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Old 06-20-2009, 12:54 PM   #22
HarryT
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Quote:
Originally Posted by vivaldirules View Post
Wind farms certainly cannot provide all or even half the power needed but they could significantly reduce the total fraction currently supplied from coal and gas plants.
No, they can't. You can't just "switch off" a coal-fired power station - it takes weeks to take off-line, or bring back on-line. A coal station cannot, therefore, act as a "backup" for wind power on windless days, and equally you can't take a coal station off-line on windy days. Wind power can replace certain other types of power generation plant, such as hydro-electric plants, because they can be quickly taken on- and off-line.

I worked for many years in the UK power industry. The calculations about what "mixture" of generating plant you need to satisfy the varying demand at different times of the day and years are very complex, and I'm afraid it's overly simplistic to say "if we build more wind farms we can get rid of coal power stations". Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. You need a mixture of "permanently on" power plants to satisfy your "base load" - that's currently basically a choice of coal, gas, and nuclear plants - plus generation capacity which can come on-line when needed to satisfy peaks of demand (and that can include wind power).
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