ISO-NE real time "fuel mix chart" shows dismal performance of wind power

Comment

Comment by Jim Wiegand on July 10, 2015 at 12:18pm

With little wind the capacity factors should be in the range of 10-15%.  They are declaring twice that amount with their real time cartoon.

Comment by Kathy Sherman on July 10, 2015 at 9:35am

Now, 9 AM Fri the wind contribution is about the same percent of 'renewable' and renewable is again 6%, but demand is lower than on Tues. I calculate approx. 122 MW from the wind turbines which is pretty pitiful capacity. On Tues. the 1.3% was at best 33% nameplate. I understand the issue of turbines actually consuming when they aren't producing at all, but even if they had been operating at full capacity, it would still only have been 4% or less of the peak demands of ISO-NE. It is 4% that can't be counted on and the point about the miles of mountain stands as major point.

There is a bit of question though whether those 885 MW are all even in the ISO-NE grid versus the separate, independent grid system.

Comment by Jim Wiegand on July 10, 2015 at 12:30am

The wind may be bad but these guys are declaring  capacity factors far too high for 885 MW of wind turbines to be generating about 1.3 % of total grid demand.  Remember the power from the grid that goes into a wind project, comes out labeled "green".

Comment by Kathy Sherman on July 9, 2015 at 7:17pm

wind is really bad right now and no PV (which is mostly behind the meter and/or unseen by ISO-NE. The brief use of oil generation yesterday (2%) is gone but 1% coal still.

Our MA governor submitted bill on hydro today. I know transmission is an issue but it is more flexibly sited than wind turbines. Still, how about a push to make others aware of the Maine bill to increase distributed Maine hydro to count so it is viable enough to upgrade facilities for efficiency and enviro-responsibilty? Did anything happen on that bill?

Comment by Jim Wiegand on July 8, 2015 at 2:00pm

A little more on the character of those stealing Production Tax Credits from taxpayers.................. They have it set up (rigged) so they cam make a profit off the last tree and oxygen molecule left on this planet.

Comment by Pineo Girl on July 8, 2015 at 1:02pm

This information needs to be sent to all legislators - With the growing interest in individual solar or community groups having solar - this could help our lawmakers rethink their position on wind.

Comment by Jim Wiegand on July 8, 2015 at 12:24pm

Hate to tell you folks but even the wind numbers given as 1.3% (capacity factors) appear to be embellished. In fact any reported energy where there are credits should be looked at with great suspicion because we know the character of the people receiving them.                                                                                                                                                                              

 

Secondly it is not widely known that wood power plants adding to climate change from wood collection (exposing soils to the sunlight) and releasing CO2 into the atmosphere, are receiving Production Tax Credits.        

 

All types of biomass energy are currently considered renewable and carbon neutral and thus qualify for many tax credits, subsidies, and incentives. The energy Production Tax Credits pay biomass energy producers a fortune they do not deserve.  http://energy.gov/savings/renewable-electricity-production-tax-cred...

 

Closed-loop biomass energy receives over twice the Energy Production Tax Credits of Open-loop biomass energy.   Closed-loop biomass includes any organic material that is planted exclusively for purposes of being used to produce electricity. This means trees.

 

Remember this story about Apple buying 36,000 acres of forests? Look for Apple to claim biomass energy credits.............. ...............But Apple is going beyond simply purchasing renewable resources to actually protecting and increasing the acreage of sustainably managed working forests. The Conservation Fund has developed an entirely new, private sector-based approach to conserving forests — raising corporate and charitable funds to purchase and manage these forestlands sustainably so they can thrive and continue fulfilling their vital role in the ecosystem while supplying business paper and packaging needs.

 

http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/04/16/apple-buys-36000-acres-of...

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           My experience with the "working" forests in the remote regions of CA , is that they are pretty much dead ecosystems.

 

 

 

White House Urged to Remove Wood-burning Power Plants From Pollution Reduction Plan

by Center for Biological Diversity
Wednesday Jun 24th, 2015 5:08 PM

WASHINGTON— Fourteen conservation groups today urged the White House to eliminate biomass energy — the large-scale burning of wood to create electricity — as a means of compliance under the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Clean Power Plan,” which will regulate carbon pollution from power plants.

In today’s letter to the Office of Management and Budget, which is currently reviewing the plan, the conservation groups pointed out that the EPA has not identified any scientifically rational basis for treating biomass energy as a means of emissions reduction under the Clean Air Act.

Under the Clean Power Plan, states have the option of using “renewable” energy like wind and solar to reduce emissions of pollutants like carbon dioxide that disrupt the climate. But burning wood for energy is highly polluting. “Power plants burning wood and other forms of biomass emit about 3,000 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour — an emissions rate that is approximately fifty percent higher than that of a coal-fired power plant,” the letter notes.

“Burning trees for electricity hurts our climate by producing dangerous amounts of carbon pollution,” said Kevin Bundy, climate legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Obama administration’s power plant policies must be based on science, and the science clearly shows that burning trees for power will likely make the climate crisis worse.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comment by Kathy Sherman on July 7, 2015 at 7:40pm

Thanks for post. I just came from site and %wind is now 21% of Renewable. Despite sunshine here off and on today, I guess big solar is even more pitiful today. We need both the Hydro from north and to increase credit for Maine et hydro to make it viable to compete and upgrade capacity and reduce environmental impact. That aside, it is pitiful but true that trash is our most renewable, i.e. sustainable resource, and that is without burning energy rich plastics or distilling the energy content of plastics. I went to ISO-NE, not to see just how wind was doing but to look at price too. That is because an argument that has been given for wind energy, especially offshore such as Cape Wind, but coastal projects as well, involves this idea of cost suppression. Although the consultants, SourceOne, admitted that it would be fractions of pennies. So I have a slightly different question based on the real-time data. What load increase towards 3 PM drove the price sky high? Was it rural Maine, coastal/rural Maine, NH, VT, Massachusetts, RI or CT, or was it urban, IT, mass transit, water pumping to urban or sewage treatment of urban? Whatever, time of use does have a place and it is for those big loads.

The most significant thing is oil was NOT in the fuel mix. Even in the last month but very much so in 2010 when I first heard the claptrap about why wind energy was a must-do moral imperative, it was to 'bring the troops home', end dependence on foreign oil and the Saudi's et al in Middle East. I have not seen it as independence from Putin and Russian oligarchs yet but the switch could be easy. The point is one that Droz made strongly, USA electric generation uses minimal oil (his figure country-wide in 2010 was 1% or less). And globally our Inst. Enviro. Health Science published that the health impacts of petroleum were far and away due to its combustion for transport, not electric generation and not CO2 contribution to climate change. Living near coast and many fresh water bodies left by the glaciers, I am concerned about the GHG buffered by water and local impacts of acidification, as I am about deforestation for 25-year lasting renewables especially near transport corridors.

After bringing the troops home, it was poor kids with asthma. I partly checked because a very large coal-burner near the Massachusetts-Rhode Island border is scheduled to retire in '17 and they are trying to figure out what to do with the site. One suggestion was anerobic digestor with capacity of 500 kW (talking about replacing 1500 MW plus here!) maybe with some PV and/or gas. natural gas was 65% of the fuel mix when I checked. In southeastern MA including Cape Cod, contrary to idea that everyone would love to switch to gas FOR HEAT, that was big in Nov.Dec. 2014, National Grid just sent a letter saying that it may be 5 years before they can accept new customers or even add uses to existing customers because they needed to reduce flow in a main. That may be the responsible thing, but around Halloween they sent me (incorrectly it turns out) a letter saying that they would be tearing up my 10-12 year old private road and it would be a great time for homes to convert.

Already at 65%, and this is before retirements and with little to no growth in demand. That was and remains the rationale from '08 era - King-Baldi era. Meet the rise in demand with new generation from Wind Energy et al. It was NOT presented as REPLACE existing generation. For various reasons, I support retirement of some coal and nuclear plants in New England -they are way old and very poorly sited. But...

So the figures indicate we are sinking away from the other big goal - fuel diversity. Natural gas price volatility was big circa '05 to ...' and New Engl has not benefited from proximity to shale. For love of western PA, again maybe not pristine but plenty of natural, I have very mixed feelings about 'natural gas' from PA fracturing wells. Guess word limit reached

Comment by Mary Kay Barton on July 7, 2015 at 7:05pm

So other "renewables" make up only 6% of total electricity generation, and only 22% of that 6% is from wind, so that means that only slightly over 1% of your electricity generation is coming from the sprawling wind mess there.  Brilliant.

Comment by Penny Gray on July 7, 2015 at 6:52pm

If hydropower isn't a renewable, when are "they" expecting it to run out?

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