USA is a generally robust, but inefficient design; it’s good for battery charging or water pumping, but nor great for power generation. A comparably-sized (say 15kW), tough modern turbine in a decent wind regime will generate 15-30,000 kWh a year, for up to 25 years, with little in the way of maintenance (2-3% of cost). At US rates, this might not pay for itself – though it might just, but at the terms offered in the UK at the moment, break-even in a 6m/s regime should occur well within the product’s lifetime, even without grants or interest-free funding.
California has had some negative early experiences, but the current generation of wind farms is producing at a reasonably competitive rate, though as you point out, coal-power subsidies undermine this as an investment completely. bear in mind also that much of CA has a very average wind regimes; only class one or two.
Back to S2: whether or not a micro-system makes financial sense is pretty much dependent on what your mean wind-speed is. You can work this out in the DTI database (or give me your post code and I’ll work it out). With the most recent government guidelines, planning (especially in Scotland) is unlikely to be a headache, unless there is a real ‘amenity value’ issue. bear in mind, though, that Lowestoft has a big, highly visible turbine, and local approval since installation is much better than it was before (there’s always some idiot who will object); most people in the town positively approve of it. I also believe there are still generous grants available in Scotland, so you can cut the installation cost by a substantial sum.
If you are already well-insulated and taking efficiency measures, your domestic power use is probably already quite low. This mean that you will have more excess output to sell back to an energy company, producing a larger, faster, net return. You’ll also be pleased to know that the best small systems in the world (in my opinion) are produced by a Scottish company.
What is also interesting to me is that your responses show two distinctive approaches to the question of the viability of wind power in general. On the one hand, there is the economic/investment approach, which in itself is probably an inadequate measure of the relative value of the technologies, and on the other, the desirable outcome approach, where cost is subsumed (so long as it doesn’t mean large net losses).
I’d argue that a case can be made for wind in both views. Syngellakis (2005) suggests that onshore wind in the UK will provide power at 2.2-2.4p/kWh by 2030, which would make it considerably cheaper than any alternative source, especially if fossil fuel prices continue to rise unpredictably. One great advantage of wind is that, with almost all of the cost going up-front, there is a much greater level of future price predictability than in coal or gas.
Small wind will always be more expensive than large wind, but the benefits of directness, (distributed energy), multi-user, personal involvement and the absolute clincher of direct reductions of CO2 emissions, make it viable. I’d also suggest that, as an investment, it is only going to get better as time goes on, in comparison to almost all other energy sources.
November 23, 2007 at 10:14 pm
guthrie
Even if you don’t accept Monbiots reccomendation of 90% carbon emissions cut by 2030, it is still appalling that the gvt standards on housing efficiency etc are so badly enforced and not getting tighter. Proper design etc would add maybe &% onto the buildings price as new, but would be saved many times over by the occupiers low fuel bills. However the gvt has completely failed to regulate appropriately, and it is slow going getting the importance of this through to house buyers.
November 25, 2007 at 12:27 pm
S2
I hope I didn’t mislead you. As I said, I’m a fan of wind power. Although infrastructure costs will be high, I do believe that it’s an investment worth making. The Scottish Parliament link I posted above suggests a cost of £250 per kW for a large increase in generation in Scotland, which adds up to a sizeable sum for several gW of renewable energy – but (I believe) grid components last a long time, so the cost per kWh should be small – especially if wind generation costs continue to fall when compared to carbon-based generation.
The SDC report puts infrastructure costs for offshore wind in the South of England at between £50 and £100 per kW, which is much more reasonable (but Scotland has stronger winds, so the efficiency of English farms will be lower).
Either way, someone has to pay for it up front, which I guess means government – and (as Guthrie has suggested) there appears to be a gap between what the government wants to happen and what it is prepared to pay for.
It’s about 18 months since I last looked at the viability of micro generation.
At that time, all the grant money had run out and planning regulations indicated that a wind turbine was unlikely to get approval (I live in a conservation area).
Times have changed, and (entirely due to this topic) I’m re-investigating.
Average wind speed here at 10 metres above ground level is 6m/s according to the DTI’s website (actually, I’m surprised that it’s not more). Most small turbines reach their quoted capacity at around 12.5m/s, and since power is proportional to the cube of the wind speed I would expect that I’d get something less than 25% of the rated power on average.
So, If installed a 1kW turbine I could expect to get about 200-250W, or around 5kWh per day. Possibly a bit more in the winter and a bit less in the summer which would suit me, as we don’t get a lot of winter daylight at this latitude.
This would bring me very close to being “carbon neutral” at my current level of consumption (if we ignore the impact of manufacturing, installing, maintaining and decommissioning the turbine).
Financially I don’t think it makes sense – I would save around £180 p.a. against a (loan-funded) capital cost of about £2,500. On the other hand, I could probably pay for it with what I’m currently saving in heating costs. And I’m fairly sure it would be the first in the town, which has a certain (if illogical) appeal.
I’ve fired off an email to the Council to find out what their current position is.
November 25, 2007 at 3:02 pm
fergusbrown
One other factor to take into account with large installations in Scotland is that a lot of the energy generated at source is lost in distribution, through wires, transformers and sub-station. This is one area where ‘home’ generation has a major advantage.
TBH, I wouldn’t even bother with a 1K turbine; there simply aren’t any on the market which are worth having, with the possible exception of the Ampair or Marlec battery chargers, which are rated considerably lower than this. The chances of you getting a mean 150kW/month in the real world are not good, in spite of what a manufacturer might suggest.
A Proven 2.5K should give on average 400-450kWh/month in a 6 m/s regimes, though surface roughness needs to be taken into account. If you could get away with it, a 15 metre pole, rather than a 9m, will also add more wind power (add 5% to windspeed at 10m & cube for added power), and would take the hub above some of the turbulence from nearby buildings.
If you’re currently using around 2000 kWh/year (which is very good – UK average is over 4000), you should be able to get paid by a green-tariff company at around 9p/unit, about £270/year, plus the 4.5p/unit for the energy you already use in ROCs (£90); £350 to be conservative. Add to that the savings from not having to pay for any energy, £250/year (is your bill really that low?), and we’re at £600/year. You may well be able to get a 0% loan from a green fund for a project like this: I have seen such offers advertised.
It would take (More or less) the lifetime of the turbine to pay for itself, give or take a couple of years, in return for a Carbon saving of around 82 tonnes of CO2, if the set-up cost £12000 (it could well be much less than this…you’ll have to ask Gordon Proven).
This is the bottom line currently with small wind: at best, with a system smaller than 5-6kW, you can hope/expect to cover your expense. Larger systems cost more, but produce energy at much lower relative cost, and will give a return on the investment in a shorter time.
It might be worth getting in touch with Proven (or, if you are so inclined, another manufacturer), as they will almost certainly be both able and willing to help you with the planning applications, installation and financing advice.
Finally, at all costs you should avoid both the Windsave (from e.g. B&Q) and the Renewable Devices ‘Swift’. They are cheaper, but you won’t get your money back.
Post script: I feel I should declare an interest, here. In a few weeks’ time, I’ll be leaving the teaching profession to work for an engineering company on the South Coast, with the aim of developing their wind turbine business. This is my way of contributing to the solution (one of them, anyway). Hence my knowledge of the current market. Good luck.
November 25, 2007 at 6:09 pm
Aaron Lewis
Good!
May the Weather Gods smile on your projects.
November 26, 2007 at 11:52 pm
S2
Thanks for the sentiment, Aaron.
And thanks for such an exhaustive reply, Fergus. I’m impressed with your knowledge of the subject, and wish you all the best in your new venture.
I’ve received an automated reply from the Council saying that they aim to reply within five working days.
The Proven 2.5kW turbine does look good, but I don’t think I’ll get away with it at 3.7m diameter (especially on a 15 metre mast). To appreciate why, take a look at this photo – my home is just to the left of the photo.
We’ll see what they say, though, in a few days time.
I think you’re right about the cheaper turbines, particularly the Windsave – it has a “Reference Extreme Wind Speed” of 35 m/s, which we probably break several times a year (usually with northerly winds). It’s common up here to chain your wheelie-bin to a wall to stop it blowing away.
You seem a little incredulous about my power consumption. My last bill (based on actual meter readings) was for 658 kWh in 107 days, to 06-Nov-2007. Extrapolating that over a year (which I think is reasonable) would give me an annual figure of around 2250kWh/year.
November 27, 2007 at 9:56 am
fergusbrown
I’m not about to second-guess a local authority; who can tell what they might say? Looking more closely at Portsoy, for example on Google Earth and Wikipedia, I’d suggest that it looks like an ideal candidate for a community-scale project. If there are no more than a few hundred homes (a guess), a turbine on the top of the hill to the East/North East of the town, or maybe near the site of the quarry to the West, could supply perhaps 80% of the town’s electricity needs. Whilst this would be quite prominent, evidence from similar projects suggests that local acceptance is very high, especially after installation, and very few people perceive an existing facility as something negative, so long as it is economically sound.
A single, medium-sized turbine would produce enough to supply a town with a population of 5000, using about 10% of its mean monthly output. The rest would be sold back into the grid. The project would fall into the Scottish rural development initiative funding category, and could be part-financed by them. The town could reasonably expect it to pay for itself in energy produced in less than ten years, perhaps as few as four or five. Cost would depend on grants, but even without any, might be £1000 per household, plausibly less. This may be worth considering; similar ( but smaller) projects have worked very well on places such as Muck Island.
Another possibility is to form a syndicate of like-minded people and look to install something slightly larger; this makes it cheaper per household, and can be metered and paid for by usage, as on Muck.
I’m not incredulous – sorry for the misunderstanding – rather, impressed. If your consumption was a benchmark for what is achievable, we’d have few problems meeting our national targets for emissions reductions, simply through efficiency. I suspect your Winter bill may be slightly higher, though, due to increased hours of darkness and more cold; most of us in the UK use considerably more energy in the Winter season than any other.
I’m going to go onto something new later, but I’d be interested to know how you get on. You can communicate here, or privately on my email at fwmb@btinternet.com . Fingers crossed.