The wind power generation market is certainly technically advancing (I laughed too when one caught fire because it was err too windy) and attracting more finance , some requiring no gov money at all , we now have the high torque gearboxes and some talk that the current 14MW current upper limit design will be beaten and Halide is gaining orders , GE also launching Cypress this week which at 6MW is the largest on shore turbine output. A different plastics blend is being developed for the turbine blades , to make them recyclable and the sea bed anchor systems (seem) to be well enough engineered for plenty of off shore wind to be developed , deep sea offshore wind is starting to be talked about and this is more technically difficult as floating wind turbine platforms are being thought about , which given the wave hieghts coupled with very tall turbines will have engineers and perhaps contactors in very dificult position.
However using wind power is a different thing altogether , they generate in DC , and in wiring supplies each turbine is generating non synchronous with the other , so electrical engineers have to perform what is termed "clean up" where the DC is put into a form for storage and/or for inversion to AC systems and transformation .
However whilst the goverment seems convinced that whole areas can and will be powered by wind generated electricty , my old friend from childrens stories "windy miller" perhaps would state the obvious , what happens when it isnt windy ??? , and it is rather important that goverment does think about this or our energy systems will end up in a bit of a mess. At the moment electricty is having a good public image , in that coal has just about been eliminated from the UK generation system , at certain times wind has been providing 25% of the uk demand , however at other times wind has been providing very little and we see gas electrical generation systems being turned on and the large interconnectors being used where electricty is sent and recieved via undersea cables , and so the thinking has been up till now that wind acts as a sort of rnewable friend to not use coal, gas and biomass electricty generation systems.Wind power is expected to fall in cost per mw , but of course this realy doesnt turn up on users bills because in pretty much all scenarios you have to have Gas, coal Biomass and nuclear either in base load or to be ready for those days when you have no wind but peak demands , which perhaps isnt really the best way of doing things .
Like all energy systems , balancing demand with supply is perhaps the best start point ,its really easy too when you have say just 50 houses using 8000kwh each , you just need to be sure what the peak demand is and then you can size your electrical or non electrical store , and so long as your wind turbine can fill that store (over low and high wind supplies) , you can have a clean nergy system , so no problem for the 50 house sceanrios as regards electricty .
However the government is talking about 40000MW (peak output) as wind supplies and infering that this will revolutionise the UKs electricty grid supplies ,which i have a great deal of caution about , In 2018 (I think) the uk had 10 consecuative days with out any wind generating any electricty at all , the grid started wanting is reserve systems in use (large private commercial generators in factories ), we got close to not having enough baseload or gas electrical generation plants and I am not sure we have learnt anyhting from this problem , 10 consecuative days without wind is not a particulary rare event either , but it perhaps appears as some really low wind days ,combined with no wind at all days , non the less a very problematic scenario , as it will no dawn on people that we will need storage of at least 10 days , to plan for the possibility of 10 days without wind , which will be big and costly.
Already we see some rushing to lithium battery storage systems , noting we cannot recycle these battieres much beyond 40% at the moment (although better recycling 70% is being developed ) , the flow battery is probabely best suited for large electricty storage , as it has such deep cycle abilities and long life with no degradation on charge holding (which lithium systems do around 1% charge loss per year after 3yrs i think) , so whilst goverment headlines on wind power are interesting ,it would be a shame if they screw up on the energy storage bit, even so some one has to explain what is the grid going to do to meet demands when its low or no wind for 10 or more consecuative days , i would think they also have to explain what a 10 day battery for a major city would look like, or how three phase (in phase) is to be provided from a battery ???
