Six Scottish wind farms paid to shut down because they were pushing too much power into the grid.

[paparush]

Six wind farms were given six-figure payments to switch off their turbines because the Scottish grid network could not absorb all the energy being produced, it has emerged.

Research by the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) found energy companies were paid a total of £900,000 for stopping the turbines for several hours between April 5 and 6 this year.

The REF said some of the payments were as high as 20 times the value of the electricity which would have been generated if the turbines kept running.

The National Grid makes constraint payments to power stations that agree to stop generating in order to stabilise the network.

It happens when the grid system or a section of the system is unable to absorb all the electricity being generated, and some generators that are contracted to generate are asked to stand down.

http://breakingnews.heraldscotland.com/breaking-news/?mode=article&site=hs&id=N0215511304251519691A

[MadHound]

1. But wait, I thought that wind and solar couldn't provide anywhere near the needed electricity.

Paid to shut down for awhile, interesting.

[elleng]

Surely depends on location. WINDY in Scotland.

[MadHound]

8. Windy in the US as well, windy enough to power our own country.

In 1991 the DOE did a study of our wind resources. They found that three states, South Dakota, Kansas, and Texas, had enough wind resource to power the entire US, including factoring in growth, through the year 2030. And this was using 1991 wind tech. Things have advance tremendously since then.

But this just goes to show you that we can indeed switch to wind and solar, and they can carry the load.

[elleng]

12. Surely 'possible,' but recognize the size/distance differential,

cost/difficulty of transmission/storage.

[robinlynne]

20. the Mojave Desert ALONE has enough (potential) solar power to feed our nation.

the entire nation. The argument saying we cant produce enough is fully paid for by the oil, gas and coal industries. It is simply false.

[SoCalDem]

25. And even if it's "true" in some areas, , you still can use it where you can

The "problem" is that there are a LOT of privately owned (probably used to be municipal/state-owned) for BIG profit companies who run the power delivery facilities. They don't want prices to go down for consumers and they surely don't want to lose control over availability or pricing of power..

and if they had access to unlimited sources of wind generated power, what on earth would they do with all that coal they buy, and what would the rail companies ship around on all those trains? :evilgrin:

and how would power execs get all those juice bonuses?

and who would be buying legislators if the mega-profits stopped flowing in from US..

[elleng]

33. Foolish to say we CAN'T produce, but we must recognize difficulties,

largely logistical, in doing so.

[MadHound]

39. If Enron can move electricity from Texas to California, I see no problem with transmission

Furthermore, not all wind turbines have to be located in the states I mentioned. That was simply an example of the vast untapped potential we have. Furthermore, in addition to the big wind turbine farms, we can fit out individual houses and other buildings with windbelts, which generate power in windspeeds as low as four mph.

The potential and ability is there, the only problems left at this point are social, political and corporate.

[midnight]

5. That is what they have been saying..... So I second your very interesting comment....

[NYC_SKP]

2. Storage, Storage, Storage...

Solving storage will go very far in bringing renewables on board.

Hydrogen, Vehicle to Grid, Pumped Hydro, all these and others have promise.

:P

[kestrel91316]

7. Giant flywheels? And yeah, pumped hydro in Scotland where they do have mills and water.....

Where there's a will, there's a way

[NYC_SKP]

13. Better than grounding it or not producing, use the energy to create hydrogen...

right there on site at the windfarm, then use the hydrogen that's saved to generate electricity to balance load at peak times.

AND pumped storage, which we use here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity

[kestrel91316]

14. oh that's perfect

[kentauros]

27. Pumped hydro is a wonderful storage solution.

I've wondered if we could make use of the holes the coal companies have created with mountaintop removal (because we know they aren't going to either fill them in or be required to do so.) At least some good could come from that once the practice is shut down...

[robinlynne]

21. the batteries used in electric cars 15 years ago did really well......

and we're still talking about promise? The electric trolleys from 100 years ago worked beautifully.

[kristopher]

28. There is no "storage problem"

There are growing niches for storage technologies to flourish as renewable penetration grows, but that is hardly the same thing as storage being an obstacle to increasing renewable penetration.

[madokie]

3. Actually paying them to not produce

What is a cleaner more benign way to generate electric besides solar.

rec

[a kennedy]

19. The US government used to pay farmers for NOT producing

and that's how many farmers survived was by "handout" payments if thats what you call it.....

[krispos42]

4. Seems to me that coal plants should have been shut down first.

Followed by natural gas.

[Courtesy Flush]

18. That was my first thought, too nt

[kick-ass-bob]

24. I bet it costs more to scale down and bring back up coal and gas plants

than wind ones.

Cuz that's a lot of payment to shut them down

[The Straight Story]

30. On windfarms you can easily turn off individual windmills without shutting it all down (nt)

[Incitatus]

6. Are there no fossil fuel based plants adding to the grid that they could have tuned down?

[Drale]

9. So wait are they doing this

because the grid can't handle the power?

[Incitatus]

10. This quote is interesting

"Government must rethink the scale and pace of wind power development before the costs of managing it become intolerable and the scale of the waste scandalous."

Could this be a clever way of attacking clean energy? There must have been a better solution than having to pay them 20 times the amount they would have produced.

[robinlynne]

22. selling the energy to England for example?

[valerief]

11. Wow. Clean, ABUNDANT power. If only we had that. nt

[HopeHoops]

15. What a concept. I wish WE had that problem.

[bluethruandthru]

16. K&R n/t

[jp11]

17. Finally, evidence that wind power is dangerous and unpredictable

more coal/gas/nuclear plants naow! :sarcasm:

[Poboy]

23. Wow. Important info.

[DirkGently]

26. ... and every nation wishes it had the renewable energy potential the U.S. has. And largely ignores.

[The Straight Story]

29. We used to shut them down in the 90's (in CA) on a regular basis

The grid we fed in to could only handle so much juice on - although there was a rumor there as well that some of the shutdowns were done to protect the investments of some people - make too much over X period and you paid more in taxes, each windmill - thanks to tax breaks - was partially funded by investors.

Main issue though, is still storage - and you can shut down y% of windmills and relieve the load without having to shut the whole farm down.

[paparush]

34. Yep. Would love to see a moon-shot investment in addressing some of these issues.

[Overseas]

31. K&R. Amazing!

We need more stimulus funding to help us catch up on green power.

Much rather have the green power problems than tap water catching fire from toxic chemicals used to force oil out of shale.

[nichomachus]

32. I suppose they couldn't take the chance of a wind spill -- those are so dangerous

[chowder66]

35. It's probably near Trumps golf course and he's worried about his hair. nt

[Quantess]

36. Haha! Good one.

:rofl:

[chowder66]

38. Cheers! :)

[chillspike]

37. Why didn't they shut down the coal plants instead? (nt)