EcoRenovator - View Single Post - Wind's latest problem: it . . . makes power too cheap

Piwoslaw · 08-28-10, 02:01 AM

I heard or read somewhere that when demand dropped in the Spanish electrical grid, it was the wind farms that were taken offline, not the conventional power plants. The reason was that the process of stopping, then starting, a conventional pp is time and money consuming, while turning a wind farm off is pretty much just the flip of a switch.

This undermines the argument that wind power helps reduce emissions, and also hurts the payback time of the wind investment. Hopefully, as wind becomes even cheaper it will finally make conventional power less appealling.

08-28-10, 02:01 AM	#3
Piwoslaw Super Moderator Join Date: May 2009 Location: Warsaw, Poland Posts: 961 Thanks: 188 Thanked 110 Times in 86 Posts	I heard or read somewhere that when demand dropped in the Spanish electrical grid, it was the wind farms that were taken offline, not the conventional power plants. The reason was that the process of stopping, then starting, a conventional pp is time and money consuming, while turning a wind farm off is pretty much just the flip of a switch. This undermines the argument that wind power helps reduce emissions, and also hurts the payback time of the wind investment. Hopefully, as wind becomes even cheaper it will finally make conventional power less appealling.