By Jo Nova
There is no saving the Australian wind industry from a high pressure cell
Right now 19 out of 20 wind turbines are essentially towers of fiberglass waste
Australia has built 11.5 GW of theoretical total wind power capacity on the National Energy Market (NEM) spread across 80 locations on the Eastern Seaboard, and at one point today only 4.1% of it was working. Another gigawatt of generation on the Western side is only generating at 3 – 5% capacity.
The green bar below represents total wind generation today compared to the total power consumed (the black line).
Total wind generation for the NEM in Australia.
The Australian government is telling us “we’re different” to other countries struggling to make wind and solar work. We supposedly have “world-class resources” and “natural advantages in renewables“. But we also have world-class high pressure cells that stop wind generation across the entire nation simultaneously. On days like these, it doesn’t matter much whether we have 1,000 wind turbines or 10,000 if 95% of them are failing.
Compared to Europe, we have a natural disadvantage in wind power — there’s no one to rescue us when we screw up. We’re surrounded by vast oceans which make interconnectors prohibitively long, expensive and a strategic security risk for communist ships that might drag anchors accidentally-on-purpose through a region with long sub-sea cables. (Which is apparently what happened in the Baltic Sea last year).
So where exactly can we build another thousand wind turbines that would work on a day like today? Macquarie Island or Antarctica?
And it’s not just one day. So far for May 2024 wind generation has been unusually low about half the time.
On May 25th at one point the entire generation was just 221MW or 2% of total wind power capacity. So that’s 98% useless.
Australia has 11GW wind power “capacity” and 5% of that is working.
There’s no extension cord long enough to get to the land at the top of The Renewable Faraway tree where we have dependable wind
Over in Western Australia, total wind production this minute (1pm WA time) is 30MW. So even a new cable 2,000 kilometers long from Perth to South Australia won’t save the national grid. It’s not blowing in WA either. Wind power is only supplying 1.5% of the total electricity on the Western Wholesale Market for Perth and South West Australia. The total installed capacity of wind power in the West is about 1 GW, so it is supplying only 3 to 5% of that.
Macquarie Island is 2,500 kilometers from the closest Australian capital city, and Casey base Antarctica is 3,500 kilometers away. It’s 2,000 kilometers direct to New Zealand, which is bad enough, but parts of the Tasman Sea are 5km deep. They don’t call it the “abyss” for nothing. In any case, wind speeds over New Zealand right now are only 1 – 7 km/hr. (At about 3pm EST Australia).
For the record, the National Energy Grid connects the Eastern five states of Australia and 90% of the population and is running at about 25GW in late autumn. The South West grid is a tenth of that, and all those other dots, apart from Darwin, are “microgrids”. In some parts of Australia all we need is one diesel generator, and we’ll put it on the national map. Kings Canyon, for example is just 1.1MW. The square is vastly larger than the town.
Today the 24 hour fuel mix on the NEM is 72% coal, and 9% gas.
Source: 2009 Map.
Wind Turbine output + BoM weather prediction = Money Black Hole
Two wrongs do not make a right!
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Another great insightful article Jo but can I suggest putting time and date references to those claims to prevent renewable fanatics crying misinformation!!
When I checked the WEM on Opennem.org.au just now at 2.15pm 27-5-24 the lowest MW shown for WEM is 39MW at 11.30am 26-05-24. Wind for previous 24 hours to 7.30am 27-05-24 is 8.4%.
Again, I couldn’t agree more on what an insane ideological train wreck Energy policy is in Australia on both sides of the country!
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Six days in a row. Less than 10%.
run a country on that?
NEVER.
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SA electricity Generation @ 19:00 EST 24/5/2024
Battery 16Mw
Gas 1171Mw
Liquid Fuel(Diesel) 126MW
Solar 0MW
Wind 129Mw
Look at the diesel output
Australia
23/5/24, only 4.5% of the installed capacity of the turbine was delivering power
24/5/24 only 3.5% of the installed capacity of the turbine was delivering power
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and the public are blissfully unaware because everything is working. They will still beleive that the “transition to renewable energy” is a real thing, and will do so until the crash.
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The only way to wake the South Australians up would be to
OPEN
their inter-connectors for onw whole WEEK.
They’ll either have TOO MUCH power and an un-stable grid.
OR
not enough power production available with the resulting BLACK-OUTS.
Otherwise they will NEVER learn.
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The Dirty Harry energy policy.
“You just have to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?”
If you’re lucky you can make some toast before the power goes off again.
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Government is Wind Powered. Cannot initiate below 12km/hr. Cannot work above 90km/hr. When working only 30% efficient.
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The only wind turbine that might produce adequate power would be one positioned in front of a Big Wind Bowen press conference whereat he is informing journalists that he is going to turn Australia into a renewables superpower.
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I hear – chickens and roosts – he who sows the wind will reap the whirlwind – or is that a bit hopefull?
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Looking at the AEMO chart that Jo has shown at the top of the article, at 5:00pm today and including rooftop and commercial solar it shows that at midday wind and solar combined were producing only just under 50% of demand for a period of about 15 minutes. On both sides of midday solar rapidly drops back to the miserly contribution from wind.
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What causes blocking? When did it start? Global warming is factored in, its a false premise.
‘We show that models generally have a reduction in blocking frequency with future anthropogenic forcing, particularly in the Australia-New Zealand sector with the number of winter blocked days reduced by about one third by the end of the 21st century.’ (Patterson et al 2019)
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Piers Corbyn talks about Meridonal waves in the jet-stream being part of “Little Ice Age circulation” and not related to Globull Warming™. Does anyone understand “blocking”? Do the big Highs forming over the Bight of Au steer the jet-stream or does the jet-stream restrict the High as Tom Saunders of ABC weather suggests. I’d suggest that they are both caused by something else at the Solar/Planetary level.
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All we need is 12km/hr to initiate. There must be a prop axis that can get 12km/hr in Australia somewhere? What about above any government workplace?
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Parliament house in Canberra is always a reliable source of hot air.
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>”All we need is 12km/hr to initiate”
I must have missed something or this is spoken in jest.
A comment by RayS yesterday describing an airline approach to Sydney where he could see vistas of inactive turbines. Same at Liverpool.
Got me thinking and I’m not up to speed on the mechanics at all but there must be increasing rotational inertia at startup with increasing size i.e. there may be enough wind to generate but if it is not enough to overcome the inertia of the machine then nothing will happen.
So is there an externally powered startup booster or whatever?
Did a quick search and came up with a couple of studies that outline differences between HAWT and VAWT turbines (horiz axis vs Vert) and I seem to be on the right track – see next.
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Aerodynamic investigation of the start-up process of H-type vertical axis wind turbines using CFD
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167610520301628
Bos, 2012 does not appear in References.
Effect of Stator Blades on the Startup Dynamics of a Vertical Axis Wind Turbine
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/21/8135
Somewhere there will be a graph of HAWT start-up wind speed vs turbine size.
There will also be studies of the turbine start-up where externally powered start-up is deployed.
Anyone raked this over already?
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>”Somewhere there will be a graph of HAWT start-up wind speed vs turbine size.”
No luck but I did find this paper:
An overview of control techniques for wind turbine systems
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2468227620303045
It is not just wind speed that is a power production consideration – it is also wind density. See equations (1) and (4) under the section:
Operational regions of WTs and control objectives
Also in that section:
Fig. 2. Wind turbine operating regions.
https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S2468227620303045-gr2.jpg
Cut-in Speed 3 m/s is 10.8 kph. At Cut-in speed Output power (kW) is minimal.
This is important – see next.
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Operational regions of WTs and control objectives
So at low wind speed/air density the turbine will be able to generate at cut-in speed (10.8 kph) but well below nominal (rated) power and not necessarily at the quality required at grid connection.
Nominal Power next.
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Nominal Power
I suspect that grid connection only occurs at higher than cut-speed i.e. the turbine will not necessarily begin turning at cut-in (10.8 kph) but at some higher wind speed and consistency to ensure quality at grid connection.
12 kph – 3.33 m/s
15 kph – 4.17 m/s
20 kph – 5.56 m/s
30 kph – 8.33 m/s
43.2 kph – 12 m/s << Nominal Power achieved
Nominal Power – Region 3
72.0 kph – 20 m/s << Cut out
The grid operator will stipulate grid connection conditions obviously – that would be revealing.
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Plenty of graphs here with DDG image search:
Power curves wind turbines – kW vs m/s
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=power+curves+wind+turbines&t=ffab&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images
Interesting one from a different search:
Wind speed distribution and power curve of a 2.3MW wind turbine.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Wind-speed-distribution-and-power-curve-of-a-23MW-wind-turbine_fig2_270586944
For comparison, average wind speeds in Australia range between 4-7m/sec, depending on location.
That’s about 300 kW for that 2300 kW rated turbine.
Found plenty about grid connection power quality standards but nothing as relates to wind speed. Best was this:
GRID CODES FOR RENEWABLE POWERED SYSTEM
https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2022/Apr/IRENA_Grid_Codes_Renewable_Systems_2022.pdf
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Finally! The conditions for on-grid connection:
The Whole Process of Wind Turbine Grid Connection
https://www.enpmsm.com/news/the-whole-process-of-wind-turbine-grid-connection/
“The wind turbine on-grid control device has three modes: soft grid connection, step-down operation and rectification and inversion. The on-grid control of the wind turbine directly affects whether the wind turbine can transmit electrical energy to the transmission grid and whether the unit is affected by the inrush current when it is connected to the grid.
The anemometer detects the wind speed, the wind vane detects the wind direction and performs the yaw operation. When the wind speed reaches the power-on value, the pitch system starts to work, and the blades are changed to an appropriate angle according to the wind speed. The speed sensor detects the speed of the fan and the speed of the generator.
When the speed reaches the output power condition, the excitation power supply starts to excite, and the generator starts to output power. When the voltage reaches the on-grid condition, the inverter executes the on-grid operation, enters the booster station, and enters the grid“.
# # #
So although the turbine is generating it is not necessarily connected to the grid. Connection depends on stable voltage at the required condition (power quality).
Wind speed must remain consistent at the output power condition for some time before on-grid connection surely. Otherwise the system would “hunt” i.e. go on-grid and off with gusts above and below a certain threshold.
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>’Wind speed must remain consistent at the output power condition for some time before on-grid connection surely. Otherwise the system would “hunt” …”
Ok, got the good oil. The following is a comprehensive guide. Soft start-up depends on the type of system (several detailed in reference linked below), either requiring stored wind speed info or not requiring it:
Complete Guide To Wind Power Plants – EEP
https://electrical-engineering-portal.com/res/Guide-to-wind-power-plants.pdf
6 Power generation systems
6.1 Fixed speed wind turbines
When working as a generator, the asynchronous machine is speeded up by the wind rotor up to the synchronous speed and then connected to the grid, or it is at first connected to the grid and started as a motor up to the steady state speed.
If the first starting method is used, the turbine clearly is self-starting and therefore the Pitch control must be present, whereas the second method is used for passive stall-regulated turbines.
In this case the control system stores the wind speed and defines the speed range within which the generator is to be started.
6.2 Variable speed wind turbines
[No start-up details but clues in the modalities: voltage value; instantaneous wind speed; and, stored and forecast wind data.]
Different modalities:
• regulation of the value of the sinusoidal modulating amplitude by comparing the voltage value of the DC-link with the optimum curve P-Vdc;
• MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracker) by using an anemometer. The power on the dc side is compared with the reference power and from a comparison with the optimum curve, depending on the wind speed, the new voltage on the dc side is determined. The PWM (Pulse Wide Modulation) control signal varies instantaneously as the operating conditions
vary;
• MPPT with wind forecast: the energy previously ex-tracted is taken into consideration and, by statistical models, the wind speed in the following moments is forecast.
This control system tracks the optimum points as function of the foreseen speeds.
# # #
In any event the voltage is ultimately critical for grid synchronization – no wind, no voltage.
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>”All we need is 12km/hr to initiate”
An informed number apparently:
How Do Wind Turbines Start?
https://www.utilitysmarts.com/renewables/wind-power/how-do-wind-turbines-start/
Wind Turbine Startup Process
https://www.spinningwing.com/wind-turbines/wind-turbine-startup-procedure
No mention of a ‘kick-start’.
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WIND TURBINES USE ELECTRICITY FROM GRID
https://coherence.com.au/curlew/2020/05/wind-turbines-use-electricity-from-the-grid/
And,
Seems to be a ton of wind industry secrets that would never make it into the public discourse.
Actual external power (grid) use is one of the bigger secrets I’m guessing, going by the difficulty I’m having accessing detailed information on start-up assistance and on-going externally sourced energization for reasons above.
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Deicing turbine blades
The temperature of the blade surface is heated to 0C, and the ice build-up is melted. The exact thawing time depends on ambient temperatures, but once thawing is complete, the turbine is restarted free of ice.
https://www.iqpc.com/media/1001147/37957.pdf
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In Canada they have some turbines not actually connected to anything. They just spin around for “show” and the operator bills the government for the act. Bit like some of the “power” generated by actual turbines. Remove the base load and the peaking plants and see if they can generate any power stand-alone.
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>”All we need is 12km/hr to initiate”
Not necessarily from what I’ve been reading.
There a distinction to be made:
Yes, a turbine can generate at well below Nominal Power where 12 kph = 3.33 m/s. But that is only the cut-in speed for the turbine.
No, a turbine generating at 12 kph does not necessarily meet the grid operator’s power quality requirement at grid connection.
See #7.2.1.1.1
https://joannenova.com.au/2024/05/we-have-world-class-windless-weather-today-95-of-wind-turbines-on-the-continent-of-australia-are-failing/#comment-2768543
An example of the stipulated power quality requirements for grid connection are in the comment following that but nothing as relates to wind speed that I can see. Here again:
GRID CODES FOR RENEWABLE POWERED SYSTEM
https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2022/Apr/IRENA_Grid_Codes_Renewable_Systems_2022.pdf
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At 3 tonnes of CO2 per person per year just breathing, 1.4Billion Chinese could hold every tenth breath and match our entire Australian CO2 output. No need to do anything. They need to be a bit calmer.
It just shows how insignificant our entire CO2 output is!
So why are we investing so much money in devices which are not fit for purpose, far too expensive, environmentally devastating and which create a CO2 debt for a decade for a mere 8 years of useful life at which point we have to do it all again?
It’s a form of madness pushed by the evil UN. 80,000 people looking for wages from Climate Change. The Peace business is simply not profitable enough.
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Hey Bowen. No battery or even series of batteries can store enough energy for a prolonged wind drought. Base load power is essential you dolt.
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Just need batteries, right?
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Everyone should have to build and operate a woodfired oven (pizza oven is another word).
It is a fun way to learn how furnaces work, which you can than equate to the problem with unreliable power. You have to heat the mass of the oven which takes quite a bit of undertaking and fuel, but it then runs quite efficiently, and you can cook a week’s worth of meat and bread in one session, and you can easily keep it going, but to start from scratch is effort and you cant just turn it up or down or on or off, you get it going and ride it out.
Once you realise this, you see how electricity generation works, that while you have the oven going there’s no point in using the electric oven, or stove top or microwave. You use the wood oven because it makes perfect sense, to do otherwise is grossly inefficient. If you have to have baseload, you don’t need or want the rest.
It’s one of the things that woke me up to the farce of solar and wind.
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Just add a pizza stone to your conventional oven and see how much longer the oven takes to “pre-heat”
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Great item. The large high pressure system is something that is often mentioned here ,and here we are again. Each one will have more impact as we travel down the the wind power doom loop.
Personally I have stopped caring. I hope they push on and crash the system big time. Any major Oz city will be zombieland after a few days of no power. Maybe the powers that be will wake up then, if they havent been eaten.
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Solar wind turbines.
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And I agree. A decent blackout would cut across all this insane logic about windmills and solar panels supplying power. Too many people trust politicians and lawyers, a group who are as innumerate as they are illogical. Main chancers, they are along for the Climate Change ride.
Especially Greens leader Adam Bandt who has absolutely zero interest in ecology. He finally found a party which would give him a path to his communist dreams. He and Albanese thought The Voice was going to be a great first step to an absolute dictatorship. Damn those deplorables. You can fool some of the people some of the time.
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Out of deference to my neighbours (and possibly Jo) please ensure the testamentary blackout takes place in the NEM not the SWIS
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Inevitably, one hot summer’s afternoon as solar PV is decaying, a big coal unit will trip and NSW will be immediately launched into rolling “load shedding” in 4 hour chunks. I reckon that after a few days of that, public sentiment will under-go a seismic shift.
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Unfortunately I agree with you.
The idiots on the ruinables quest will not admit that their dream utopia is just that, a dream, until it crashes and crashes hard.
It’s a pity that the rest of us will suffer but the sooner it happens the sooner they will have to change course.
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I agree with you entirely except for one factor, the stupidity of the politicians and the gullibility of the people. The response to a major crash of the system by our politicians is not “ Oh the system has crashed maybe we should look at a different pathway “ but “ Oh the system has crashed we have to transition to 100% quicker. Let’s declare a climate emergency, confiscate the land we need , and build back faster, spare the expense. If we don’t climate change will kill us all! “ To which the gullible public say “ Oh , Great and wonderful politicians , we don’t care what the cost just save us from this global boiling and these deniers who are trying to destroy the earth and our one chance of survival. “
Unfortunately despite some common sense being there on the Voice by the public on this topic they are too far indoctrinated to see clarity. The thought of Greens being in control in a Labor minority parliament after the next election gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. I just can’t see even extended blackouts waking up enough voters to make a difference.
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I tend agree with your dark outlook. Look at Argentina, and how far they had to slump before they did something sensible. Yet still almost half of them want to continue on their previous path of ruin!
I listen to green minded people on youtube quite a bit, and they are so indoctrinated, so simplistic in their thoughts, I doubt anything could sway them.
But, most people are not green minded at all, just uninterested in complicated topics like electricity production. Which gives me some hope, with reservations. But once the reality of no power strikes, I wouldn’t say they won’t wake up, it’s a huge shock.
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Not “extended blackouts” but black starts. This nightmare when happening will kill many people – imagine NSW or Vic under black start Marshall Law (required to try and control looting as food and water supplies rapidly dwindle).
Minns (NSW) has read enough tea leaves to grasp the import of this. It’s why he’s now subsidising the Eraring Power Station to stay online while simultaneously subsidising the wind and solar market to push coal-fired stations like Eraring out of existence.
And the punctuating “nudges” from AEMO (every 2 or 3 months) are deliberately designed to push development of wind and solar even harder. It’s just part of the ideological marketing campaign, not a push to apply planning logic.
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A “Black Start” is every power engineer’s nightmare. When the grid goes black, everything that was connected, is still connected.
Most of those connected loads were/are inductive, ie motors or other magnetic field devices. They require reactive power to support the magnetic fields. Some 4 to 6 times their running requirements, simply to start them up. Where does one get “4 to 6 times the grid you had when the grid went black?”
Restarting a black grid is no simple task. The grid must be segmented into subgrids that “can” be restarted. Residential grids have resistive loads, water heaters, cooktops/stoves, etc. , which are “real” or “active” loads. Those loads are necessary to stabilize a generator that is trying to energize a “dead” system. When synchronous generators start up, it is standard to assume the majority generators are “seeing” a non-inductive load (small power factor angle, approaching zero degrees), and then incorporate a capable swing generator to provide the necessary reactive power. This is one way to solve the complex, iterative, solutions, that are required in real time, to avoid loss of voltage and frequency stability. The Industrial Grid cannot be restarted until enough generators are online and synchronized and have enough collective, dispatchable, reactive power, to satisfy those loads. Otherwise, the grid would simply collapse again. Can’t cheat the maths.
It has never been demonstrated that a Black Start is possible with an intermittent generation base. Probably because it can’t be done.
What is clear to me, is that the people making the political decisions regarding Energy, have Zero knowledge of AC power generation, transmission, distribution, reliability, dispatchability, stability, or economics. The most stupid way to achieve anything, is to empower people who bear no price for being wrong. But, here we are.
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No-one has done a “black start” in NSW. It might take them a week to get us all back up and running. I recommend everyone micro-grid their house to at least run a fridge and water pump if in rural areas.
My ute has a 100AmpHr deep cycle fridge battery and I have a folding PV array with MMPT charge controller. A house would need something twice the size plus a small inverter. It’s expensive but easy to do. You would do well to get a sparky to ensure you have a suitable circuit breaker AND a fuse if running DC inside your house because it is quite good at heating up thin wires, arcing and setting fire to things.
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IF a black start is required, it will take weeks to months, to years, to accomplish.
Society has a stability of 3 to 7 days. After that, there is no food, water, sanitation, transportation, etc.
Social collapse is the end result of ignorant energy policy, and many lives. It isn’t a video game with a restart option.
How can people be so stupid as to risk their very lives upon empty promises from ignorant and arrogant asses who pay no price for being wrong?
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I’m interested to learn more about this “black start” issue. Not many NSW units have self start capacity. I’m guessing a gas turbine unit or hydro would be an option but first the whole grid would need to be isolated out into controllable islands. Simple things like charging mobile phones and the Telstra network might be critical to coordinating the reboot in which case we’d need to have trailer mounted diesel generators to get comms back up first. I might ask Mt Piper what their contingency plans are as my son works there.
Are we not being overly pessimistic though? If an old coal unit fails suddenly, they rapidly isolate it and the grid operator has to make rapid adjustments which could include rolling 4hr power outages. Even if a damaging super grid phase ripple triggered other units to isolate in domino effect, they’d still be up and running and powering their own crushers and blowers. You can idle a big coal unit for weeks.
War or sabotage or a super CME might be a different scenario.
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Let’s clarify something. There is a Black Start of an individual generating plant and then there is Black Grid Start, now called “Grid Restoration”. My intention was to address a fully blacked out grid restart.
Assuming that enough auxiliary generators exist at a power plant to supply the pumps, blowers, controls, etc, that would enable a power plant to start up, unloaded and disconnected from the general grid, it is quite another thing to re-energize the transmission lines and larger grid.
Let’s say you had a 50 GW grid that collapsed, totally, at a power factor of 0.8. That means when the collapse happened, a 40 GW active load and a 30 GW reactive load were being supplied by a system of synchronized generators. The connected loads are essentially inductive loads. To start an induction motor, it takes 4 to 6 times the running load in order to initiate rotation, for a second or two, but if that inrush power requirement isn’t met, the motor doesn’t start and/or the generator disconnects to protect itself from overcurrent damage as required by the protective relaying devices.
So, to instantly reconnect power to the entire grid, one would require some 200 GW to 300 GW of generation capacity. That isn’t realistically possible. So, the only way to restart the entire grid is to segment it into pieces that the existing generation can supply successfully, and in such a way that other generators can connect in parallel and in phase (synchronize) and then attempt to add more grid segments and more generators until the entire grid is powered again and running stably.
The difficulty here is that in the GW range of supply or load demand, some diesel gensets are incapable of making even a tiny dent in the situation. Each power plant needs its own generators to power the auxiliary equipment to start up the power plant. It is bootstrapping itself into operation. Steam thermal plants may take 12 hours or more to reach operating temperature and allow for controlled expansion of piping and thermal stabilization of boilers and turbines. Depends on the temperature of the metals at the time of attempted restart.
The next issue is how to segment existing transmission lines, substations, and distribution such that an available power plant can connect without tripping offline again. Then, other generators have to synchronize and decisions have to be made as to which generator unit at which power plant is to provide the reactive power needed to maintain voltage on the transmission lines.
The wind/solar generators are not capable of assisting the thermal generators until after a grid segment is successfully energized.
All of the various coordination and manual isolation of subgrids could take days to weeks. A full grid restart is a nightmare. I’m not sure it can be done at all without significant loss of life, goods, equipment, etc. That’s why one does not “poke the bear” to see what happens. This is why closing down any remaining coal/gas/nuclear/hydro generation is incredibly stupid. A full wind/solar grid is simply not possible at present or the forseeable future. Grid scale power is to be appreciated and revered that it works at all.
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The Greens next plan will be wind turbines in space, connected to the grid by long fibre optic cables.
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My solar wind turbines was meant to be here. Sorry.
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Solar panels in space! Microwave link to earth somehow. I read about this in 1980!
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Inverse square law for point source power projection.
The power delivered is the inverse square of the distance from the source.
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Forces/isq.html
No radiative power source can ever overcome the physics. Space based power is idiocy in action.
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Love big high-pressure cells that just sit over the continent, sometimes for many days or weeks. Brings beautiful clear, still conditions. No, or very little wind keeps the temperatures this time of year nicely above average. Though clear still nights mean cold frosty mornings in the south, followed by gently increasing temperatures into great late Autumn days to enjoy the outdoors.
Bring on more high-pressure conditions!
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Blackout Bowen was just on ABC 7:30 badmouthing the (as yet non-corporeal) coalition nuclear policy. (paraphrasing:) “Look if you want to take the country down that path, you have to be upfront about where the reactors will go, and how much it’s going to cost.”
One wonders if the same warnings were given about ruinables.
There were further restatements of the CSIRO GenCost report being the bees’ knees and about nuclear being the most expensive form to build and operate. Even if that were true, there was unsurprisingly no admission that one feature you get for the increased price tag is reliability.
Blackout Bowen ridiculed the fears about blackouts by saying that every time a major report predicts a danger of blackouts the system responds to the warnings by making investments to prevent the blackouts and that’s why they don’t happen. Again one wonders how Mr Bowen could have missed that half the reason the federal opposition is touting a nuclear strategy is precisely to respond to warnings of blackouts. But that type of investment is out of favour with Mr Bowen.
That this interview took place on a day of an unusually widespread lull in wind power is perhaps a sign that nature has a sense of humour.
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How much industrial load was shed?
Load shedding hides blackouts. And these are the most expensive blackouts when lost production is accounted for;
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Just as the wind drought hits, day length falls, so solar cuts out earlier.
Not good if you need power at night.
But then, should they not have thought of this?
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Don’t forget that this wind lull has been going on for almost this entire month and played a huge role in the insane NEM spot prices recorded earlier this month. AEMO instituted administered pricing controls (APC) in NSW on the 8th of May because of excessively high spot prices (<450MW of NSW wind during the high prices). The APC, which caps prices at $600, lasted a week which artificially suppressed another week's worth of potential high prices. Only once one of the Eraring units returned to service did the high price risk dissipate.
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Wind Power Capacity Factor for the whole of last week was 10.33%, the lowest recording for wind generation in all the time I have been keeping data, and probably, the lowest it has ever been.
Capacity Factor (from now on just CF) has been (very conveniently) sidelined as being of any importance in this whole debate on if wind power is of any use.
When I started collating and writing up the daily data for wind generation, (and that was 295 weeks ago now, so more than five and a half years) the total Nameplate for wind was 5301MW.
It’s now 11,409MW. so it has increased by 6108MW, or 115%.
So, quite naturally, as wind Nameplate increases, then the actual generation of power (energy in GWH) delivered to the grid also increases, so saying it was a week of lower than average power generation is difficult to show, so the only REAL metric which can be used for the sake of comparison is in fact that CF percentage.
Only twice in those last 295 weeks, five and a half years plus has that CF for wind been lower than 20% across a whole week. That’s because there are always days when wind generation is high in EVERY week across that time, so that’s why the average CF for wind has always been relatively close to that 30% figure. So. just twice has it been below 20%, and the lowest percentage for a whole week was 17%, and that was a little over four years ago, one week in all that time.
For the last seven MONTHS, every week for 30 weeks now (since 29OCT2023) that average CF for wind has fallen EVERY week. It was at a high of 30.41%, and is now, as of yesterday, 26May2024 at 29.90%, the first time it has been fallen back below 30% for more than four years, other than for a short time two years back when it ‘blipped lower’, and consistently rising since then.
As newer and more efficient, and larger turbines come on line at the most recently opened wind plants, then, quite naturally, you would expect that the CF for wind generation would begin to rise, and in fact, those ‘gung ho’ wind supporters actually tell us that will happen, and it will rise quite quickly, as (they are also saying) that there is just ….. no way that wind CF is as low as 30%.
In fact, as those newer plants do come on line the exact ….. opposite is happening, as the most recent 52 week yearly CF percentage is LOWER than the full long term average. In fact that yearly CF percentage is now 28.7%, a full 1.2% lower than the longer term CF, the lowest that percentage has ever been.
CF for last week – 10.33%
CF for 295 weeks – 29.90%
CF for 52 weeks – 28.71%
And you wonder why wind supporters ‘play down’ CF percentages ….. well, yeah mate, but Capacity Factor doesn’t mean all that much really.
If ANYTHING else performed this badly, it would be laughed out of existence.
And go to the Aneroid site, and click on wind generation, and when that opens up, look at the power generation for each of these last seven days. Then, as you look at each of those minute power generation totals, just glance across at the right and look at the Synoptic charts for each of those days you’re looking at.
See there, for each day a very large high pressure weather system hovering over that area where almost two thirds of the total Nameplate for wind power is located, the SE of South Australia, and Central Western Victoria. When those Highs sit directly over all that wind Nameplate, the ‘fundament’ falls out of wind generation, and if two thirds of wind Nameplate is way lower, then the overall is also way down as well, naturally.
If you ask me ….. that looks pretty much like an ‘Uh Oh!’ moment, and hey, am I the only one who can see that. I’m an effing nobody here, and I can see what hundreds of wind plant supporters assiduously avoid looking at.
As I’ve said so often now, if wind power is the answer, then someone’s asking the wrong d@mned question.
Link to my latest weekly Post on wind generation
Tony.
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Thanks Tony. Science used to be based on facts derived from data analysis as you report, instead we now get trust me, renewables are “cheaper”.
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Lies, damned lies and statistics
Go to the table at the right of the graph on the NEM for “AVERAGE” value in $/Mwh
https://opennem.org.au/energy/nem/?range=3d&interval=30m&view=discrete-time
To compare “Unreliables” with “Reliables” you have to add “Battery Charging” and “Battery Discharging” to the value of solar and wind.
However, current capacity of “Battery Discharging” is minute at 0.3% of contribution.
Until this gets to around at least 10% no more coal fired power stations should (or could) be shut down.
Now we need to work out the cost and supply lead time to achieve this target.
https://opennem.org.au/energy/nem/?range=3d&interval=30m&view=discrete-time
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Amazing! ‘Rejoicing’?
See the website: ventusky.com
Winds around the world are 5 to 20 km/h (or 40 off Japan and the Philippines.
Extraordinary !
I have never seen that nor in the forecasts made for the following days!!
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Am curious to know if that was a northern hemisphere thing. There possibly being an effect on coriolis forces that was the opposite way around in each hemisphere from the changes to the electro magnetic contribution to or braking of rotations by the daily Carnegie curve of atmospheric electrical ionospheric discharge. This having been upset by the solar magnetic storms that caused the Aurora.
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Speaking from my high school geography, Australia is predominantly in the Horse latitudes, which are from 20 to 30 degrees South, and 20 to 30 degrees North. On the East coast this is about from Mackay to Grafton. These are low wind areas and are the location of much of the world’s great deserts. Not terribly good for wind power generation, on average. Tasmania though is in the Roaring Forties, not a bad spot quite often, but the ‘howling fifties and screaming sixties are mostly Oceanic, in the Southern Hemisphere.
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The subtropical ridge (high pressure belt) is too far south and strong, this is the problem.
http://www.bom.gov.au/fwo/IDY65100.pdf
Also, the phenomenon is happening in both hemispheres, the Omega Block is a prime example.
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Props to ya Jo.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/trust-sciencethat-just-retracted-11000-peer-reviewed-papers
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Opinion:
The commentators on zerohedge many times seriously degrade the value of the actual article.
Nevertheless, may Jo receive more positive publicity.
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Great contribution, Tony From Oz. There is so little information in this critical area.
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@Tony
One wonders if this decade plus old paper plays out in OZ down stream of those wind farms?
https://news.mit.edu/2010/climate-wind-0312
One also wonders how much hotter it would be at, and downwind, of a 1,000-acre solar farm?
Should we coin the term “Suburban Heat Island”?
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The new suburban lot size which creates roof to roof (mostly) metal surfaces to capture heat and excludes the possibility of natural greenery, goes a long way to the heat island creation.
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Pressure on a world map can be seen here:
https://www.radar-live.com/p/atmospheric-pressure.html#google_vignette
Drag the North Island of NZ to the center of the view and the High Pressure centers and the entire zone is highlighted in shades of brown.
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Australia is also experiencing “Dunkelflaute”
At least there is some solar generation peaking at noon when it is least required.
In 2017 Germany experienced 5 weeks of very low wind in winter when solar power generation is next to zero
They had some nuclear power back then but this has been turned off.
https://energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&year=2017&week=02&source=public
This now makes sense!
https://reneweconomy.com.au/in-germany-a-wind-farm-is-dismantled-to-make-way-for-expanded-lignite-coal-mine/#:
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Global warming is leading to less wind.
You know they will argue that.
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Less wind, more wind, back-to-front wind, turbulent wind, even wind that goes round in circles… never seen before… ever… CL!M@TE CH@NGE!
Tilting at windmills in 2024 🙄
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They didn’t consider the possibility of climate change impacting wind, massive fail.
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Just curious. Does Australia have a word for these windless period?. In Europe I think they use the term “Dunkelflaute” for dark windless periods.
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In Australia they tend to be sunny windless periods – perfect for firing up the wood fired or gas fired BBQ.
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We call it Autumn. Happens every year.
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We still don’t understand the global energy required to include and even understand AI and Mark Mills has been trying to wake us up for years.
Thanks to Jo Nova for trying to also wake us up for a long time and ditto Tony from OZ and others.
Here’s a recent talk from Mark Mills and many graphs and heaps of data and TOXIC, UNRELIABLE W & S must be abandoned ASAP and we must build only RELIABLE BASE-LOAD energy for our future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_FfFm8T3S8&t=1217s
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Saddest part is this forces the windmills onto our mountain ranges; the last habitat refuges of our amazing wild animals.
Why no public debate?
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because environmentalism is not about environmentalism. Its a facade for antiwesternism / communist philosophy.
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I’m shocked that there’s concern being raised about lack of wind when we have heaps of batteries to fill the gap.
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Yes those batteries just charge themselves.
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Been driving past immobile wind turbines now for weeks. Literally hundreds of them in the area between Ballarat and Geelong in Victoria. Plus I can more to the west as I drive. The only good thing about windless conditions is that it’s perfect to erect new turbines. Which is happening near the small township of Rokewood. All I can say is thank god for coal.
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The further this energy debacle progresses, the more desperate the proposals are getting.
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In Germany the average wind capacity factor is only 20% vs 30% in Australia PLUS periods of Dunkelflaute can last up to 5 weeks in winter when solar is next to zero
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/05/26/german-green-movement-a-run-amok-at-the-expense-of-people-and-nature/
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At 8am, QLD was exporting power to ALL the Eastern states.
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You just have to laugh every time someone from labor cries, ‘but nuclear is too expensive’, think about this, since when has anything at all been ‘too expensive’ for labor.
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We should not let the nuclear power issue (which Quadrant contributor Peter Smith describes as ‘political theatre’) distract us from the real issues — namely, calling out the climate scam; dropping all subsidies and grants; pushing back against the leftist media’s relentless climate propaganda; and providing consumers with the cheapest possible power. What do we hear from the opposition on these issues?
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Of course we’re different! After all, we’re a renewable energy superpower aren’t we … aren’t we? 🤣
.
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‘Renewable Energy Superpower’, will we keep hearing this stupid meme while the lights go out as we shuffle the Titanic deckchairs.
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Germany went all out on renewables like solar and wind but it ‘died in the bum’ or as the saying goes in Germany: starb im Hintern. Anyway Germany learned its lesson the hard way and had to bring coal and nuclear back into the mix to keep the lights on. But back in Australia energy guru Chris Bowen wants to ignore the hard facts of failure of going all renewables and is driving his Titanic energy policy full steam ahead but with a bit of a life preserver from some retired old coal burners and the still functioning Wanaaring. Of course the Energy Minister thinks that when the all renewables Titanic can finally stay afloat then he’ll flog the old coal burners for scrap. Dumb idea Mr Bowen!
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https://www.base.bund.de/EN/ns/nuclear-phase-out/nuclear-phase-out_node.html#:
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Jo,
Wonderfully written.
Hi All,
Just to add to Anton’s superbly detailed reply above, I discussed this phenomenon in a paper that I was fortunate to see published back in 2012.
The operational data for April-May 2024 presented above is not some sort of once-in-a-century outlier. In fact, it occurs to a greater or lesser extent every year at this time. There is a phenomenon, well-known to meteorologists, called the passage of the Southern Hemisphere Sub-tropical Ridge.
As I wrote in my 2012 paper:
“The occurrence of this type of event at the same time of the year in 2010 (18 – 21 May), is also apparent from an examination of Figure 3. Meteorologists (Clark, [28], Miskelly, [29], Wikipedia [30], Carberry et al [31]), indicate that this may be due to the migration of the Sub-Tropical Ridge across the southern portion of the Eastern Australian grid, the region in which the reported wind farms are located. This is a region of high pressure and hence stable, calm air. It migrates latitudinally across Australia during the Autumn and Spring periods. In the Spring it migrates from a position slightly north of the 30th parallel southward towards the pole. In the Autumn it moves northward again. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subtropical_ridge .
In the Australian context, the following link at the Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology site is both helpful and authoritative:
http://www.bom.gov.au/lam/climate/levelthree/ausclim/ausclimsa.htm .
The occurrence of such periods of fine weather, extended in both time and geographic extent, shows the inadvisability of building wind farms to replace coal-fired base load power stations.
The presence of 50,000 or even 100,000 windmills across eastern Australia during such fine-weather events would also yield very little output, because there is no wind anywhere within such high pressure systems during these periods (see the Appendix for an analysis).”
The full paper is still available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1260/0958-305X.23.8.1233.
In that paper I was reporting on wind farm performance using actual AEMO operational data for calendar year 2010. In hindsight, quite unknowingly, I was reporting on what was a similarly-extended period of very calm weather that occurred in the Autumn of that year, so this year’s occurrence can by no means be regarded as unusual, or due to so-called “climate change”. My parents’ generation used to call it “Indian Summer”. It is one of the more pleasant facts of life in living in temperate-zone Australia.
As “Ross” says above, in Australia we call it “Autumn” – that time of year when we experience what is generally glorious sunny, warm, calm weather, which has the characteristic that there is no wind anywhere.
For ‘Dunkelflaute’, in the Australian context, more recently, contributor Rafe Champion has coined the term “wind droughts”, which I think is helpful.
Beautifully written, Jo. And thanks for pointing out that, coincidentally with Eastern Australia, and for exactly the same reasons, wind generation is also pathetic in WA as well.
Regards,
Paul Miskelly
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Our Genius Energy Minister has a solution for this problem
An interconnector(s) with the WA Electricity Grid – Cost? Who cares its only taxpayer’s money!
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There is a reason this has never been considered,..and it is not only distance !
…..The WA grid generation capacity is tiny compared to the East coast !
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But we should not let the nuclear power issue (which Quadrant contributor Peter Smith describes as ‘political theatre’) divert our attention from the real issues — namely, calling out the climate scam; dropping all subsidies and grants; pushing back against the leftist media’s relentless climate propaganda, and providing consumers with the cheapest possible power. What do we hear from the opposition on these issues?
00
Idea: put solar panels on top of each turbine. Boom. Problem solved.
😆
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Two fails in the one spot, brilliant.
40
[…] Wind Australia. Source JoNova Government idiocy Intermittent Wind and Solar […]
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Not enough wind – but then there is too much wind!
In September 2017 Hurricanes Irma and Maria destroyed hundreds of wind turbines across Puerto Rico. And typhoons have clocked up plenty of turbine ‘kills’ in both Taiwan and Japan.
On America’s Great Plains, you can forget about getting any power from these things when the wind picks up.
Wind speeds barely need to reach gale force and these things go into automatic shutdown, as appears on German turbine maker, Siemen’s website – which has this to say about the automatic shutdown of wind turbines when wind speeds hit 25m/s (90km/h):
It was precisely that feature of their ‘design’ that led to South Australia’s Statewide blackout on 28 September 2016.
https://stopthesethings.com/2024/05/27/tornado-terror-giant-industrial-wind-turbines-no-match-for-americas-twisters/
30
Great time of year for those of us that love a bit of floundering – close to zero wind after dark, wading the shallows with an underwater light and spear can be very productive at times. Power from windmills: not so much.
We are living in an absolute clownword but without the humour. Nation wrecking madness that will produce no environmental benefits whatsoever – quite the contrary when you look at the amount of land required just for this junk’s nameplate power to match that of our coal power stations, let alone the pitiful actual power produced. Not to mention the minced up eagles, owls and bats…
So if these windmills/solar panels lead to a net increase in co2 ’emissions’ over their full, short lifecycles, what is the point exactly? The only thing I can come up with is to greatly reduce our living standards, turn us into slaves and greatly increase the wealth of those selling the crap and those approving it.
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Neat, on target summary David.
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That will be that wind problem caused by climate change that is making the planes more difficult to fly straight, yeah?: https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/radionational-breakfast/turbulence-increasing-but-becoming-hard-to-predict-pilot-says/103900142
Cool story bro’
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cross posted/linked at 95% of wind mills on the continent of Australia are failing
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[…] From JoNova […]
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” World class windless country”.
Nearly as good as Germany.
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This is when you switch on those twice as expensive $KWh nuclear reactors – instead of using them full time.
10
When will people get there is no transition to renewables? Never will be.
The cost of the renewables will be in ADDITION to the normal grid costs until we have economical batteries power dense enough to take up the slack of the intermittency of “renewables”.
Would LOVE to hear more from Dave – it was the substance of his assertions in conversation with Topher, particularly the lack of the hotspot in the equatorial upper troposphere that flipped me.
20
Economical and safe. Just as the EV fires can’t be put out even if they started in the ICE parked next to them, the combination of roof top solar and batteries is just too likely to go wrong regardless of where the fire starts. The idea is beyond dead for the foreseeable future.
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[…] published JoNova; Remember all those assurances that the wind always blows somewhere? Not so much on the night of […]
00
And all this nonsense to solve a non-problem! Sheer madness & incompetence of the first order.
In the absence of empirical evidence proving the case against CO2 (there is none!), here’s the basics for a sensible Energy Policy. One that’s fair to all concerned; is market driven; works from the consumers interests back, NOT from the energy industry’s interests forward that, if adopted, would solve this problem virtually overnight – A sensible Energy Policy that:
• Is technology agnostic (fears & favours none!);
• Removes current anti-competitive subsidies favouring the unreliables – ie a level playing field for ALL;
• Requires industry to comply with clearly defined QOS (Quality of Service) standards of reliability & availability (i.e.; 99.98% reliability as per current AEMO specs);
• Invites industry to commit by way of auction (a day, week or a month in advance of the offered opportunity) to provide reliable 24/7, base load power at their best competitive price(s);
• Imposes SUBSTANTIAL financial penalties upon power generators for any failure to deliver in accord with mandatory QOS obligations (Force Majeure notwithstanding eg earth quakes, floods, bushfires, tornados etc);
• Requires a substantial bond to restore the environment (i.e.; recycle aged solar-PV’s & wind turbine blades etc as is already common place within the coal mining industry);
• Repeals anti-competitive CO2 legislation (i.e., Safeguard Mechanism, LRET, RET etc).
Thus, let market forces prevail on a level playing field.
The Greens can invest in their perceived market opportunities associated with the ‘unreliables’ plus ‘firming’ added (by way of batteries, Snowy 2 or what-ever but at their cost) to ensure they meet their QOS reliability obligations.
Whereas others might be a titch more circumspect & invest in proven, reliable, base-load fossil fuel technologies, short term.
Longer term, in nuclear, assuming of course that the current ban is repealed & nuclear is cost competitive V’s competing technologies.
Easy.
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