Utility Engineer Perspective
Before I add my comments I will share my background. I work for a large electric utility in the USA. My utility owns nuclear, coal, gas, hydro, and wind generation facilities. We even dabble a little in solar. I have worked here 19 years, have an electrical engineering BS, and my current position is project manager. Most of my projects involve transmission substation construction projects. I have managed three projects in the last 4 years to tie wind generation facilities into our transmission system.
On our system the cost of generation is ranked (from low to high) as follows: Hydro, coal, nuclear, gas, wind. This includes the current subsidies wind receives. In fairness our coal and nuclear facilities have been on-line for many years and benefit from the lower construction costs when built. I will point out one glaring omission from the Bloomberg report. The expected life of a wind facility versus a coal/gas/nuclear facility is less than half. Wind facilites on our system are designed for a 20 year life. Other base load generation is designed for 40-50 year life (and can usually be extended beyond that). So you need to take into account that you will have to replace that wind farm 1-2 times over the same life of another plant. This may double the comparable lifetime costs of the wind facility.
Other negatives to wind turbines is the high maintenance costs. It is very difficult to work 300 feet in the air. You can't work on them when the wind is blowing. It is very difficult to get the required cranes on site for the maintenance. In short, when a turbine fails it can take many months before you can get it back in service.
Now I will try to explain some of the operational issues that arise with large amounts of wind generation. All transmission systems must balance generation (from all sources) with the load on the system within a fairly tight tolarence. When a plant trips off or wind stops blowing there is a very short window when that generation must be replaced or load must be dropped (i.e. power outages). While it is relatively rare for wind to stop blowing in large areas at once, it has happened in Texas which caused widespread power outages. The wind lobby does not like this information widely publisized (nor does Texas). The only way a utility can manage the ever changing wind generation and load demand changes is by using coal or gas facilities to load follow. It is impossible to load follow with wind. You can drop wind generation but that is it.
The above information just scrapes the surface of all the issues a utility faces balancing the different generation types. While it may seem I am anti-wind, that is not the case. It has a place in any transmission system. I just get tired of the lazy media who don't report all the facts and the pro-wind crowd who mislead the ill-informed public on purpose. One thing that is not in doubt is that wind genaration CAN NOT 100% replace all other generation on a transmission system. Maybe someday if an economical way to store power is developed but not now. Unless of course you all agree to sit in the dark when the wind isn't blowing....
Biting the hand that feeds IT
