Posts Tagged ‘variability’

Ontario Wind Farm Productivity and Variability by In-service Year

Friday, July 2nd, 2010

This post provides data current to June 30, 2010 on the productivity and variability of output of Ontario’s wind farms. The tendency of more productive wind farms to produce power with greater annual variability of output is observed. An error in the data reported in the April 6, 2010 edition of the report with respect to Prince Farm is noted and corrected in this edition. The life-to-date capacity factor of Ontario’s large wind farms considering only full power years is 29.0%.

PDF link: ontario-wind-farm-productivity-and-variability-by-inservice-year

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Posted in Wind Power | 6 Comments »

Greener Power Ingredient: Coal

Sunday, July 5th, 2009

Many people debating greenhouse gas controls think they know that coal is our worst electricity source with respect to carbon dioxide emissions and that natural gas is about half as bad. Although replacing coal power with gas-fired power seems like an environmental winner, this simplistic generalization is often wrong. Eliminating coal-fired electricity will require replacing it with gas and because of the characteristics of our gas-fired stations, Ontario’s carbon dioxide emissions will rise.

This essay also addresses the suggestion from many environmental groups that Ontario should seek to maximize the use of gas in the form of high-efficiency cogeneration as opposed to mid-efficiency combined-cycle generators and low-efficiency simple-cycle generators. I note that the more cogeneration Ontario adds, the lower the potential penetration of wind power the power system can tolerate.

PDF of paper here:

coal-greens-ontario-power

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Posted in Energy and Environmental Notes, Wind Power | 1 Comment »

Transforming Ontario’s Electricity Paradigm: Lessons Arising from Wind Power Integration

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

In the following keynote address to Professional Engineers of Ontario, Annual General Meeting, May 9, 2009, Tom Adams outlines the challenges ahead for integrating renewable energy into the Ontario power grid. Data is presented showing how wind power production and electricity usage are out of sync, how winter wind power output is concentrated on the warmer winter days when load tends to be low, how distance between wind farms provides limited smoothing benefit, why it is inaccurate to claim that the wind is “always blowing somewhere”, and how wind output from distant farms can be strongly correlated even sometimes when measured on a 5 minute time scale. Knowledge gaps on wind integration current as of the date of presentation are identified.

PDF link: keynote-for-peo-may-2009-transforming-ontario_s-power-system

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Posted in Energy-related Administrative Law, Wind Power | 5 Comments »

WIND POWER IN ONTARIO: QUANTIFYING THE BENEFITS OF GEOGRAPHIC DIVERSITY

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

Using Ontario wind power production data, this study quantifies the benefits of positioning wind farms in geographically diverse locations to mitigate variability and smooth wind power’s contribution to electricity generation. Wind farm outputs are cross-correlated and graphed against the distances separating the farms. Results confirm that correlations between wind farm outputs decay with distance, but remain positive. Results agree with European studies but suggest that distance provides less smoothing of output in Ontario than in Europe. However, results disagree with aspects of a study of wind power integration in Ontario conducted by General Electric in 2006.

This study was co-authored by Tom Adams and Francois Cadieux. It was peer reviewed and published as part of the Engineering Institute of Canada 2nd Climate Change Technology Conference, May 12-15 2009, held at McMaster University.

PDF link:windpowergeodiversitybenefits_adams_cadieux-colour-graphs-and-citation

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Posted in Wind Power | 2 Comments »