The European energy market has been driven for years by restrictions on CO2 and taxpayer support for renewable energy. As a result, Europe boasts many of the biggest, strongest wind companies in the world.
In the U.S., we largely leave the energy market up to the vagaries of rising and falling oil prices. As a result, our wind power industry is fragmented and underfunded -- and now that oil prices are back down, on the ropes.
As a result, the big European companies are getting set to buy up lots of smaller American companies to further cement their dominance.
Then, when oil prices inevitably rise again -- and when the U.S. passes its inevitable restrictions on GHGs -- European companies will be well-positioned to harvest the bounty.
This is what corporatist conservative governance in the U.S. has gotten us -- a competitive disadvantage in one of the fastest growing markets of the 21st century. Huzzah.
BusinessWeek has the whole sordid tale.
City preps and countries posture ahead of Copenhagen talks
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johnmcc793 Posted 4:48 am
04 Nov 2008
Big Horn Wind Project reports its monthly net generation data to the US Department of Energy's Energy Informaiton Administration (Form 920) and its generating capacity (Form 860).
Using 2007 data, the total megawatt-hours (MWh) of net generation was 550,365 MWh. Total generating capacity of the wind farm is 199 megawatts (MW).
If the farm operated 24/7 throughout the year its on-line factor would be 100%. Only a few nuclear units operate inear that range but 365 x 24 x generating capacity is how the industry calculates the on-line factor of generating units.
Thus, Big Horn has a theoretical on-line factor of 1,743,240 MWh of electric output.
The follwing is the 2007 monthly MWh and on-line capacity for Big Horn provided by the operator:
Monthly on-line %
JAN 23.93%
FEB 26.27%
MAR 39.02%
APR 38.54%
MAY 33.57%
JUN 41.34%
JUL 29.83%
AUG 29.07%
SEP 28.85%
OCT 33.28%
NOV 19.63%
DEC 40.78%
2007 Total 31.57%
This is not a condemnation of wind power. It is a reality check that no matter how many towers are put up, they work when the wind blows and that may not be in synch with demand.
Electricity storage is offered as a solution to wind downtime but we are not there yet.
100% of elec gen from renewables in 10 years is an impossibility and we do not help our cause by ignoring the intermittent nature of wind and solar and the constant nature of power demand.
Go Senator Obama!
John McCormick
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