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numerobis

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1850 on: August 03, 2017, 05:47:38 PM »
I'm not sure where up North you were Terry, but it's generally very windy in Nunavut and Nunavik. You might just have gotten lucky!

TerryM

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1851 on: August 03, 2017, 06:04:16 PM »
I'm not sure where up North you were Terry, but it's generally very windy in Nunavut and Nunavik. You might just have gotten lucky!


No where near as far north as yourself. Alaska in the 1960's and Chisasibi in May of 2006. The windiest I've experienced was South East Labrador in May/June of 2007. They placed a huge boulder on top of a 2x4 skid to keep it from getting airborne.


The first turbine I saw was north of Barstow California in a gusty Mohave desert local. It blew down after about 5 years & made one hell of a mess. They later erected a test facility for thermal solar near the spot. It survived until the tax breaks broke.  ???


2 or 3 weeks isn't anywhere near long enough to get a feel for a location and that is what my northern jaunts have been limited to. I'm relieved to hear that my experiences are not the norm.


Terry

ghoti

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1852 on: August 04, 2017, 02:44:21 PM »
Just saw this renewable energy announcement by the Canadian minister of environment and climate change:

https://twitter.com/ec_minister/status/893450247187431424

Small first nations community in the NWT installed a small PV system - 144 panels would be less than 50kW but they are sell power back. This suggests a battery would help.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1853 on: August 06, 2017, 03:47:34 PM »
Massive Wind Farm in Oklahoma Set to Become Nation's Largest, Second Biggest in the World
https://www.ecowatch.com/oklahoma-wind-farm-2466156733.amp.html

Growth-Starved Utilities Have Found a New Way to Make Money
Quote
Here’s how it works: Some utilities that for years contracted to buy electricity from wind and solar farm owners are now shifting away from these so-called power purchase agreements, or PPAs. They’re instead seeking approval from state regulators to buy the assets outright and recover the costs from customers through rates. While the takeovers are being branded as a cheaper way of securing power, saving ratepayers millions in the end, they also guarantee profits for utilities.
Quote
NextEra has already gotten Florida’s go-ahead to recover the costs of the solar farms its Florida utility is building through customer rates.

Should AEP gain similar approvals, the utility will be embarking on its most expensive renewable energy project yet, underscoring a dramatic shift in America’s power mix. Once the largest consumer of coal in the U.S., AEP is now shuttering money-losing plants burning the fuel and diversifying its resources along with the rest of the utility sector.

The Wind Catcher farm in Oklahoma is set to become the largest wind farm in the nation and the second-biggest in the world, according Invenergy.

AEP estimated that the low cost of wind power will save customers $7 billion over 25 years. Construction on the farm began in 2016, and the plant is scheduled to go into service in mid-2020, Invenergy said by email.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-26/aep-to-spend-4-5-billion-on-the-largest-wind-farm-in-the-u-s
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1854 on: August 06, 2017, 03:55:36 PM »
“Exactly. If you're not seeing ships off Long Island putting up hundreds of wind turbines in the next few years, something is seriously wrong”
https://twitter.com/cityatlas/status/893844983756845056
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Bob Wallace

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1855 on: August 06, 2017, 06:27:28 PM »
Quote
While the takeovers are being branded as a cheaper way of securing power, saving ratepayers millions in the end, they also guarantee profits for utilities.

Another good sign.  Wind farms are now mainstream enough that utilities want to earn them rather than sharing profits with third parties.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1856 on: August 07, 2017, 03:38:35 PM »
Ikea begins selling solar panels and home batteries in the UK
Quote
Ikea is getting into the domestic solar power generation and storage market in the UK, with new solar panel and home storage battery system products. The products include panels that integrated with existing roofing solutions provided by Solarcentury, a UK solar power company, which includes a 25 year guarantee on the panels themselves, as well as s six-year warranty on installation and every aspect of the system hardware.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/02/ikea-begins-selling-solar-panels-and-home-batteries-in-the-uk/amp/
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Bob Wallace

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1857 on: August 09, 2017, 11:51:13 PM »
The 2016 Wind Technology Market Report has been released. 

https://energy.gov/eere/wind/downloads/2016-wind-technologies-market-report

The PPA average price continues to fall.  The PPA price includes subsidies, owner profits, and other costs that might not be included in a LCOE so it's hard to calculate the actual cost of generation.  But assuming a 20 year PPA (some are 25 or 30) and a 2.3 cent/kWh Production Tax Credit for the first ten years production it looks like the cost of generating electricity in the Midwest is now under $0.03/kWh - unsubsidized.



And look how wind is cheaper than NG.  Install wind - save fuel costs.  And the price of wind is locked in for the life of the PPA (20 to 30 years).  That's a lot of protection against rising gas prices, even protection from inflation if NG stays the same in normative dollars.

CF for turbines installed in 2014 and 2015 averaged 42.5%.  That's a huge jump up from the 32.1% for turbines installed between 2004 and 2011.

Wind is on track to supply 10% of US electricity by 2020.  That's good news but we need to push harder.  We need to make sure we have a federal government assisting renewables after 2020.


Sigmetnow

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1858 on: August 10, 2017, 03:49:51 PM »
Moved from the Batteries thread.

Japan’s Renewable-Energy Revolution
Quote
Japan's approach to stewardship of its land and water resources is distinct from that of the U.S. As an island nation with a millennia-long history, the concepts of reuse, repurposing and multiple use are intrinsic to Japanese culture. In 2011, the Tohoku earthquake and subsequent Fukushima nuclear disaster caused Japan to reassess its dependence on nuclear power as a primary source of electricity generation. Building renewable-energy capacity, predominantly in the form of photovoltaic projects, is one answer in the nation's quest for alternatives.

These images, from a series of flights over the Tokyo and Kobe/Osaka regions of Japan, show a range of photovoltaic projects on former golf courses, quarries, dams, man-made islands and floating projects on ponds and reservoirs.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/photo-essays/2017-07-13/japan-s-renewable-energy-revolution

Many more photos at the link. 

Here:
Top: The 16Mw Nasu-Minami Eco Farm Photovoltaic Power Plant was built on a former golf resort in the mountains.
Bottom: A 5Mw solar farm sits off the angled base of the Kotani Dam in Hyugo Prefecture.
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ghoti

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1859 on: August 10, 2017, 06:08:30 PM »
That is the best use for a golf course I've ever seen.

Bob Wallace

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1860 on: August 11, 2017, 09:11:06 AM »
Quote

Wyoming's Joint Interim Revenue Committee voted against a proposal to increase the state's tax on wind production today.

"We don't have anyone knocking down our doors to come into Carbon County and provide jobs for our people other than the wind energy project," said state Rep. Jerry Paxton, adding that a tax increase could kill those opportunities.


Jerry Paxton, a Republican in a largely Republican state.  Wind has built political power.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1861 on: August 13, 2017, 03:08:18 AM »
Solar Installations are Cropping Up on Farms Across the Country
Quote
In some parts of the South, solar arrays have proved more lucrative to farmers than cash crops like cotton, soybeans and peanuts, which have seen falling prices in recent years. In North Carolina, solar companies pay rents up to $1,400 an acre, which is far more than what most farmers could earn from planting crops or raising livestock.

“There is not a single crop that we could have grown on that land that would generate the income that we get from the solar farm,” Dawson Singletary, a North Carolina tobacco grower, told Bloomberg. Singletary leased part of his land to a local solar developer. He says the income has helped him keep his farm.

Just as solar can be a boon to farming operations, farmers can help keep solar arrays online. A Texas solar firm contracted a breeder to deploy dozens of sheep to mow the grass at at an installation near San Antonio. The panels generate power and provide shade to the sheep, and the sheep keep the grass from growing so tall it obscures the panel. Sheep are particularly well-suited to this task because, unlike goats, they won’t chew on cables or climb atop the panels. ...
http://projectearth.us/solar-installations-are-cropping-up-on-farms-across-the-1797629479

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Bob Wallace

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1862 on: August 14, 2017, 05:56:22 PM »
Quote

SolarReserve, the California-based developer that bundles CSP towers, PV and molten-salt storage, won a contract to supply the South Australian government with dispatchable solar for between AUS 7.5 and 7.8 cents per kilowatt-hour.

That amounts to USD 6 cents per kilowatt-hour -- a price lower than SolarReserve's planned project in Copiapó, Chile, which was bid at 6.3 cents per kilowatt-hour earlier this year.

The Aurora project in South Australia features 8 hours of molten-salt storage; the Copiapó project in Chile features 13 hours of storage.

In the years since photovoltaics became the cheapest solar technology, concentrating solar power developers have realized their projects probably can't compete without complimentary storage.

As a result, they've moved to markets around the world with a very specific set of dispatchability needs: Australia, Chile, China and South Africa.

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/solarreserve-inks-deal-with-south-australia-to-supply-solar-thermal-power-w


If SolarReserve can deliver then this is a very interesting development.  Dispatchable solar thermal generation at $0.06/kWh would be a major improvement over saving wind and solar in batteries.

A mix of $0.03/kWh or cheaper wind and solar (where we are headed) along with $0.06/kWh fill-in would greatly moves us further along to a 100% renewable grid.

I wonder how much it would add to the price to store the heat longer.  I would think an underground storage chamber, once the surrounding dirt/rock was heated, would be an inexpensive way to store heat long term.





numerobis

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1863 on: August 14, 2017, 07:51:32 PM »
Arizona a few months ago signed on at 4.5c/kWh for PV + battery. Granted, subsidized, but that's the same ballpark as this CSP. The more the merrier, but I'm not seeing the "major improvement" of CSP over PV + battery.

Bob Wallace

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1864 on: August 14, 2017, 09:43:54 PM »
CSP has the potential to store a lot of energy for a long period of time at a decent cost. 

By using an underground cavern and a lot of cheap salts it should be possible to store 'more than a day' for a lot less than using batteries.

ghoti

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1865 on: August 15, 2017, 02:18:33 AM »
There is no way building caverns to fill with molten salt will ever be more cost effective nor efficient as batteries.

CSP is already extremely complicated to build and operate plus conversion efficiency from the heat to electricity is at best 40% before losses due to storage.

Bob Wallace

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1866 on: August 15, 2017, 02:25:16 AM »
We're already seeing thermal solar with 8 to 13 hours of storage at $0.06/kWh.

Efficiency is not the important metric when you are looking at overall system performance.  It's the cost of delivered electricity that is important.  You could have a very efficient process but because it was very expensive to build the electricity out wouldn't be affordable.

Batteries are very expensive for long term storage.  Batteries need to be cycled frequently in order to earn enough money to pay off their rather high cost.

numerobis

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1867 on: August 15, 2017, 03:06:54 AM »
Hot-salt-in-a-cave faces the same problem as batteries when it comes to amortizing over cycles.

Bob Wallace

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1868 on: August 15, 2017, 05:19:37 AM »
Explain, please.

numerobis

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1869 on: August 15, 2017, 12:46:07 PM »
You said:
Quote
Batteries are very expensive for long term storage.  Batteries need to be cycled frequently in order to earn enough money to pay off their rather high cost.

This isn't a unique property of batteries. Any storage system faces that: batteries, pumped hydro, or your proposal of melting salt and storing it in a cave. They all need to amortize their construction cost over the cycles they'll be used.

What we're seeing right now is that for daytime generation plus overnight storage, CSP and PV+batteries are pretty similar cost. If you increase the storage component of each, the price of each increases because they're bigger, but you don't increase the amount of electricity coming out, so the price per kWh goes up for *both* systems.
« Last Edit: August 15, 2017, 06:06:16 PM by numerobis »

swoozle

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1870 on: August 15, 2017, 03:52:06 PM »

It always warms my heart to see the many wind turbines passing through St. Louis on the way to the various wind farm projects in the midwest.



Tor Bejnar

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1871 on: August 15, 2017, 04:55:04 PM »
Why aren't they using blimps to transport giant wind turbines?  Someone is at least thinking about it:

Large Wind Turbine Blade Transportation Solution: The Aeroscraft

Quote
... As larger-scale blades and bigger turbines are developed—beyond 80 ft in length ranging up to 145 ft—utilizing trucks or helicopters to transport these blades in austere or landlocked territories becomes complex. Blade lengths will continue to grow in the future, particularly for offshore wind projects. The largest blades are over 200 feet long (60 meters-plus) for a 5MW turbine. In this situation, the Aeroscraft with its vertical takeoff and landing capability offers a solution to transporting blades from a manufacturing site directly to the point-of-need-destination. ...

I couldn't find a single photo of an airship carrying a turbine. Here's one! (or 3 blades)
« Last Edit: August 15, 2017, 05:02:53 PM by Tor Bejnar »
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Bob Wallace

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1872 on: August 15, 2017, 05:09:01 PM »
Quote
Batteries are very expensive for long term storage.  Batteries need to be cycled frequently in order to earn enough money to pay off their rather high cost.


Quote
This isn't a unique property of batteries. Any storage system faces that: batteries, pumped hydro, or your proposal of melting salt and storing it in a cave. They all need to amortize their construction cost over the cycles they'll be used.

What we're seeing right now is that for daytime generation plus overnight storage, CSP and PV+batteries are pretty similar cost. If you increase the storage component of each, the price of each increases because they're bigger, but you don't increase the amount of electricity coming out, so the price per kWh goes up for *both* systems.


Let's separate power and energy.  Power is watts.  Energy is watt-hours.  Power tells us how "strong" the flow is while energy tells us how long that power flow can be maintained.

If you have a 1 kW battery that has a capacity of 1 kWh then you can power something that takes 1 kW for one hour.

If you have a 1 kW pump-up hydro storage facility (PuHS) that has a capacity of 1 MWh  then you can power the same device for 1,000 hours.

To get the same storage as a 1 MWh PuHS you'd need to purchase 1,000 1 kWh batteries.  At this point in time, and probably forever, it will be cheaper to dig a larger reservoir for PuHS or use a big cavern and lots of cheap salt, or build large storage tanks for flow batteries than to manufacture chemical batteries.

Batteries might get cheaper than other storage technologies for single day storage but mass storage is likely to continue to be the long term storage solution in terms of cost.

Let me try to explain what I think is the best solution based on what we have right now.  With the assumption that batteries will become the cheapest "one day" technology.

Assume that during "normal" wind/solar days we produce more electricity /energy that we need and half the time we produce less.  The task is to shift the over production to the under production hours.  But there are stretches of one to ten or more days when we produce less than what we need.

So we use a combination of about half batteries and half 'deep storage' like PuHS on normal days.  That way the batteries get their frequent cycling which keeps their cost low.  And PuHS gets to make money every day which pays for its pumps and turbines.  Each store energy half the time and use that energy to supply power half the time.

Now we hit a low supply day.  There's no surplus to store, everything from a wind farm or solar panel gets used.  We need deep storage. 

So we run the PuHS 24 hours a day until the low supply is over - until the Sun and wind input picks back up.

When demand is less than what reduced output wind and solar can cover the extra power coming out of the PuHS charges batteries.  When demand is greater than what wind/solar/PuHS can cover the batteries come into play.

As long as there is adequate water in the upper reservoir of the PuHS (or chemicals in the flow battery tank or molten salts in the chamber) we can keep the grid functioning with no disruption.

 

numerobis

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1873 on: August 15, 2017, 07:26:30 PM »
In Australia, I'm not sure how much long-term storage will ever be needed. The days are never short, so it's feasible simply to overbuild the solar generation to handle that week of bad weather -- particularly since the week of bad-for-solar weather will simultaneously have low energy demand.

The situation is different for Scandinavia or Northern Canada, where there's an entire season of short days, and that's the season with peak energy demand.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1874 on: August 15, 2017, 07:39:40 PM »
Why aren't they using blimps to transport giant wind turbines?  Someone is at least thinking about it:

Large Wind Turbine Blade Transportation Solution: The Aeroscraft

Quote
... As larger-scale blades and bigger turbines are developed—beyond 80 ft in length ranging up to 145 ft—utilizing trucks or helicopters to transport these blades in austere or landlocked territories becomes complex. Blade lengths will continue to grow in the future, particularly for offshore wind projects. The largest blades are over 200 feet long (60 meters-plus) for a 5MW turbine. In this situation, the Aeroscraft with its vertical takeoff and landing capability offers a solution to transporting blades from a manufacturing site directly to the point-of-need-destination. ...

I couldn't find a single photo of an airship carrying a turbine. Here's one! (or 3 blades)
<snip>

Although this idea may seem tempting, there are several things that give me pause.

First, the article was written by the company which is proposing the product, so its opinions are bound to extoll the positive possibilities, while omitting the negative ones. ;)  As of yet, they have only built a scale prototype, which likely is one reason why you haven't seen any photos of blimps with wind turbines. (The illo you show is photoshopped.)

Blimps are among the least maneuverable of aircraft, second only to balloons. And wind turbines are located in places of significant wind. One good gust, and that blimp or its suspended cargo could take out several wind turbines, not to mention possibly damage itself irreparably….

Perhaps it could be used to transport turbine parts to the location, if they delay turbine construction until all the cargo has been delivered.  But again, this would all have to happen in low-wind conditions.

I would be interested to see how those buoyancy control “helium pressurization envelopes” work in a timely manner in such a huge, semi-rigid ship.  SpaceX uses helium to quickly pressurize the interior of the Falcon 9 rocket to replace fuel volume as it is spent.  But that rocket is sturdy enough to withstand launch, super-mach speeds, re-entry forces, and landing!
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Bob Wallace

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1875 on: August 15, 2017, 08:08:54 PM »
In Australia, I'm not sure how much long-term storage will ever be needed. The days are never short, so it's feasible simply to overbuild the solar generation to handle that week of bad weather -- particularly since the week of bad-for-solar weather will simultaneously have low energy demand.

The situation is different for Scandinavia or Northern Canada, where there's an entire season of short days, and that's the season with peak energy demand.

Low solar periods are often accompanied by higher wind and rainfall (hydro).

No one is sure how much long term storage we'll need.  We're not actually to the point of needing any.  Like you point out, overbuilding may greatly reduce our need for long term storage. 

I got a  year's worth of solar output for a residential installation in Rochester, NY.  A non-sunny place.  By doubling the size of the array the days not fully covered by the array was cut by 50%.  At each area of a country you'd have to look at whether it makes more sense to add generation or storage.

We may be decades away from having to seriously answer that question.


TerryM

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1876 on: August 15, 2017, 09:43:15 PM »
Blimps are among the least maneuverable of aircraft, second only to balloons. And wind turbines are located in places of significant wind. One good gust, and that blimp or its suspended cargo could take out several wind turbines, not to mention possibly damage itself irreparably….
That was my take on the situation. I have no doubt that blimps will eventually find their niche, perhaps in roadless logging, but wind turbines and blimps isn't a combination that seems reasonable.
Terry

Bob Wallace

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1877 on: August 15, 2017, 10:12:02 PM »
Here's a lighter than air craft designed to operate in winds up to 40 knots (46 MPH).

It could probably haul blades during most daylight hours in windy places.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/a9525/airship-20-inside-the-lighter-than-air-revival-15933252/


TerryM

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1878 on: August 15, 2017, 10:29:39 PM »
How large does a windfarm need to be before making blades "on site", in say a semi portable factory, becomes more efficient than transporting large numbers of these very awkward components?
Terry



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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1879 on: August 15, 2017, 11:57:48 PM »
How large does a windfarm need to be before making blades "on site", in say a semi portable factory, becomes more efficient than transporting large numbers of these very awkward components?
Terry

That's something I've wondered about.  The equipment needed for making blades is not very complicated.  Mostly there's a big long mold in which the blade halves are laid up. 

Seems to me that the mold could be built in sections the right length to move on a standard trailer.  The other stuff should be easily trucked.

A well designed fabric building over a frame might serve as a movable factory.


TerryM

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1880 on: August 16, 2017, 01:43:49 AM »

Bob

That's more or less what I was envisioning.


Perhaps even larger facilities that might provide blades to a very localized geographical area that hosts thousands of turbines now, but that will probably expand in the future. say Tehachapi Pass.
A dozen molds of various sizes that can be disassembled, modular buildings, and work crews that don't mind moving every few years.

For decades we've seen transportation costs dwindle until centralized production and world wide distribution has become the norm. At least in this case, local manufacturing might be a more economical model.


Terry

Sigmetnow

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1881 on: August 17, 2017, 04:55:30 PM »
Here's a lighter than air craft designed to operate in winds up to 40 knots (46 MPH).

It could probably haul blades during most daylight hours in windy places.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/a9525/airship-20-inside-the-lighter-than-air-revival-15933252/

That's the same company as Tor Bejnar's article. :)  But thanks for the further info.
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swoozle

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1882 on: August 17, 2017, 08:06:56 PM »
Apologies if this seems overly negative. It's an interesting thought exercise.
It might seem simple and cheap to stand up manufacturing sites on the fly, but if you've worked for a large tech manufacturing company you can see why it's not. Manufacturing 100 foot blades is not low tech.
Can't do it (realistically) on a site with dirt roads and a dirt floor so now you've got paving and slab pouring to do. For LARGE buildings.
While the blades may not be autoclave-cured composite, they certainly at least need a large oven. And paint booths. And prep area prior to paint. And post fab assembly (hubs, etc). And pre-fab supplies receiving and storage.
The work areas will need to be temperature controlled to some degree or another, so add portable heating/cooling equipment.
Where do you get all that power from out in the middle of nowhere? The grid tie may or may not be done, and if so only for sending power.
Or water?
Hiring, training and firing locals is expensive. As is paying premiums/ living expenses to current workers to go live out in the middle of nowhere for years.
That's just scratching the surface. Add overhead functions (engineering support, HR, management, Quality, etc) and all the other costs I undoubtedly missed.
A temporary factory just addresses what's probably the cheapest part of the shipping costs: long distance rail/truck. You still have to get the blades delivered the last few miles where there are no roads and maybe challenging topography.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1883 on: August 17, 2017, 08:10:06 PM »
Tesla to deploy Powerpacks at several Home Depot stores, GE will build 50 solar rooftop systems
The new rooftop solar projects are part of Home Depot’s efforts to utilize 135 megawatts (MW) of alternative and renewable energy by 2020.
https://electrek.co/2017/08/17/tesla-powerpack-home-depot-stores-ge-solar-rooftop-systems/

These are being deployed to power the store, not for sale -- although some stores do offer Solar City PV panel installation.
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1884 on: August 17, 2017, 08:14:35 PM »
Swoozle,

That makes sense to me.  I suppose if it were easy to make a mobile manufacturing center, somebody would have done it by now!
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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1885 on: August 17, 2017, 08:50:31 PM »
Apologies if this seems overly negative. It's an interesting thought exercise.
It might seem simple and cheap to stand up manufacturing sites on the fly, but if you've worked for a large tech manufacturing company you can see why it's not. Manufacturing 100 foot blades is not low tech.
Can't do it (realistically) on a site with dirt roads and a dirt floor so now you've got paving and slab pouring to do. For LARGE buildings.
While the blades may not be autoclave-cured composite, they certainly at least need a large oven. And paint booths. And prep area prior to paint. And post fab assembly (hubs, etc). And pre-fab supplies receiving and storage.
The work areas will need to be temperature controlled to some degree or another, so add portable heating/cooling equipment.
Where do you get all that power from out in the middle of nowhere? The grid tie may or may not be done, and if so only for sending power.
Or water?
Hiring, training and firing locals is expensive. As is paying premiums/ living expenses to current workers to go live out in the middle of nowhere for years.
That's just scratching the surface. Add overhead functions (engineering support, HR, management, Quality, etc) and all the other costs I undoubtedly missed.
A temporary factory just addresses what's probably the cheapest part of the shipping costs: long distance rail/truck. You still have to get the blades delivered the last few miles where there are no roads and maybe challenging topography.

The problems you list are (AFAIK) reasonable.  Let's see if we can dream up solutions.

Dirt floor.  Lay down a plastic barrier and then interlocking plastic panels, not unlike how ice rinks are created on arena floors.

Are blades baked in ovens?  I see nothing about that here -

https://www.nap.edu/read/1824/chapter/7

Painting.  The outer finish, the gelcoat, is sprayed into the mold as the first step.  Then the layup is done on top of the gelcoat.  There's some touchup painting that's done after the blade haves are joined, but that's hand work.

Power?  Run the transmission lines sooner than normal. 

Workers?  We now move construction crews from wind farm to wind farm.  Housing, breaks to go home to visit families, etc. is already something done.

Management?  On site as needed.  Skype connections to the main office/engineering. 

Water?  Supply storage?  Minor issues.  Water trucks (tankers).  A few shipping containers for storage.  Bring in what is needed per week (some interval) in a shipping container and haul the empty one away.

If the blade factory is set up close to the wind farm then it becomes affordable to move the blades the last few miles by chopper.

Thing is, we're hitting an onshore limit to turbine size due to the difficulty in moving blades for anything larger than 3 WM.  We're installing 8 WM at sea and companies are designing much larger (up to 50 MW) turbines for offshore.


Sigmetnow

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1886 on: August 17, 2017, 09:38:29 PM »
Taiwan wants to eliminate nuclear, reduce coal, and increase renewables and distributed generation.

Mishap Triggers Taiwan Blackout as Power Policies Draw Scrutiny
Quote
A blackout caused by a blunder at Taiwan’s biggest gas-fired plant is the latest challenge to an electricity grid recently pushed to its limit and to President Tsai Ing-wen’s efforts to reshape the island’s power mix.

A combination of unusually hot weather, infrastructure damage from typhoons and Tsai’s drive to abandon nuclear power left Taiwan barely able to supply sufficient electricity to residential and business users in the past week. That balance gave way just before 5 p.m. Tuesday when the Tatan power plant, which accounts for almost 9 percent of the island’s generation capacity, stopped after workers accidentally shut off its natural gas supply.

Tsai publicly apologized for the power outage that hit more than 6 million households and disrupted some semiconductor production. Electricity was restored by 10 p.m., but not before Lee Chih-kung, Tsai’s economy minister, offered his resignation. Both the operator and supplier of the plant, Taiwan Power Co. and CPC Corp., are state-run.
...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-16/taiwan-s-president-apologizes-for-blackout-affecting-millions


Tesla Powerpacks are being considered by Taiwan following massive blackout
Quote
Taiwan recently suffered from a massive blackout that affected millions of households on the island, resulted in millions in damages, and ended up with the economy minister resigning.

Now the Taiwanese government says that it is reaching out to Tesla to consider a similar solution as the massive 100 MW/129 MWh Powerpack system that Australia ordered from Elon Musk’s company after they had their own power outage issues. ...
https://electrek.co/2017/08/17/tesla-powerpack-taiwan-blackout/
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swoozle

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1887 on: August 18, 2017, 04:21:28 AM »


The problems you list are (AFAIK) reasonable.  Let's see if we can dream up solutions.

Dirt floor.  Lay down a plastic barrier and then interlocking plastic panels, not unlike how ice rinks are created on arena floors.

Are blades baked in ovens?  I see nothing about that here -

https://www.nap.edu/read/1824/chapter/7

Painting.  The outer finish, the gelcoat, is sprayed into the mold as the first step.  Then the layup is done on top of the gelcoat.  There's some touchup painting that's done after the blade haves are joined, but that's hand work.

Power?  Run the transmission lines sooner than normal. 

Workers?  We now move construction crews from wind farm to wind farm.  Housing, breaks to go home to visit families, etc. is already something done.

Management?  On site as needed.  Skype connections to the main office/engineering. 

Water?  Supply storage?  Minor issues.  Water trucks (tankers).  A few shipping containers for storage.  Bring in what is needed per week (some interval) in a shipping container and haul the empty one away.

If the blade factory is set up close to the wind farm then it becomes affordable to move the blades the last few miles by chopper.

Thing is, we're hitting an onshore limit to turbine size due to the difficulty in moving blades for anything larger than 3 WM.  We're installing 8 WM at sea and companies are designing much larger (up to 50 MW) turbines for offshore.

Some good observations.  In general I think I'm coming from the direction of a large, established tech giant like GE trying to do this. It is so far outside of their normal way of doing anything that it just won't happen. A small startup, maybe, but then those don't get (multi)billion dollar contracts for a huge wind farm.

Interlocking panels such as an ice rink only work on a solid, high-load capability base (concrete).

While I don't know for certain how blades are cured, that reference is 25 years old and blades have only become larger and more weight/stress critical since then. It is very difficult to get good hot-wet properties out of a matrix resin without an elevated temp cure.

Gelcoat makes sense.

Carting workers around: that is the norm for small outdoor construction crews that are just ("just") digging holes, pouring foundations and bolting together pre-manufactured components, but that's not the norm nor will it be easy for the type of facility envisioned. Not that it can't be done, it just isn't now.

Management by Skype: See small, nimble young company versus staid engineering behemoth above :).

Water, etc. I think I envision a workforce an order of magnitude larger, or more, than you do.

If the whole point of moving the facility (more $$) is to save transportation money (less $$), why does that mean you have more to throw at helicopters? It just means you save the train and truck costs.

But I get the point about significantly larger blades. Obviously they can't get much larger than now and still be manufactured on the east coast (GE, for instance) and be railed shipped to Iowa. They span two train cars now, I really doubt spanning three or four is doable. I'm sure there are a lot of finance people penciling out how much it costs to do what you suggest versus how much more they can charge for larger, more efficient units.

Interesting times.
And discussion. Thanks!

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1888 on: August 18, 2017, 04:24:34 AM »

...Thing is, we're hitting an onshore limit to turbine size due to the difficulty in moving blades for anything larger than 3 WM.  We're installing 8 WM at sea and companies are designing much larger (up to 50 MW) turbines for offshore.

50MW?? Wow. How big are the blades for that monstrosity?

numerobis

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1889 on: August 18, 2017, 04:28:38 AM »
What I'd heard the main limit was, was the tower itself. Past a certain diameter, it no longer fits under bridges.

One way to beat that limit is to make the base of the tower out of concrete. But with current production, that increases the carbon intensity of the wind tower.

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1890 on: August 18, 2017, 05:42:41 AM »


The problems you list are (AFAIK) reasonable.  Let's see if we can dream up solutions.

Dirt floor.  Lay down a plastic barrier and then interlocking plastic panels, not unlike how ice rinks are created on arena floors.

Are blades baked in ovens?  I see nothing about that here -

https://www.nap.edu/read/1824/chapter/7

Painting.  The outer finish, the gelcoat, is sprayed into the mold as the first step.  Then the layup is done on top of the gelcoat.  There's some touchup painting that's done after the blade haves are joined, but that's hand work.

Power?  Run the transmission lines sooner than normal. 

Workers?  We now move construction crews from wind farm to wind farm.  Housing, breaks to go home to visit families, etc. is already something done.

Management?  On site as needed.  Skype connections to the main office/engineering. 

Water?  Supply storage?  Minor issues.  Water trucks (tankers).  A few shipping containers for storage.  Bring in what is needed per week (some interval) in a shipping container and haul the empty one away.

If the blade factory is set up close to the wind farm then it becomes affordable to move the blades the last few miles by chopper.

Thing is, we're hitting an onshore limit to turbine size due to the difficulty in moving blades for anything larger than 3 WM.  We're installing 8 WM at sea and companies are designing much larger (up to 50 MW) turbines for offshore.

Some good observations.  In general I think I'm coming from the direction of a large, established tech giant like GE trying to do this. It is so far outside of their normal way of doing anything that it just won't happen. A small startup, maybe, but then those don't get (multi)billion dollar contracts for a huge wind farm.

Interlocking panels such as an ice rink only work on a solid, high-load capability base (concrete).

While I don't know for certain how blades are cured, that reference is 25 years old and blades have only become larger and more weight/stress critical since then. It is very difficult to get good hot-wet properties out of a matrix resin without an elevated temp cure.

Gelcoat makes sense.

Carting workers around: that is the norm for small outdoor construction crews that are just ("just") digging holes, pouring foundations and bolting together pre-manufactured components, but that's not the norm nor will it be easy for the type of facility envisioned. Not that it can't be done, it just isn't now.

Management by Skype: See small, nimble young company versus staid engineering behemoth above :).

Water, etc. I think I envision a workforce an order of magnitude larger, or more, than you do.

If the whole point of moving the facility (more $$) is to save transportation money (less $$), why does that mean you have more to throw at helicopters? It just means you save the train and truck costs.

But I get the point about significantly larger blades. Obviously they can't get much larger than now and still be manufactured on the east coast (GE, for instance) and be railed shipped to Iowa. They span two train cars now, I really doubt spanning three or four is doable. I'm sure there are a lot of finance people penciling out how much it costs to do what you suggest versus how much more they can charge for larger, more efficient units.

Interesting times.
And discussion. Thanks!

Floors - they need to only support the weight of the people working there.  The molds can sit on large pads.  The pads could be poured into place and scooped up when the factory is moved.  We could use large steel "feet" or a base rail system that spread the weight of the mold out enough to be supported directly on the ground.

The layup machines that apply fabric and spray resin ride on rails over the molds.  Control systems can sit on pads.

People - I have a friend who used to be a cook on oil rigs.  She would spend ten days on the rig and then have ten days back at home.  Fishermen can go out for days and weeks at a time.  So can truck drivers.  People work multiple day shifts at worksites and then have long "weekends".  That's not uncommon.

The pictures I've seen for blade factories don't have very many workers.

Heat - I don't think blades go into "ovens".  Heat can be applied with heat guns or IR lamps.  We certainly could build a 'lid' in sections that bolted together and fitted over the mold so that the area under the lid could be heated.

It's not about saving money.  It's about the problem of blades getting so long that it will be impossible to move them on highways and roads.  We seem to have reached a 3 MW ceiling and we may not be able to get blades that long to all locations.  We may get less electricity for our buck because we have to settle for smaller turbines due to blade length restrictions.

The chopper would be used only for grabbing finished blades at the movable factory and moving them a short distance to the turbines.  One chopper could move a lot of blades in one day as long as the distance was short.  We're talking < ten miles from factory to tower.  Not a hundred or hundreds of miles.

IIRC there's a large (6 to 8 MW) turbine being set up along a coast because they were able to deliver the blades on barges over the water.

Another approach is to build blades in sections that can be hauled to the site and glued together.  Some months back a sectioned blade was manufactured in the US and shipped to the UK for assembly and testing.  I think testing was going to take a year.  I haven't heard back yet.

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1891 on: August 18, 2017, 05:45:42 AM »
What I'd heard the main limit was, was the tower itself. Past a certain diameter, it no longer fits under bridges.

One way to beat that limit is to make the base of the tower out of concrete. But with current production, that increases the carbon intensity of the wind tower.

Some 140 meter towers have already been made with concrete sections.  Mexico has stood some.

With concrete sections the concrete, sand and gravel can be hauled to the site and formed there.  Or a local ready mix company can deliver mud ready to pour.

numerobis

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1892 on: August 18, 2017, 03:41:32 PM »
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/yukon-kluane-yesab-wind-1.4251660

Wind is blowing through the Yukon. Most energy in the Yukon is hydro, but some micro-grids are diesel. They're installing small wind farms -- this one is a whopping 285 kW.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1893 on: August 18, 2017, 09:53:04 PM »
Re manufacturing wind turbine blades, Bob Wallace wrote:
Quote
Heat - I don't think blades go into "ovens".  Heat can be applied with heat guns or IR lamps.  We certainly could build a 'lid' in sections that bolted together and fitted over the mold so that the area under the lid could be heated.


I think what we're looking for is a big, mobile 3-D printer.  SpaceX uses one to make rocket engine parts, and others are printing out small houses, so it's only a matter of time until we're making really, really big machine parts.  :)

Musk's “Machine that builds the machine," and all that.
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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1894 on: August 18, 2017, 11:35:30 PM »

The external cost of burning coal is extremely high.  Simply tallying public health impacts, only health impacts, coal costs the United States economy $140 billion to $242 billion a year.

http://www.chgeharvard.org/sites/default/files/epstein_full%20cost%20of%20coal.pdf

A study published in Nature Energy has calculated the amount of money saved in the US over the last decade by replacing part of our coal use with renewable energy.  Millstein et al. estimated that between 3,000 and 12,700 premature deaths have been averted because of air quality benefits over the last decade or so.  Those avoided early deaths have created a total economic benefit between $30 billion and $113 billion.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nenergy2017134

Coal has dropped from producing over 50% of US electricity 13 years ago to 30% in 2016.

That’s only avoided early deaths.  Many additional billions have likely been saved through avoided health care for non-fatal pollution caused illness and lost work days. 

Between 1994 and 2009 wind and solar received subsidies of $5.6 billion. Adding in the 2010 through 2016 (roughly calculated) subsidies the total comes to about $31.5 billion.

What the Millstein study finds that the US has already recovered every dollar spent subsidizing wind and solar, possibly saving many billions of dollars in excess of recovered subsidies. 

And a lot all health benefits are not included in that $30 billion to $131 billion.  Then add in environmental damage.  We've likely enjoyed an incredible return on investment.

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1895 on: August 19, 2017, 04:39:13 PM »
Missouri regulators reject massive Midwest wind power line
Quote
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri utility regulators on Wednesday rejected a proposed high-voltage power line to carry wind power across the Midwest to eastern states, delivering a significant setback to developers of one of the nation’s longest transmission lines.

The decision marked the second time in a little over two years that the Missouri Public Service Commission has denied a request from Clean Line Energy Partners to build its power line through the state after a lengthy review process.

The 780-mile-long line would run from wind farms in western Kansas through Missouri and Illinois to Indiana, where it would connect with a power grid for eastern states. All the other states along its route already have granted approval to the $2.3 billion project.

Most members of Missouri’s regulatory panel said they, too, wanted to approve the high-profile project but felt compelled to vote against it because of a recent state appeals court ruling. The judges in that case said utilities must first get the consent of counties to string a power line across roads before state approval can be granted. Clean Line lacks approval from several Missouri counties where its line is opposed by local residents.

It’s not clear whether Missouri’s decision will kill the project.
...
https://apnews.com/e231e50879a14154aee9234638db3160/Missouri-regulators-reject-massive-Midwest-wind-power-line
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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1896 on: August 19, 2017, 06:59:58 PM »
Quote
The 780-mile-long line would run from wind farms in western Kansas through Missouri and Illinois to Indiana, where it would connect with a power grid for eastern states. All the other states along its route already have granted approval to the $2.3 billion project.

This will probably boost the amount of Atlantic offshore wind installed to provide cheap electricity to the eastern coasts and the Midwest will lose out on potential earnings.

Bullet -> Foot

Looking at how rapidly offshore wind prices have fallen it may well be cheaper to use offshore than Midwestern + transmission costs.  And the hours of production for offshore more likely match demand. 

numerobis

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1897 on: August 19, 2017, 07:04:22 PM »
Missouri is the Midwest state with by far the least wind power, and by far the dirtiest grid. Not really a surprise.

I wonder if the proponents will detour through Iowa and Illinois, bypassing Missouri.

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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1898 on: August 19, 2017, 09:05:47 PM »
Quote
The 780-mile-long line would run from wind farms in western Kansas through Missouri and Illinois to Indiana, where it would connect with a power grid for eastern states. All the other states along its route already have granted approval to the $2.3 billion project.

This will probably boost the amount of Atlantic offshore wind installed to provide cheap electricity to the eastern coasts and the Midwest will lose out on potential earnings.

Bullet -> Foot

Looking at how rapidly offshore wind prices have fallen it may well be cheaper to use offshore than Midwestern + transmission costs.  And the hours of production for offshore more likely match demand.

Just need to continue the trend of reduced pushback from coastal folks complaining about the "unnatural view" of offshore turbines.

(Too bad we didn't feel equally upset about belching smokestacks on land. ::) )
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Re: Renewable Energy
« Reply #1899 on: August 19, 2017, 11:47:25 PM »
I suspect the opposition to offshore wind will be minor and brief.  Especially if the installations are a few miles off the beach.

Most of the opposition to onshore wind turbines seems to have come from a very small group of very vocal people.  There was sort of a core group out of Canada that got kicked in gear by a turbine installed closer than reasonable to someone's house.  Back before their were siting guidelines.