Australia battles wind energy myths
by Ketan Joshi, the Operator at the Operations & Control Centre, Infigen Energy
Around the world 72 trillion watts of power stored in the wind is churning above our heads. To the layperson, this doesn’t mean a lot – until you explain that this is enough power to meet the current energy needs of the human race four times over, with some to spare. Many regions of Australia are demonstrably rich in wind resources. Australia’s southern coastline lies neatly in the path of westerly wind flows known as the ‘Roaring 40s’, and the eastern coastline possesses a particularly high-quality resource. Given the scientific and ethical impetus to adjust our electricity generation equipment to low (or zero) carbon emission technologies, it is important to honestly qualify how wind has affected Australia’s national energy market, and to ensure facts about wind energy are communicated honestly and passionately.
There is a tendency to focus on capacity factor when examining the performance of wind energy in a country. Worryingly, these statistics are regularly misunderstood in the media and by the community – a capacity factor of 35% is perceived as an ‘efficiency’ of 35%. This is likely the progenitor of the myth that wind energy is inefficient. An alternative method of representing power output is to look at the contribution of wind energy to the nation’s energy supply, and to measure output in quantity rather than capacity factor. In 2011, wind energy in South Australia produced a total of 3.4 TWh – a quarter of total demand in the state for the year (13 TWh). A significant number of the electrons that were pushed into homes in 2011 came from the kinetic energy stored in the wind. As this number grows, so should awareness of the many advantages of choosing renewable energy.
Perhaps large quantities of variable generation can cause network instability? On the 17th of August 2011 at 2:50 am, 87.9% of generation in South Australia was sourced from wind energy. When this occurred, the wholesale electricity price remained stable ($18.86 /MWh or €15/MWh) and the National Electricity Market sailed tidily through the night. Fascinatingly, there were 14,668 different instances in 2011 where wind generation contributed to greater than 50% of total generation in South Australia. Network stability remains unhindered by high levels of wind penetration in South Australia.
Despite the power of statistical evidence, myths and misinformation continue to spread in Australia’s media landscape, propagated through opinion pieces (and increasingly, news articles) in media outlets. Opportunities to spread scientifically defensible and critically unassailable truths about wind energy are invaluable, and gaining a direct audience with members of the public plays a vital role. Infigen Energy organised a tour at Capital Wind Farm for Global Wind Day 2011, and this year we are organising the same again at Woodlawn Wind Farm. Giving the public an opportunity to wander at the base of these elegant, quiet and efficient machines is a key factor in spreading much-needed knowledge about wind turbines.
For Global Wind Day 2011, I had the privilege of participating in a live video conference with hundreds of school students across the state. Their enthusiasm for the processes, machinery and science underlying renewable energy was inspiring and contagious. Unhesitatingly capturing that zest and instilling it where we can is an essential ambition for the wind industry in Australia.
Australia has long history in tapping wind energy. Thousands of Water Pumping Windmills were in operation in Australia(Southern cross,comet and others).
Wind power in Australia is a proven and reliable technology that can be and is readily deployed. As of October 2010, there were 52 wind farms in Australia, most of which had turbines of from 1.5 to 3 megawatts (MW). The total operating wind generating capacity at this time was 1,880 MW, with annual production of almost 5,000 GWh providing close to two percent of Australia’s national electricity demand.
South Australia had close to half of the nation’s wind power capacity, accounting for almost twenty percent of that state’s electricity needs of as October 2010. Victoria also had a substantial system, with about a quarter of the nation’s capacity, and projects under construction forecast to more than double that capacity by the end of 2013.
Australia has excellent wind resources by world standards. The southern coastline lies in the roaring forties and hundreds of sites have average wind speeds above 8 or even 9 m/s at 50 m above ground (the hub height of a modern wind generator). The southwest of Western Australia, southern South Australia, western Victoria, northern Tasmania and elevated areas of New South Wales and Queensland have good wind resources. Several states engaged in systematic wind speed monitoring in the 1980s and 1990s, the results of which are publicly available. Australian wind farms produce on average capacity factors of 30–35%, making wind an attractive option.
As of October 2010, wind power accounted for approximately 5 TWh out of a total of 251 TWh of electricity used per year, enough electricity to power more than 700,000 homes, and amounting to about two percent of Australia’s total electricity consumption. This came from 52 operating wind farms with greater than 100 kW capacity, consisting of a total of 1,052 turbines.
Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore(AP),India
Wind Energy Expert
E-mail: anumakonda.jagadeesh@gmail.com
I heard the problem with wind is the lack of steel that it needs an enormous amount of it. Basically it needs a lot of metal. Would be interested in to know what is the carbon print to produce one of those wind giants. Otherwise I hope the future is with wind and solar (solar needs to have power capture). Also conservation and living simply can also help us to use less energy.
Jay, you might be interested to read this blog post:
http://blog.ewea.org/2012/02/wind-turbines-pay-back-coal-use-in-one-month/ on how long it takes wind turbines to pay-back the amount of coal they use.
Hi Jay,
Conservation and energy efficiency are pretty vital – the happy truth is that we have quite a few different technologies in our arsenal, to combat the current problems with our energy extraction techniques.
Wind turbines do produce plenty of energy – offsetting the energy used during construction is fairly quick
( http://www.steel.org/en/Sustainability/~/media/Files/SRI/Media%20Center/WindEnergyCaseStudy.ashx is an article published by the World Steel Association. “The energy used in the construction of a
wind turbine is typically recovered within
6 to 9 months of the turbine operating.”
I was looking for some live data showing wind power generation into the Western Australian grid, but I cannot find any.
Are the operators witholding the data?
Is that data secret?