Wind farms degrade rapidly

GreatApe

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.ref.org.uk/attachments/article/280/ref.hughes.19.12.12.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwi9jdzXr4_kAhX_SBUIHdVUDm4QFjAPegQIChAB&usg=AOvVaw1OqmEOqOhQGq--ntaeYdgX


Why isn't this mentioned in pro intermittent discussions more often?

Wind farm outputs degrade very rapidly as the blades wear away and other faults and old age factors kick in

This report is a few years old have things gotten better?

This is quite a big negative it means you have to replace these quite often just to maintain output

Martyn1981

1. It's a 2012 report.
2. It's by the Renewable Energy Foundation.
3. The REF does nothing for renewables, and does not appear to be a foundation in any way shape or means, despite being a registered charity, and having an extremely misleading name.
4. This is Noel Edmonds pet project to spread anti-wind propaganda. It is an anti-wind lobbying organisation.
5. Most folk who support RE or are interested in RE probably already know all of this.
6. There is a similar organisation, pretty much a sister organisation, called the Global Warming Policy Foundation. And again this anti-RE vehicle from Nigel Lawson has a somewhat misleading title!

7. Yet another non green, non ethical thread.
8. What a waste of time.

Martyn1981

Wow, once you start looking there are loads of these oddly named sites, this one has a lovely leaf as its logo:

Wind Action - Does exactly the opposite of what it says on the tin!

Facts, analysis, exposure to industrial wind energy's real impacts

industrial wind energy's real impacts ... to shed its superficial 'green' veneer and take corrective action to reverse the harms its wind purchases have caused.

Now that we know that renewables can’t save the planet, are we really going to stand by and let them destroy it?

Martyn1981

On the Performance of Wind Farms in the United Kingdom
David MacKay FRS
Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge
and
Department of Energy and Climate Change, London
May 28, 2013 – Draft 6.0

This paper identifies a significant flaw in a recent study “The Performance of Wind Farms in the United Kingdom and Denmark,” published by the Renewable Energy Foundation, which claimed that wind farms in the UK wear out sooner than expected, and that recently-commissioned farms are substantially less efficient than older farms. The statistical model that underlies the method used in the study to infer the age-performance function of wind farms is non-identifiable, which means that no matter how much data is available, the age-performance function cannot be deduced by that model; the underlying model can fit the data in an infinite number of ways, with age-performance functions that fall or rise arbitrarily steeply. The method used in the study is believed to have resolved this non-identifiability in arbitrary ways; as a consequence, most of the conclusions of the Renewable Energy Foundation study are believed to be spurious.

The REF study claims that “normalized load factors” of wind farms decline to 15%, 8%, 13%, or 7% in the 10th year operation (with the number depending on the details of the fitting method). All these numbers appear inconsistent with the raw data which show that the actual load factors of 10-year-old farms are about 24% ± 7%. The raw data show that even 15-year old farms have actual load factors of about 24% ± 7%.

Not only are these claims surprising; they also seem inconsistent with the data on the load factors of actual wind farms. Surely, if it is true that “the normalised load factor for UK onshore wind farms declines from a peak of about 24% at age 1 to 15% at age 10 and 11% at age 15” then should one not expect that a the actual measured load factors of 10-year old wind farms would be around 15% at age 10 or 11, and around 11% at age 15? But the actual measured annual load factors at ages 10, 11, and 15, plotted directly from the same raw data used by Hughes in figure 1, are much larger.
The actual load factors of 10-year-old wind farms are not 15% but 24% ± 7% (based on 51 farms, figure 1a). The actual load factors of 11-year-old wind farms are not 15% but 24% ± 7% (based on 47 farms, figure 1b). The actual load factors of 15-year-old wind farms are not 11% but 24% ± 7% (based on 27 farms, figure 1c). Moreover, when looking at the load factors as a function of capacity in figure 1d, my eye struggles to perceive any evidence for the claim that “larger wind farms have systematically worse performance than smaller wind farms” (although no wind farms with capacity larger than 25 MW have yet reached these ages in the UK).

How can this paradox be resolved?

GreatApe

So what's the real figure?

I don't know why but I'd never even considered their degradation rates I guess because CCGTs and coal plants and nukes can output the same amount in year 50 as they can in day 5 it didn't occur to me

So how much does a wind farm degrade over 5-10-15-20 years? And solar?

Martyn1981

The price the wind generated electricity is sold at reflects all of the relevant economic and performance factors, including experience and lessons learned. And that price, as time goes on, is getting lower and lower.

In the case of PV, it was suggested that panel performance would drop at around 2% pa.

However, post 2000 silicon PV panels appear to be closer to 0.4%.

PV panels are lasting far longer than the original estimates of 20-25+yrs. A German article several years ago raised the question - are we already deploying 50yr PV, but we just don't know it?'


I guess the real question we should all be asking ourselves is - why would someone post a 2012 report that does not appear to reflect reality, at all, in 2019, on a Green & Ethical Board?

GreatApe

Martyn1981 wrote: »

The price the wind generated electricity is sold at reflects all of the relevant economic and performance factors, including experience and lessons learned. And that price, as time goes on, is getting lower and lower.

In the case of PV, it was suggested that panel performance would drop at around 2% pa.

However, post 2000 silicon PV panels appear to be closer to 0.4%.

PV panels are lasting far longer than the original estimates of 20-25+yrs. A German article several years ago raised the question - are we already deploying 50yr PV, but we just don't know it?'

I guess the real question we should all be asking ourselves is - why would someone post a 2012 report that does not appear to reflect reality, at all, in 2019, on a Green & Ethical Board?

So what's the degradation on wind farms per year annualised?

This isn't a trivial questions because those degraded turbines will end up in landfill somewhere probably some poor third world country for some kids to dismantle and recycle what can be salvaged

1961Nick

Martyn1981 wrote: »

I guess the real question we should all be asking ourselves is - why would someone post a 2012 report that does not appear to reflect reality, at all, in 2019, on a Green & Ethical Board?

Because it’s worthy of discussion? It shouldn’t be excluded just because we don’t like the content.

The original performance estimate for my solar included 1% annual degradation. I’m now into year 7 & they still max the inverter at 3685w so I’d be surprised if they’d lost 2% in total.

Solarchaser

It's like reading reports from the European research group, their research says europe is bad... must be true, they are called the ERG, not the we want brexit at any cost group.

I wonder what the degradation on gas fire power stations was stated at 10 years after they were built.

I think it's safe to say that any estimates on wind turbines or solar panels from 7 years ago, wont be that relevant to today's products.

Just like I'm sure the degradation guesses on gas fire power stations of today would be quite different to 10 years ago.... technology moves on.

zeupater

1961Nick wrote: »

Because it’s worthy of discussion? It shouldn’t be excluded just because we don’t like the content.

The original performance estimate for my solar included 1% annual degradation. I’m now into year 7 & they still max the inverter at 3685w so I’d be surprised if they’d lost 2% in total.

Hi

Well, although having not read all posts in detail we seem to not have a discussion but a statement ... "Wind farms degrade rapidly" ... which seems to have been debunked already ...

Hypothesis
- "the normalised load factor for UK onshore wind farms declines from a peak of about 24% at age 1 to 15% at age 10 and 11% at age 15"

Study of performance at Windfarm Age
0 years - On 24% design load factor.
10 years - "24% ± 7% (based on 51 farms, figure 1a)"
11 years - "24% ± 7% (based on 47 farms, figure 1b)"
15 years - "24% ± 7% (based on 27 farms, figure 1c)"

Conclusion (based on 125 farms)
24%=24%=24%=24% !!!!

Okay, the conclusion seems to disprove the hypothesis pretty comprehensively, however, let's just consider what major factors could actually impact the efficiency of a wind farm's generation over time ..

(1). The resource which forms the source of the energy to be farmed (wind) is running out ...
(2). Poor mechanical maintenance
(3). Poor structural maintenance.

So, on the basis that the met-office publish wind speed anomaly data for each period against long term averages and this tends to disprove (1), we're left with the possibility that any rapid degradation on performance (efficiency) would be related to bad business practices leading to underinvestment in asset maintenance.

The salient question would then revolve around why any operator would invest heavily in capital equipment which is designed to make a profit for them wouldn't notice a significant reduction in revenue over a number of years ... in the case above a 54% loss of a considerable income (basis 11/24) resulting from what would, in terms of initial capital cost, be little more than penny pinching ... the likelihood of which is therefore ??

Having addressed the assertion, there's probably little reason to continue any level of meaningful discussion as the assertion itself is so obviously designed to discredit a form of RE ... mind though, as maintenance is also a major cost centre in both FF & nuclear generation the same set of conditions regarding 'lack-of' would also apply !! .... :whistle:

HTH
Z

silverwhistle

zeupater wrote: »

Having addressed the assertion, there's probably little reason to continue any level of meaningful discussion as the assertion itself is so obviously designed to discredit a form of RE ...

The subject may be worthy of discussion but, 1961Nick, not the assertion by the original poster, whose aim lies elsewhere. I'm just glad others are prepared to highlight the facts because many of the rest of us can't be *rsed, where this particular poster is concerned.