Originally Posted by maxthedog

No change in wind patterns in the last 20 years, and here I was thinking it had got warmer and damp, due to global warming.The questions i have raised are monthly wind patterns, and the storage of the energy when the grid is quite. No point a turbine flying at 3A.M. As for the money question, This group are looking for cash and because it seems private investors will not touch it. They are trying to put pressure on the goverment which means me the tax payer.Since the interveiw, Pat Kenny has being putting pressure on every Gov official to invest, Has Pat got shares in the idea.
As for scientist`s and engineer`s creating jobs for them selves, why lets look at NASA.Worthy engineering that costs the taxpayer a fortune for very little return. Sending a rocket to the moon that cured cancer.
,

Originally Posted by sparkey321

Exactly

Its a "power storage" or "battery" of you prefer. They have to put power in and then take it out. there are losses in between and they are much more than 25%.

The current pumped Hydro plant is a totally different situation in totally different circumstances.

Standard generating stations generate power all the time, it does not matter if its needed or not. You cannot just switch them on and off. You can do some planning around peak demand and bring some smaller power stations on line but they have to be heated up at all times generating CO2 and burning fuel. (turbine gas plants are the exception)

Turlough Hill works on the premise that why waste this power. When its been generated anyway and not be used lets just pump water up into a reservoir and then at peak times use it to give the grid a boost. Its only temporary providing a boost for a couple of hours around peak demand. its not designed as a back up for the grid and efficiency does not matter as there is huge amounts of available power to draw from.

What is being proposed is totally different. Pumped Hydro is be proposed as a a backup for the entire national grid.

Using totally random figures here but lets look at the following scenario.

la La land has a 10 MW average demand with a peak demand of 15MW. It decides that it will provide this 10MW demand using a combination of wind and pumped hydro.

So it builds reservoirs to provide 48 hours of backup and 10MW of wind capacity using 100 wind turbines

All goes to plan the reservoir is full and everything is in place. The wind turbines are generating 10MW quite happily until the wind fails in an area for say 6 hours and 3 turbines or 3MW is lost. Start up the pumped Hydro plant to meet the demand and then the wind pick up again.

All worked well.

Now 3MW for 6 hours means 18MW hours of capacity have been removed from the "battery".

To refill this will require require 18 wind turbines running for 6 hours. Except there are losses of say 50%. So now it will take 18 turbines 12 hours or 36 6 hours to replace the lost capacity. But that's OK because by night the demand drops by 40% to 6 MW for 8 hours. So that night the extra 4 MW can be sued for 8 hours to refill the "battery".

But hang on 4 MW X 8 hours is 32MW hours or a shortage of 4 MW.

Now that's assuming that for 18 hours out of 24 the turbines were running at 100% capacity and 100% efficency which will never happen. You need to build in extra generation capacity to allow for the fact that at no time will you have 100% capacity from your wind turbines. Then you have to build in extra capacity to refill the battery when needed. The lower your efficiency the more extra capacity is required.

With 50% efficiency if you plan on replenishing the battery at the same speed at which you drained it then you need to have extra wind power capacity of twice the generation capacity of that particular pumped hydro plant.

Its unlikely you will be using all your hydro plants at the same time but lets say 30% of your daily power comes from pumped Hydro then you would need to build wind generation capacity to meet your proposed supply level. Plus an allowance for certain levels if wind fluctuation plus and additional 60% to cover the requirement to re fill your battery.

So on LA LA land that would be 10MW plus which at 20% efficency woudl require 50MW generation capacity to allow for fluctuations in wind and 30MW to refill the battery.

So for a 10MW supply you would need to build 80MW of wind generation capacity. Drop your efficiency and that figure gets worse.

You can also decrease that figure by taking longer to refill the battery (say for each 4 hours drawn out take 8 to put it back) but that would require you to build even more storage capacity.

The capital costs would increase exponentially which ever why you go.

Also remember as shown earlier using current technology the land mass required just to build the wind farms to meet their supply figures not taking into account extra capacity to put into storage would be the size of County Limerick.

Imagine the environmental impact of that ? Imagine the cost of buying that land ? Imagine the cost of the turbines ? the infrastructure behind them ?

10 Billion would not even get you close.

Originally Posted by joel

I'd say you are an oil company plant. Or right wing nut.

They are all over the internet - Global Warming deniers and those who are anti-windpower. And you can't be argued with. Everytime the facts will ignored and sensational claims made.

Originally Posted by myksav

Underlined.
I guess you do not understand the concept of examples.

Originally Posted by myksav

Are you an electrician, perhaps?

Originally Posted by myksav

You look to be assuming that all turbines would be in one place, if you look at the proposal with unblinkered eyes you would note that all turbines about the country would be involved in supplying pumping power when there is the least demand on the grid.

Originally Posted by myksav

As to your calculations of final percentage, I find them suspect.

Originally Posted by myksav

They are also moot as the originator 'fuel' source is free.

Originally Posted by myksav

The capital costs are moot as well, as any power system will require capital costs.

Originally Posted by myksav

The primary advantage with Pumped Storage is that once the system is built, the fueling doesn't cost. Maintenance applies to all power systems. With fossil fueled stations, they have to shut down at least in part to do maintenance. That entire station supply has to be made up by other stations. This applies less to a 'scattered' source, one or two turbines being shut down for maintenance won't make any difference.
Shutting down the reservoir power take-off isn't a problem as it can be done while the wind is blowing with no loss of power to the grid.

Originally Posted by myksav

Do you have a solution to the future power requirements of the country that is proof against fuel source cut-off, seeing as we are 90% dependant on outside fuel sources to power our grid?

Originally Posted by myksav

Nuclear? Not economically viable for Ireland using present technologies.

Originally Posted by myksav

I stand on the content and meaning of my post, the detraction of this idea is pure oirish-ism. I see that in many ventures similar in scope as the SOI idea and, maybe it's the yankee side of me, but I find it to be one of the more stupid parts of Irish society/mentality. It's an inbuilt inferiority complex.

Originally Posted by joel

I'd say you are an oil company plant. Or right wing nut.

They are all over the internet - Global Warming deniers and those who are anti-windpower. And you can't be argued with. Everytime the facts will ignored and sensational claims made.

Originally Posted by myksav

So, what's your alternative? What we already have?
Tell you what, why not ban any and all new ideas, (even though this is actually an old idea that works)?

Should we wait until fuel prices rise above viability for power production and then think about replacing with other sources? And pay a hell of a lot more in capital costs?

Here's a parallel.
You have an unlimited local supply of food that is always fresh. You can eat what you want and not worry about spillage and waste. Any excess of what you consume can be exported.

You are dependant on outside supplies of food that has limits on availability. You can eat what you can get, after paying more for it. If supply drops or becomes too expensive, you have to eat less or possibly starve without rationing.

Which would you prefer?

Originally Posted by sparkey321

No one is anti wind power, no one is climate change denier, no one is denying something has to be done but FFS some sense of reality has to prevail. The laws of physics exist. Why is it that some people cannot look objectively at these ideas.

Just because someone says its green, it involves wind and they tell you it works do you automatically believe them ?

Originally Posted by joel

I'm trained in Physics ffs!

Originally Posted by sparkey321

Quote:
Originally Posted by myksav
Do you have a solution to the future power requirements of the country that is proof against fuel source cut-off, seeing as we are 90% dependant on outside fuel sources to power our grid?

it doesn't matter what I think. The plan is not feasible. It would cost far more than 10 billion would require vast amounts of the west coast being taken over my windmills (and don't ignore the environmental impact of this). Its money wasted. Invest in research for power storage, fuel cells. The amount of money being thrown at green technologies that don't actually deliver benefits is frightening.