One day wind power will be worthwhile monetarily, economically, and personally. I still say that there should be more of a focus on small projects aimed more to individual buildings and homes, empowering (sic) home and business owners to get off the grid. Interestingly, the Big Big Projects empower not just Government, but those big evil companies Progressives say they hate. Buy, anyhow, how is this shaking out?
Denmark has led the charge for renewable energy, but now the green policies have become too expensive.
In 2015, Denmark set a new world record by generating the equivalent of 42.1% of the country’s total energy consumption by wind. Denmark is also the world’s largest exporter of wind power equipment. So it’s fair to say that Denmark is perhaps the world’s leading wind power nation.
Yay, Denmark!
The Danish consumers and companies pay the highest prices for electricity within the European Union, EU, according to an analysis from the European Electricity Association, Eurelectric.
The analysis showed that in 2014 a staggering 66 percent of the average Danish electricity bill went to taxes and fees, 18 percent to transportation and only 15 percent of the price was for the electricity in itself. Only Germany came close with 52 percent in electricity taxes.
Without all these extra costs Danes would pay below the European average for their energy.
“We can’t accept this, as the private sector and households are paying far too much. Denmark’s renewable policy has turned out to be too expensive,” the climate minister said.
Anyone who is shocked, raise your hand.
Wind and solar can never be a reliable and economic source of electrical power because of the capacity factor. This is the fraction of the rated power that is actually delivered over some time period, usually a year. At the best sites, like the Scottish west coast, the wind capacity factor rises 35%, but more commonly it is 10% or less. At good sites, solar is closer to 25% but usually much less, a few percent at best (remember night and clouds?)..
What this means is that every kW of wind or solar needs a kW of backup conventional power generation. For technical reasons, this will be a natural gas-fired turbine. The turbines themselves have to be idling even when wind or solar is delivering power. So, wind and solar installations continually emit carbon dioxide.
The capacity factor has no engineering fix. In the best of cases, the wind/solar plant supplies only a small part of the power used, and it is entirely redundant. You have built and occasionally operate two power generating plants when you only need one.
The fact that you have two redundant plants means that the costs cannot come down.
Right now, wind/solar are supplemented by the power surplus in the grid, and the inherent problems with them are obscured. But the federal government is shutting down the surplus generating capacity, and some day the dire effects of wind/solar on our electrical power supply will become obvious.
PS. The capacity factor is a feature of every source of power, even hydro. The western drought means that Hoover Dam’s output is diminished. Early nuclear stations had capacity factors around 40%, but now power companies know how to operate them, and their capacity factors are closer to 90%.
Wind power costs have been going down for years Bob and will continue to drop
Of course even with fossil powered plants you must always build for the maximum needed ( daytime and seasonal)
Wind power does an excellent job of covering some of the base load
Nuke plants are not being built because no private company is willing to insure them here in the USA
Now if you are advocating for government owned socialist nukes just say so
Teach that article says that the high costs are because of taxes and charges NOT. Because of how the power is generated
Wind power is so cheap that 90% of what is generated is SOLD to other countries
Without the taxes BECAUSE wind power is cheap, Danes woukd be paying less than the average cost that Europeans pay.