Talk:Biglow Canyon Wind Farm

Notes

I pretty sure the Portland Business Journal and The Oregonian should have some coverage of this wind farm. It would be good to add the usual "125 megawatts is enough to power 10,000 homes (made up number)" to provide some context/scale for the average reader. Other items that would be good: The current number of turbines, how tall are the turbines, acres in the project, better description of location that just the county (near what city, in the Columbia River Gorge, elevation), maybe a few details on the canyon it is in, any construction of infrastructure besides the turbines such as transmission lines, and any employment numbers if anyone is actually employed there. Aboutmovies (talk) 06:34, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Way to lay out the questions, those are all good ones. One more: I wonder if this is related to the dismantling of the Bull Run Hydroelectric Project. Part of the justification for that was that PGE would replace its (small) capacity with wind power. I'll look around, but if anybody knows a source, that would be helpful! -Pete (talk) 09:43, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Great job everybody. I just nominated this for a DYK as we expanded what was a stub by more than 5 fold. I think it will be the first one for the COTW. Aboutmovies (talk) 01:11, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Got a really nice PR piece. It's nice to mention the nameplate capacity of the generation when the wind is blowing, but the actual usefulness of the project for anything except PR work and tax credits depends on how much of the time the wind actually blows.

A discussion of the usefulness of these things should include a review of their potential to keep the lights on during peak load conditions---i.e. the hottest and coldest days of the year (my estimate zero), and the portion of time that power is actually available from them (my estimate 30%). Similarly if a lot of them are built, a discussion would be in order as to the number of gas or coal fired plants that will have to be built just to cover the time when the wind isn't blowing. Finally a writer looking past the PR aspects should look at how much of the cost is being paid by tax credits and other straws inserted in the state and federal treasury. (most of it--my estimate) Give 'em all the pretty PR man's spin you want but don't be naive enough to believe there isn't a darkside.Rvannatta (talk) 03:39, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

PS --- many of the issues that I raise are thoughtfully addressed in the generic wikipedia article on Wind Power. This article quotes a capacity factor of 20-40%--I said 30% and also discusses the issue I aluded to--how much of the total generating system can be windmills before it screws up the entire grid so badly it doesn't work---They talk of 20%Rvannatta (talk) 04:00, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

A power grid's capacity to absorb intermittent power sources such as wind and solar depends on the nature of other sources of supply and demand on the grid. The Pacific Northwest has a high proportion of hydroelectric power, which is dispatchable and therefore cooperates quite well with wind power. When the wind blows hard, the hydro plants can throttle back, saving up water for periods of low wind. Most hydroelectric dams have nameplate capacities that greatly exceed their average river flow, giving them capacity factors in the 40%-60% range. That is, hydro plants don't have enough water to run at full output around the clock, so they like to have other power sources on the same grid to let them save up water during periods of low demand when the spot price of power is low anyway. The basic rule is that the more hydro you have on a grid, the more wind power you can have before intermittency becomes a problem. Every source of electricity on the grid is subject to both scheduled and unscheduled outages. Nuclear power plants, for example, can have unscheduled outages that instantly remove 1 GW or more from the grid. Wind power increases the variability of supply, but does not introduce a new kind of problem. Grid managers have been dealing with variability of both supply and demand as long as grids have existed, by always maintaining reserve capacity, and by enlarging grids so there is more capacity to trade around. --Teratornis (talk) 23:38, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I have friends who manage the power control at BPA. The biggest problem facing operations is the unpredictability of wind power. Its variability timescale is often less than a minute whereas they are used to planning hydro and coal output hours—if not days—in advance. Sudden unplanned power loss is typically one or two generators in plants with dozens. The variability of windpower is typically whole farms. There is no nuclear to worry about anymore, but even if a reactor scrams, it still produces power for minutes afterward gradually tapering down and with adequate warning to bring other resources online.

In the BPA system, the majority of hydropower is from run-of-the-river generation. Reducing generator output means more water goes over the spillway, and does not save it for later use. The installations where reducing power generation reserves water for later use are a minority portion of BPA's system capacity. —EncMstr (talk) 18:40, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Oregonian coverage

http://blog.oregonlive.com/breakingnews/2008/04/pge_buys_final_turbines_for_bi.html -Pete (talk) 22:11, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

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