Wind power is way cool
On Friday I climbed the wind turbine at Gebbies Pass near Christchurch. Windflow is the only NZ company making and designing wind turbines - most come from Denmark - and they currently have the one at Gebbies Pass plus five that have recently gone up near Palmerston North. Their windturbine, the Windflow 500, generates maximum 500 kW electricity and has some great engineering innovations like the two blade teetering rotor and the torque limiting gearbox - both of which are designed to deal with the uneven flow of power that comes from wind as, opposed to hydro, or fossil fuel generators. While wind power is great, there are engineering challenges coming out of the uneven wind flow that puts pressure on the gearboxes in particular.
It was a lot of fun. We climbed up the ladder inside the tower up to the nacelle at the top that houses the gearbox and the generator and controller. It was surprisingly roomy - you could’ve squeezed in half a dozen people in there I guess. The tower swung around a bit in the strong breeze especially when the rotor started and stopped. You could pop your head out the top and see the blades going around a few meters away.
Of course wind power produces no greenhouse emissions unlike coal, gas and oil generation yet manages to compete on price anyway. Imagine if the fossil fuel generators were made to pay to clean up their carbon pollution, then renewables would be able to compete on a level playing field and would do even better.
November 11th, 2006 at 8:10 pm
When you said “climbed the wind turbine at Gebbies Pass” I thought that was a mistake; I didn’t realise it was so large. Can’t they sound insulate the gearbox to block the noise, which is what nieghbours were complaining about?
I think the real problem is under our feet; our houses are lame ducks, environmentally speaking; essentially our realestate is built on a pack of lies.
Henry
November 11th, 2006 at 11:19 pm
I’ve been to see the Gebbies Pass turbine on a windy day, and I have no idea what the residents are complaining about, the turbine isn’t as noisy as the wind. I went back on a less windy day, and found the same, only a very low amount of noise.
November 12th, 2006 at 8:28 am
They had a noise problem some time back - some part of the machinery was hitting its harmonic frequency whihc was then being transmitted via the shaft into the blades which were acting as speakers - but it’s pretty quiet now. The nacelle has a fair bit of sound insulation in it. But yeah, insulation of housing is a big issue - http://www.greens.org.nz/searchdocs/PR10299.html.
November 12th, 2006 at 5:03 pm
While the turbines may produce no greenhouse gases during operation, how about all the energy needed to build and maintain them? If you need ~6000 diversely distributed 0.5MW turbines to reliably replace one 1000 MW FF station, is that really environmentally friendly? How much CO2 from all that concrete and steel, plus all the construction and maintenance?
IMO, super-giant turbines in remote areas could help NZs thirst for power, but with demand growing at 2.2% per year, we need to DOUBLE our generation capacity within 30 years or energy prices will crash the economy with the follow-on effects on employment, housing, health etc. This would require the country to be carpeted with turbines!
Also a lot of people hate living next to windfarms and certainly they can be a blot on the landscape- do you just run roughshod over the wishes of local communities? See the makara guardians for instance.
November 12th, 2006 at 6:46 pm
This winter Christchurch was unusually cold. I read that, greater energy in the atmosphere means more perverse weather, which means cold air from Antarctic travelling further north.
I’d like to see a thermal efficiency assesment of the housing stock with an average rating [they do it in Holland]. It would be easy to do a shape/ oriention assesment as the councils have aerial photographs of the nieghbourhood
Henry
November 13th, 2006 at 2:20 am
UK-Kiwi
If you include the infrastructure to support the 1000 MW plant? I would reckon the cost of installations is a wash - basically the same order of magnitude which is as close a guess as you’re going to get without actually measuring things up and making them more specific. If I build 6000 things the same I get some economies of scale in the production. So the starting price would be IMHO, roughly comparable… if you dispute this I’d be interested in how you derive a conflicting number.
As for ongoing maintenance, that is also pretty comparable, as the wind turbines are vastly simpler than a FF thermal plant and can be maintained individually. If the thermal plant needs maintenance it is 1000 MW off-line for as long as it takes to fix the problem.
NZ has a very large wind resource… larger than most, because the island is in the “roaring 40’s” and it gets a heck of a lot of weather as a result. Taking advantage of that is more sensible than it may seem to an economist steeped in the traditional view that it costs nothing to release co2, and oil and gas are cheap.
Greens do not generally regard single answers as adequate here. We don’t want wind power and nothing else. We want wind power, better insulation, solar power, bio-fuels, bicycle tracks and a carbon economy that rewards people for doing the right thing… in stark comparison to the current economy which rewards many wrong things. The price of the destruction of the commons has to be assessed and built into the economy if the economics is to work properly.
BJ
November 13th, 2006 at 11:06 am
Henry
According to NIWA, Chch had a perfectly normal winter. It was colder than average but was not unusual. It was also sunnier and wetter.
November 13th, 2006 at 11:23 am
Insider
Did you actually experience the winter in Chch ?
November 13th, 2006 at 11:58 am
I see that insider notes that Chch was colder than average. And also wetter than average; which might make the weather feel even colder - as cold humid air takes more energy to heat than cold dry air.
November 13th, 2006 at 5:21 pm
Fastbike
No I did not experience it but I’ve learnt that readouts from these newfangled devices called thermometers can give a reasonable idea of temperature. No substitute to a raised wet finger has yet been devised to accurately measure wind direction.
Prim
It was also sunnier which might make it feel warmer…
November 13th, 2006 at 7:00 pm
While NIWAs readings are al very good and well, I can tell you that down on the ground, it was colder that usual. My skin may not be able to give an exact figure, but I trust it to tell me when its cold.
November 13th, 2006 at 7:25 pm
Insider
It was a genuine question - not an invitation to be smarmy.
Marcel, the first part of the winter was cold - but I switched my heating off in early August - so the later part was not as bad as previous years (cold but sunny so a well designed house is comfortable with little heating).
November 13th, 2006 at 7:41 pm
Actually, Prim…
http://winds.jpl.nasa.gov/
The only problem with these instruments was that they were attached to a pair of Japanese satellites which had some design issues.
Scatterometry maps the surface winds radiating about the same power as a large light bulb.
And there is a map for the southern oceans too… might help our forecasters if they knew where to look.
BJ
November 13th, 2006 at 7:42 pm
bjchip: The infrastructure of 1 thermal plant would be minimal compared to 6000 turbines all over the country. In fact it would be more efficient because you could site the thermal plant near the load (i.e. Auckland) and this would enable very low transmission losses and next to no new transmission towers. The only difficulty would be siting it near a fuel source and near a river for cooling, whereas 6000 turbines would require 6000 access roads, 6000 HV transmission lines, hundreds of maintenance and operation staff, plus a possible upgrade of the National Grid because of the variations in power output.
Wind turbines may be slightly simpler machines than a thermal power station, but not much, and they have a very difficult operating environment. Gusty winds put a lot of pressure on blades, gearboxes and bearings and when you have 6000 of them there would certainly be a lot of failures. Thermal plants generally have several generators so shutting one down would only cut output by 20% or so, not the whole plant.
I guess my view is that even with all the sensible conservation measures proposed by the greens, we will still have an electricity shortfall as the economy grows. Given that we have used most of our hydro options, and wind & solar are too unreliable and expensive, thermal power (coal and gas) is the only option aside from nuclear (another can of worms).
If China is opening a coal station every week, does it really make any difference if we open one every five years?
November 13th, 2006 at 8:14 pm
Re Chch winter - the extra sun would have undoubtedly helped somewhat to warm cold humid air, though the temperature was still below average. Sun is even better if you’re sitting inside a well designed house, but many houses are not well designed. Outside wearing dark coloured clothes, sun can be good. If you’re a pensioner sitting in a freezing pre-1977 uninsulated house with not much sun coming through the windows, it’s probably not so much fun.
Low Chch temperatures or no, the energy issues must be faced.
uk_kiwi - re NZ coal station, this sounds like the same old argument “why should NZ bother when we are so small”. We can revisit the previous responses - NZ pulling its weight; NZ being an example, etc.
November 13th, 2006 at 9:29 pm
“Retrofitting” houses in various ways can be very worthwhile.
My “well-designed-in-1923″ house is an example of how “the benefit of the sun” (for example) can be improved by reasonably inexpensive changes done gradually as finance permits. The Christchurch City Council has some simple cost effective schemes available to help with this.
Also, Global Warming means that there is more ENERGY in the system … not necessarily in the form of heat. This includes changes in weather patterns (and OH BOY! have we had some winds lately in ChCh!) My hillside house gets both the “unseasonal” Nor’Westers and Sou’Westers full blast!
Interesting times are ahead!
November 13th, 2006 at 10:02 pm
If China is opening a coal station every week, does it really make any difference if we open one every five years?
Do the maths:
China population = 1.3 b
NZ population = 4m
Per capita, if we open one every 5 years, that’s about the same as the Chinese opening one each week, all else being equal LOL.
No - the answer lies in a universal carbon allowance. Sadly, it’s way too democratic for our current economic system to allow.
November 13th, 2006 at 10:28 pm
UK-Kiwi
The infrastructure of 1 thermal plant would be minimal compared to 6000 turbines
Each wind turbine consists of blades which are exposed to the elements rotating on a shaft with some reduction gearing and pivots, driving a simple generator. It stands on a tower which requires stays and a concrete pad for stability. It is, by its nature a relatively simple device compared with a thermal plant, which produces superheated steam at pressures and temperatures that are instantly fatal if encountered. A “live steam” demonstration that was popular when I was learning ships engineering, was to open a live steam jet and to wave a 2×4 through it. The steam cuts the wood you see… but you can’t see the steam.
The multi-stage turbines turn very fast, are built of specialized alloys and the blades are precisely shaped and balanced. There are massive reduction gears and the steam is collected in a condenser… which is where you have to use your river which comes out QUITE hot, and recycled. One of the reasons you do this is that the boiler chemistry is complex, as you can’t have solids or any liquid water in the steam or the turbine blades erode, and you can’t let mineral content be deposited on the waterside of the boiler tubes… the boiler water is not really drinkable either. When you add up the specialized knowledge and plant necessary to turn that heat into electricity efficiently, the construction of the pressure vessel, the exquisite welding techniques, the turbine manufacture… it is at least an order of magnitude more complex than the simple wind turbine. I’d wager I could have 6000 wind boxes for roughly the same price as the thermal plant and there is no way in hell I’d expect to get a turbo-generator entirely built in NZ (someone surprise me, please!). Almost anyone can build a wind turbine though.
This is something I know a lot about. The parts of this you got right are the fact that the electrical lines infrastructure would be a significant cost, and there’s no simple way to manage a place like Auckland.
I didn’t count the electrical lines because I consider all of New Zealand, not Auckland alone. Which makes the transmission lines a common cost, and not a vastly greater cost for one or the other, though I would expect the distributed grid to cost more. Problem with the distribution grid is that it already suffers from delusions of adequacy.
Do we want to discuss Auckland or all of NZ? I’d have to research the situation in Auckland before I’d be able to come up with an answer suitable for the place. I don’t have a lot of time for that as I already HAVE a job, but hey, if it is a problem maybe we Greens ought to come up with a proposal that fits with our principles and our understanding of the future. I sure don’t see anyone else proposing anything sensible.
respectfully
BJ
November 13th, 2006 at 11:38 pm
UK Kiwi, I’m a little unclear as to why you’d need 6000 x 500kW wind turbines to replace 1 x 1000MW FF thermal power station? Yes they produce less power on average due to the variability of wind but where do your numbers come from?
cheers
Russel
November 14th, 2006 at 12:39 am
sounds like he thinks the wind turbines will run at 33% which sounds sensible unfortunately.
meanwhile uk, on the subject of NIMBYs, I contend that people are just scared of anything new and will complain bitterly about new things for a few months after they are introduced and then they’ll forget about them. The only reason they complain about turbines and not building new bigbox retail or fugly cheap flats with strip malls is because they are so used to seeing crap building are around the place, but a turbine is new.
Have you been to Holland lately - they have a lot of modern wind turbines there, all integrated in with the city fringes and arterial routes and adjacent farmland. From the air, you could just about say the place was carpeted with turbines, but don’t worry there’s still an awful lot of space for the rest of life to go on.
What I’m trying to say is that the turbines don’t have to be out in areas of natural beauty where the eyesore and expensive access roads arguments have validity, they can be instead be integrated into cities and other unnatural environments where jo public will quickly get used to them (after having a good old moan of course
November 14th, 2006 at 9:52 am
If I were a farmer on the Canty Plains today I could see an opportunity to to rent space to wind generators - a real wind farm with crops growing/stock grazing beneath the rotors. They are surely mcuh easier to build on the flat and you get a consistent income. No fumes, little shading or noise. A bit of land would be lost to cables and foundations but the norwester could be an asset. I think the plains would look quite spectacular with arrays of windmills marching off to the mountains.
November 15th, 2006 at 5:38 am
Simply stated, the wind doesn’t blow constantly everywhere, so you have to have enough wind generators where there is wind to service the places where the blades are idle. Wind being as variable as it is (even here), the number is conservative. Better of course, to have ways of storing energy and other renewable resources to make it work. Using wind as a single answer is usually not effective. Even Wellington has quiet days… parliament isn’t always in session.
We need to collect solar heat and store it. That’s cheap low tech and when it displaces an electric heater it is a great thing… but this thread is about wind power, which is more cost effective than most other ways of generating electricity, but has a problem of variability that doesn’t make it suitable for direct use in most industries.
Solar thermal is also an option, but the plant costs and complexity and land area consumed are all high enough to make it look less than perfectly attractive…. maybe somewhere in the North where the Sun is a more dominant input. The land area around a city is expensive enough to make this a bad deal… especially at night. Wind generators can be useful at night and when the cloud cover is total. (sarcasm) My personal favourite is Satellite Solar Power, but there’s not a lot of spare launch capacity here in NZ (/sarcasm)
When these alternatives are on line however, they displace a lot of hydro and dead-dino electricity use and so save that for the times when they are not on line, and this makes them lot more effective here, where such a high percentage of our electricity comes from hydro and we don’t want to use the dead-dinos.
respectfully
BJ
November 15th, 2006 at 6:40 am
Goddam sarcastic rocket scientists.
What’s the energy payback like on your power satellite thing? Considering what it takes to get it up there? And the mean time before failure, with all the space junk in orbit? (nuts and bolts from defunct satellites punching holes in it)
November 15th, 2006 at 6:12 pm
I wanted to check this out so asked some experts.
The load factor for wind turbines operating in NZ averages about 45%, which is really good. Elsewhere around the world it would be 33% or less
generally.
Thus a wind turbine operating in NZ will generate about 45% of what it
would if it was continuously operating at its nameplate capacity.
So, if one wants to replicate the output from a 1000MW thermal plant
operating continuously at maximum capacity you would need the equivalent of 2222 MW of installed wind capacity (1000MW/0.45). This would be equivalent to 4444 0.5MW turbines (not 6000), 1111 2MW turbines (industry standard) or 741 3MW machines (soon to be common).
BUT, no thermal plant will operate continuously at full capacity - it will
also have a load factor. Let’s assume it would be 75% to allow for
scheduled maintenance, unplanned shutdowns, fluctuations in demand, etc.
Thus it would be realistic to reduce the numbers of turbines calculated
above by about 25%.
So, to replace one 1000 MW FF generator, you’d need 3333 0.5 MW machines, 833 2 MW, or 556 3 MW.
Or, 333 5 MW offshore machines out of sight and out of mind!
November 15th, 2006 at 10:43 pm
nice one russel, now that is the power of blogs!
well said insider:
I think the plains would look quite spectacular with arrays of windmills marching off to the mountains.
yes, and I bet it would be a tourist attraction and bring money into the economy
November 16th, 2006 at 12:33 am
Yes … well said insider and stuey
The Windflow Technology turbine, especially designed (by Geoff Henderson) for Aotearoa/NZ, is smaller, two bladed rather than three (for more efficient transport on the back of a truck, easier installation and less impact on the landscape). The blades can “feather” in the wind (to stand up to our Nor’West gales) …
So far there are a couple of test ones … one on the Port Hills (above Christchurch) and an increasing number on Windfarm(s) near Palmerston North.
November 16th, 2006 at 11:46 am
>>I think the plains would look quite spectacular with arrays of windmills marching off to the mountains.
Really? People like those things? They’re a eyesore.
I’m all for them, but put them way out at sea.
November 16th, 2006 at 1:10 pm
I suggest someone design them to look like a flock of seagulls. eg large flapping wings etc
JH
November 16th, 2006 at 8:30 pm
Thanks for those numbers Russel, clearly NZ does have a higher capacity factor than the back-of-an-envelope 33%. However offshore wind turbines have to be serviced by helicopter, as seen here
http://www.hornsrev.dk/Engelsk/nyheder/nyh_mar_02/Sikorsky2.jpg
I would imagine this would be somewhat expensive, and affect the carbon neutrality ( a helicopter is about a 5MW jet fuelled turbine I believe! )
IN NZ’s case, the smaller turbines are probably a better option, especially if they are cheap, simple and reliable. I guess what I have a problem with is my electricity bills rising because of a gamble on unproven expensive technology, when it could be spent on a cheap thermal plant that lasts for 50 years…
Also riding roughshod over rural communities’ wishes is another characteristic of windfarm development.
November 16th, 2006 at 11:41 pm
Ahhh… but UK-Kiwi, the first wind generators would be the only ones unproven and they’ve been around quite a long time. There’s plenty of experience with the technology and the characteristics of the power…. and I still think you are misunderestimating the price of the thermal plant. A thermal plant that burns wood chips might work though…
Not that this was what you meant, this IS experimental…
http://members.aol.com/bkammerich/stirleengl.htm
Just imagine something a bit bigger if you want ? There is no real impediment to using wood chips instead of coal in a plant… they both produce decent amounts of heat per ton burned.
BJ
November 17th, 2006 at 4:48 am
1) I’ve seen no indication that the Hornserv wind turbines “have to be” serviced by helicopter, UKK. I imagine they just find it more cost-effective than sending the maintenance people by boat, because it’s quicker. As helicopter flying becomes more expensive, that will probably change.
2) There is absolutely nothing unproven about the technology. It’s mature, though still constantly improving.
As for wind turbines being an “eyesore”, PeterPiker… The soreness is in the eye of the beholder. They are a sight for sore eyes.
November 17th, 2006 at 9:45 pm
interesting story in the press on whether distributed small-scale community owned wind farms are desirable or not:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3863362a7693,00.html
The chief executive of Christchurch wind turbine manufacturer Windflow Technology, Geoff Henderson said he was “not so enthusiastic” about very small-scale wind generation because it was uneconomic.
“The minimum economic wind-farm size is about 20 or 30 megawatts (MW). That’s 40 to 60 of our turbines. We’re talking about enough electricity for about 10,000 homes.”
but why I ask? why is it uneconomic to have a wind farm of less than 20 MW? And how closely spaced together do the turbines need to be “a farm”?
November 17th, 2006 at 11:18 pm
Stuey - If I were to hazard a guess at this it would be principally the power feed issues. Consider all the wire you need if they’re all over the place… I have to reckon that that WOULD be ugly.
I’d probably take it if it were offered, but the farms seem to me to be a much better solution.
The other thing is the ideal sites for wind usually lend themselves to clustering… but that’s way behind the wires IMHO.
respectfully
BJ
November 18th, 2006 at 3:06 am
On the subject of climbing tubines:
For those in Welli, the Brooklyn turbine, at the top of Ashton Fitchett Drive, used tobe climable at one stage. Not sure who you have to ask for the keys to the tower, but I do remember taking my kids there, plus any visitors from out of town, about 10 years ago when it was still quite new up there on the hill.
I think Meridian Energy are the company in charge of that site now.
November 18th, 2006 at 1:12 pm
BJ -
Thank you for the link to JPL’s website on wind measurement from space …
bjchip Says:
November 13th, 2006 at 7:41 pm
>Actually, Prim…
>http://winds.jpl.nasa.gov/
Not sure what point you were trying to make in relation to my earlier posting about Chch. Your posting appears to be more relevant to eredwen’s comments about the wind which she has experienced in Chch.
Interestingly, I did not see your posting until after eredwen’s had appeared. Though your posting has been assigned an earlier date stamp.
Perhaps we have entered some kind of twilight zone in the frogpond.
November 19th, 2006 at 2:47 am
Prim
Actually I was responding with the intention of humour, to a remark about improving on the moistened finger for getting the wind speed and direction.
I doubt the intended humour was achieved …
respectfully
BJ
November 19th, 2006 at 11:48 am
BJ - so it seems you were responding to insider, not me.
I get the feeling that you have been trying to find strange ways to argue with me since I supported phil in an earlier debate … it is not pleasant.
As I have said before, please be extra nice to people on your blog - we vote.
November 19th, 2006 at 1:09 pm
>>As for wind turbines being an “eyesore�, PeterPiker… The soreness is in the eye of the beholder.
There is no accounting for taste.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Windaltamont-cr.jpg
I prefer lakes and dams myself….
http://www.shastalake.info/images/shastalake/shastalake2-apr-25-2003.j pg
November 19th, 2006 at 1:50 pm
Prim - I apologize, it WAS insider posted that… and I thought it was you responding to Eredwen for some reason… and I have not been trying to argue with you… nor have I any idea how that impression could be generated except for this error…. I worked on the nscat data archive, so I knew the linkage off the top of my head. As I scanned the thread I noticed the comment but incorrectly associated it with your name by the time I reached the reply box. Please forgive.
BJ
November 19th, 2006 at 4:48 pm
BJ - thank you for that; I accept your apology. I hope everyone in Wgtn is finding time to relax and enjoy this beautiful weather we have here today.
December 10th, 2006 at 10:30 pm
Re the questions on the weather: I have been a weather forecaster
for 33 years….. people always remember the most significant weather event of a season. And the average conditions can be quite different to perceptions.
The notable weather event this year, was the heavy snow in early Winter, which would have been a major rain (flooding) event if it hadnt produced the required freezing layer and landed as snow. We had 16 severe warnings out that day…. the last and most difficult was fine tuning the depth of the freezing layer…. we choose 200m for the level of heacy snow ….but it reached sea level.
Spent this beautiful sunny afternoon at the Brooklyn turbine …. cold southerly died and it slowed to a halt. Was interviewed by some cool people on wind turbines and sustainability issues… and hopefully some of it may appear on one of the chanels some time next year. They will be interviewing JF on Friday.
The NZ Wind Energy Assn has some tables of wind farms under construction, consented and in consent process wind farms, which amount to increase of capacity from 166.9MW to 935MW , which is about 6 times. There is also a list of about 32 projects announced publicly, which would amount to about 2995MW …. that is 20 times the capacity. Note that we are starting from a very low base of
1% of installed capacity…. and we could go to 30 to 40% depending on how
we balance it in the grid…..
Meridian has gone for the Vestas 3mw …. the biggest and not that well proven yet….. NZ high wind conditions have resulted in higher maintenance costs for the slightly smaller versions in the Manawatu (covered by warranty). Windflow technology has designed something more suitable to NZ conditons, slightly smaller and with some quite innovative features, seems to be better. Their latest improved model - in the Manawatu with 5 already installed and another 90 on the way - are running well, and anticipated to have much lower running costs.
I would love to have a small turbine attached to our house, but it makes more sense to have a slightly bigger one and share between 2 to 300 houses.
Ideally it should be in the form of a cooperative. At present they are a far more economic proposition that solar water heaters….. when the hot cylinder wears out I will get solar water heaters.
Cheers
Paul B
December 11th, 2006 at 6:45 am
Paul :
It’s been really disappointing to see how the NZ wind farm operators have shied away from Windflow’s ingenious, indigenous design. I wonder, is it the technological equivalent of the old Kiwi cultural cringe? or is it just good old capitalistic risk avoidance? Having the right product at the right place at the right time is not enough, if you can’t get mindshare.
December 11th, 2006 at 8:25 pm
Reply to Alistair:
Two of them are SOEs….. and they still are not interested in NZ made….
probably has a lot to do with the CEOs that run them. What about getting
Labour to appoint some patriots!