They just announced that because of strong Spring winds and snow melt in the Columbia Gorge, they are producing to much power to safely feed into the grid. SO the Government is planning to pay those with Wind Turbines to lock them down. First they INVEST US TAX PAYER MONEY to encourage them to produce wind energy and now they are paying the more tax payer money to stop producing wind energy. Typical Government interference. LEAVE THE FREE MARKET ALONE.
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Another green energy plan going strong
- Thread starter Tam
- Start date
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Mike
Well-known member
Juan said:Was in Seatlle a few years ago and Sen.Patty Murray had a piece in the paper promoting a subsidy to help the Chinese import more wind towers and that would make more jobs for the dock workers! :???:
Please say it ain't so!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Steve
Well-known member
those liberals in the northwest are just following Obama's European model..
The National Grid fears that on breezy summer nights, wind farms could actually cause a surge in the electricity supply which is not met by demand from businesses and households.
The electricity cannot be stored, so one solution — known as the 'balancing mechanism' — is to switch off or reduce the power supplied. …
The first successful test shut down of wind farms took place three weeks ago. Scottish Power received £13,000 for closing down two farms for a little over an hour on 30 May at about five in the morning.
Whereas coal and gas power stations often pay the National Grid £15 to £20 per megawatt hour they do not supply, Scottish Power was paid £180 per megawatt hour during the test to switch off its turbines. …
Earlier this year, The Sunday Telegraph revealed that electricity customers are paying more than £1 billion a year to subsidize wind farms and other forms of renewable energy.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/8999822/Wind-farms-earn-1m-to-shut-down-over-Christmas-and-New-Year-gales.htmlWind farms earn £1m to shut down over Christmas and New Year gales
The gales battering Britain have been so strong that many turbines have had to be shut down for safety reasons and the National Grid forced to increase output from gas and coal fired power stations to make up the shortfall.
On other occasions, often during periods when the wind is still strong but slightly less gusty, operators have been asked to turn off their turbines, because they were flooding the network with more electricity than was needed.
On the 23 occasions since Christmas Eve on which this has occurred, operators have received more than £1 million from the National Grid.
The so-called "constraint payments", ultimately passed on to household bills, are paid to suppliers at times when the network is unable to absorb excess power being generated.
"The costs, which are ultimately borne by consumers, will inevitably increase as more wind farms are built. REF has estimated that the total cost of solving the difficulties of integrating wind power will cost £5 billion a year on top of renewable subsidies in 2020 if current EU targets are met."
When wind speeds reach 60mph, turbines automatically shut down. At one point on the morning January 3, as gales battered Britain, several turbines across the country were shut down at once, meaning the wind farms were only providing around a third of what they were expected to at the time. Around three quarters of those shut down were in Scotland, with the rest in England and Wales.
This left the National Grid with a shortfall of 2,500 megawatt hours - enough to power up to 1.6 million homes - which had to be made up by increasing the output from gas and coal fired power stations.
On these occasions, when turbines are shut for safety reasons, the operators do not receive any money. However, figures from the Renewable Energy Foundation, which has been critical of the scale of Britain's adoption of wind power, also show that operators received 23 payments totalling £1,037,720, between Christmas Eve and January 4, to switch off their turbines at the behest of National Grid.
While coal and gas plants pay the grid to switch off because they save money by not generating fuel, wind farm operators demand compensation for "lost" subsidies.
hypocritexposer
Well-known member
Tam said:They just announced that because of strong Spring winds and snow melt in the Columbia Gorge, they are producing to much power to safely feed into the grid. SO the Government is planning to pay those with Wind Turbines to lock them down. First they INVEST US TAX PAYER MONEY to encourage them to produce wind energy and now they are paying the more tax payer money to stop producing wind energy. Typical Government interference. LEAVE THE FREE MARKET ALONE.
sure would like to pass this story aalong, if you have a link. Thanks
Steve
Well-known member
http://www.sustainablebusinessoregon.com/articles/2012/02/bonneville-power-offers-to-pay-wind.htmlBonneville Power offers to pay wind producers for oversupply
n a bid to move toward a policy solution for last spring's wind-vs.-water controversy, the Bonneville Power Administration offered Tuesday to pay Northwest wind power generators when wind farm shutdowns are required during high river flows.
On average BPA expects to compensate wind producers about $12 million per year for lost revenues related to reduced electricity generation, although the total could range from nothing to more than $50 million in extreme conditions.
BPA would recover that cost through by developing a new rate cast that would ultimately share the cost of the compensation, about equally, between BPA's users and the wind energy producers that would also see a change in their rates.
BPA's compensation proposal would come into play when high water, driven last year by a heavy snowpack, drives up the output of hydropower and creates a situation of electricity oversupply on BPA's grid. Last year, BPA cut off generation from wind farms supplying its grid for a total of 97,557 megawatt hours of wind power over 53 days.
The move led to losses by wind farm operators in the form of forgone production tax credits of more than $2 million and led to a legal dispute that lasted throughout the year.
In December, FERC released a decision favoring wind energy generators and asking BPA to find a better policy for dealing with times of overgeneration. Tuesday's compensation proposal is the heart of that new policy.
hypocritexposer said:Tam said:They just announced that because of strong Spring winds and snow melt in the Columbia Gorge, they are producing to much power to safely feed into the grid. SO the Government is planning to pay those with Wind Turbines to lock them down. First they INVEST US TAX PAYER MONEY to encourage them to produce wind energy and now they are paying the more tax payer money to stop producing wind energy. Typical Government interference. LEAVE THE FREE MARKET ALONE.
sure would like to pass this story aalong, if you have a link. Thanks
It was all over FOX news today but here is an article about it
Wind power companies paid to not produce
Updated: Wednesday, 07 Mar 2012, 3:40 PM CST
Published : Wednesday, 07 Mar 2012, 3:11 PM CST
Wind farms in the Pacific Northwest -- built with government subsidies and maintained with tax credits for every megawatt produced -- are now getting paid to shut down as the federal agency charged with managing the region's electricity grid says there's an oversupply of renewable power at certain times of the year.
The problem arose during the late spring and early summer last year. Rapid snow melt filled the Columbia River Basin. The water rushed through the 31 dams run by the Portland, Ore.-based Bonneville Power Administration allowing for peak hydropower generation. At the very same time, the wind howled leading to maximum wind power production.
Demand could not keep up with supply, so BPA shut down the wind farms for nearly 200 hours over 38 days.
"It's the one system in the world where in real time, moment to moment, you have to produce as much energy as is being consumed," BPA spokesman Doug Johnson said of the renewable energy.
Now, Bonneville is offering to compensate wind companies for half their lost revenue. The bill could reach up to $50 million a year.
The extra payout means energy users will eventually have to pay more.
"We require taxpayers to subsidize the production of renewable energy, and now we want ratepayers to pay renewable energy companies when they lose money?" asked Todd Myers, director of the Center for the Environment of the Washington Policy Center and author of "Eco-Fads: How the Rise of Trendy Environmentalism is Harming the Environment."
"That's a ridiculous system that keeps piling more and more money into a system that's unsustainable," Myers said.
Green energy advocates also oppose BPA's oversupply solution.
"It sends a very poor signal to the market about doing business in the Northwest," said Rachel Shimshak, executive director of the Renewable Northwest Project. "We want the Northwest to be a good place to do business."
BPA says its hands are tied by environmental regulations. Officials contend if they shut down hydropower generation instead of the wind farms, endangered salmon would be harmed.
It's counter-intuitive because for decades environmental advocates have complained about dams killing fish by sending them through the turbines on their way to the ocean.
But spilling too much water over the dam can apparently also be harmful. It can create too much oxygen in the water at the base of the dam, which has also killed salmon.
Interestingly, fish advocates are unconvinced. Save Our Wild Salmon is encouraging BPA to test salmon downstream of the dams to determine if their being impacted by high oxygen levels, and only stop the overflows when they have proof fish are being harmed.
Pat Ford, the group's executive director, said Bonneville is using the salmon as an excuse to keep hydropower dominant over wind power.
"I think it's driven by Bonneville's customers who are worried about the increases in wind generation in the Northwest and what it means to them," Ford said.
BPA submitted its plan Tuesday to the Federal Regulatory Energy Commission for approval. FERC has to decide if the oversupply compensation plan is fair to wind producers, utilities and ratepayers.
http://www.myfoxhouston.com/dpp/news/national/foxnews/Wind-power-companies-paid-to-not-produce_53052877
You are welcome :wink:
hypocritexposer
Well-known member
thanks Tam
