Iowa Wind Power

[Sigmapolis]

If you look up the EIAs levelized cost of energy there are some good studies. They show costs with and without subsidies and separate dispatchable vs non-dispatchable sources.

The thing people typically find surprising is the high cost of nuclear, which is due to massive CapEx. I also think things are moving more toward micro grids rather than a nationwide smart grid. Technologies that scale down better are probably going to do better in the future.

It is easy to figure out a reasonable cost estimate for building a MW of power capacity. I am not sure how illuminating that is, though, because I think the spirit of the question is about the value proposition of the different options. Answering that question is very complex and depends on many contextual factors that do not break down well into a single set of numbers or chart for comparison.

 

[browns4cy]

Biggest issue with these is absentee landowners who ok these wind projects. We had a big battle with our wind project as only 2 of the landowners that agreed to it live on the land where the project went. Then the board of supervisors re wrote the laws for set back distance from homes and roads to please the wind company. They do alot of back door politics on these projects.

 

[Cycsk]

Stupid, albeit honest question for you wind power techies. Why doesn't the speed of the blades seem to change on a very windy day? I've never seen them really whipping around. They seem pretty much the same on a very windy day as a not-so-windy day.

 

[do4CY]

Stupid, albeit honest question for you wind power techies. Why doesn't the speed of the blades seem to change on a very windy day? I've never seen them really whipping around. They seem pretty much the same on a very windy day as a not-so-windy day.

They would need to spin at a certain rpm and they can change the blade angle to do this. They shut them down on real windy days. They could do a lot of damage if they got spinning too fast.

 

[nfrine]

They would need to spin at a certain rpm and they can change the blade angle to do this. They shut them down on real windy days. They could do a lot of damage if they got spinning too fast.

Understand another blade fell off in Iowa this week. I do not want to be next to one of these things when that happens. There would be a lot of laundry to do....

 

[BWRhasnoAC]

Nope. They are supposed to but you know how that goes. In a meeting someone asked about what if the company goes bankrupt? They said that there is a lot of iron that could be scraped out in one. Made it sound like I could just go out there with my torch or hack saw and just cut it down.

Sounds like good old fashioned fun, when can I come over?

 

[do4CY]

Understand another blade fell off in Iowa this week. I do not want to be next to one of these things when that happens. There would be a lot of laundry to do....

I have seen them after they have been struck by lightning, they just curl over on themselves.

I think the blade tip speed is around 175 mph. When you are close to them they are not quiet, there is a large whoosh.

 

[STATE12]

Stupid, albeit honest question for you wind power techies. Why doesn't the speed of the blades seem to change on a very windy day? I've never seen them really whipping around. They seem pretty much the same on a very windy day as a not-so-windy day.

 

[Stormin]

Biggest issue with these is absentee landowners who ok these wind projects. We had a big battle with our wind project as only 2 of the landowners that agreed to it live on the land where the project went. Then the board of supervisors re wrote the laws for set back distance from homes and roads to please the wind company. They do alot of back door politics on these projects.

Great. And the Hog Building Owner must live next to the Hog Building. I like it.

 

[brett108]

if you live in the Des Moines area the DMACC turbine is about 30 years old now.

Trying to defend your stance with a single anecdote. Just stop. And the oil "subsidies" thing gets old. Oil companies amortize assets. Its a tax treatment that I guarantee your company uses but you have no clue about. Its not an oil subsidy, because literally every company can do it.

 

[agrabes]

This is all true, but of the two extremes, Iowa's wind generation over MISO load is the more accurate way to look at it. I suppose you could do MISO-N load, taking out the portion from AR, LA, MS, and TX, and still end up with a fair comparison, given there is limited (though still some) transmission between the two.

The only way you could do it "properly" is if MISO was going to give you that powerflow data on a really micro level, which I am not even sure they would have (not an electrical engineer here, I understand this more from the market side) but, even if they did, I doubt they are sharing it with anybody.

The 40% number is more misleading than the 10%, at least. That 40% implies that Iowa is starting to rely on wind and increasingly on wind alone, which is not quite the reality of it. There will be times when Iowa is exporting a ton of wind on a cold and long night with the wind howling, but there are still times when the state is going to be very dependent on coal, gas, and nuclear imports in other Midwestern states or imports from the same in SPP to the west along our borders.

We have made some good progress on renewables, but we are still a long ways away from not needing the coal and gas plants in Illinois and Missouri around to keep the lights for peak load on in Des Moines and Ames.

If we're talking about adding up the total kilowatt-hours supplied by wind vs. gas/coal/nuclear over the period of a year, I really couldn't say whether that number is closer to 40% or 10%. But if we're talking about a typical hour with average wind output - it's going to be closer to that 40% number.

We are moving more and more toward the direction of having wind supply most of our power most of the time. MidAmerican is well down the road to implement a plan to have enough wind capacity installed in Iowa to cover its entire electrical load. MidAmerican is very business savvy - they would not be building all this wind if it was not a good economic move for them. They snuck in the last new coal plant to be built in Iowa in the early 2000's, so these are not people who make decisions based on environmental sentimentality. It's dollars and cents. The nuclear plant in Palo just closed its doors for good in August after the Derecho, and is not being immediately replaced. That's another chunk of traditional base load generation gone. We do still need the support of other generation types, because the wind doesn't always blow, but when the wind is blowing it is carrying a large portion of our electrical load.

 

[AuH2O]

It is easy to figure out a reasonable cost estimate for building a MW of power capacity. I am not sure how illuminating that is, though, because I think the spirit of the question is about the value proposition of the different options. Answering that question is very complex and depends on many contextual factors that do not break down well into a single set of numbers or chart for comparison.

Sure, but this is easily the best and most thorough data out there, and you can't start getting to the more complicated discussion when people's starting point about the costs of different types of power generation are so grossly wrong.

 

[motorcy90]

Trying to defend your stance with a single anecdote. Just stop. And the oil "subsidies" thing gets old. Oil companies amortize assets. Its a tax treatment that I guarantee your company uses but you have no clue about. Its not an oil subsidy, because literally every company can do it.

there are older towers all over still. The old Zonds up around Emmetsburg area are even older and are still running. I interviewed at a site that had 15 year old towers still going strong as well.

 

[Cycsk]

OK, now that is impressive. But what the heck happened? It looked like an explosion, but I know it wasn't.

 

[motorcy90]

OK, now that is impressive. But what the heck happened? It looked like an explosion, but I know it wasn't.

CGI

 

[9104Griffith]

OK, now that is impressive. But what the heck happened? It looked like an explosion, but I know it wasn't.

Pause it around the 10 sec mark and you will see one blade fails and the pieces from that start a chain reaction with another blade and one of the pieces hits the tower causing it to fall. Those horses definitely knew something wasn't right.

 

[Sigmapolis]

If we're talking about adding up the total kilowatt-hours supplied by wind vs. gas/coal/nuclear over the period of a year, I really couldn't say whether that number is closer to 40% or 10%. But if we're talking about a typical hour with average wind output - it's going to be closer to that 40% number.

We are moving more and more toward the direction of having wind supply most of our power most of the time. MidAmerican is well down the road to implement a plan to have enough wind capacity installed in Iowa to cover its entire electrical load. MidAmerican is very business savvy - they would not be building all this wind if it was not a good economic move for them. They snuck in the last new coal plant to be built in Iowa in the early 2000's, so these are not people who make decisions based on environmental sentimentality. It's dollars and cents. The nuclear plant in Palo just closed its doors for good in August after the Derecho, and is not being immediately replaced. That's another chunk of traditional base load generation gone. We do still need the support of other generation types, because the wind doesn't always blow, but when the wind is blowing it is carrying a large portion of our electrical load.

If you look at Iowa alone, the wind share is around 40%.

If you look at MISO, then it is more like 10%.

The former is not really an accurate picture of how the system works. The latter, while it has its complications (especially distinguishing between MISO-North and MISO-South), is much more realistic.

Let me be clear I am not somehow against the development of wind assets in the state. Far from it -- I think it is a lovely development for the state. I just recognize it has its limitations at this point.

The wind is good, and every MWh you have off it is saved generation from coal or gas. But wind has the unfortunate habit of being "counter" to load -- people mostly need power in the day/summer, and wind is best at night/during the winter. Solar does a much better job of tracking higher load events in that way.

So we are still going to have that coal/gas/nuclear fleet throughout the Midwest to back the wind up for the foreseeable future. I think the next "big thing" is going to be large-scale battery storage.

Storage is what renewables need to truly start competing with thermal power for baseload and peak energy. Right now, renewables are just kind of "there when they are there," but if you could move the generation around, even just a few hours throughout the day, then the economics of this completely change.

Wind could also be really useful in a future with a ton of electric vehicles. You would likely charge them overnight, so the wind would pair up with that load shape very well to charge EVs.

 

[Cycsk]

CGI

Thanks, but I can't tell if "CGI" is an insider's technical answer or a smart aleck's version of "WTF."

 

[agrabes]

If you look at Iowa alone, the wind share is around 40%.

If you look at MISO, then it is more like 10%.

The former is not really an accurate picture of how the system works. The latter, while it has its complications (especially distinguishing between MISO-North and MISO-South), is much more realistic.

Let me be clear I am not somehow against the development of wind assets in the state. Far from it -- I think it is a lovely development for the state. I just recognize it has its limitations at this point.

The wind is good, and every MWh you have off it is saved generation from coal or gas. But wind has the unfortunate habit of being "counter" to load -- people mostly need power in the day/summer, and wind is best at night/during the winter. Solar does a much better job of tracking higher load events in that way.

So we are still going to have that coal/gas/nuclear fleet throughout the Midwest to back the wind up for the foreseeable future. I think the next "big thing" is going to be large-scale battery storage.

Storage is what renewables need to truly start competing with thermal power for baseload and peak energy. Right now, renewables are just kind of "there when they are there," but if you could move the generation around, even just a few hours throughout the day, then the economics of this completely change.

Wind could also be really useful in a future with a ton of electric vehicles. You would likely charge them overnight, so the wind would pair up with that load shape very well to charge EVs.

I don't think you're against wind, just trying to correct what I think are some misunderstandings about how the power market works.

As someone who works in the industry, I'd say your point about MISO is both right and wrong. Yes, most Iowa utilities are MISO members and generation is dispatched by MISO across the whole territory. But just because wind generated in Iowa could be dispatched to Illinois or Minnesota doesn't mean that it will be. A lot of this is governed by various power purchase agreements, marginal prices on the day of, etc. Power generated within the MISO footprint doesn't just get spread out evenly across all the utilities and the load. You can look at it in two different ways - "Actual" power flow and "Contract" power flow. In terms of what really happens, power follows the path of least resistance. The power generated is used locally first, because that's the easiest path for it to follow. Then once local demand is met, it flows out into the larger grid to serve more remote load. In terms of the "Contract" portion - it's point to point. Company A owns generation and sells it to Company B. It doesn't just go out into a general pool where you might be getting wind, gas, coal, nuclear, or whatever based on luck of the draw. You contract to buy power from a specific generator. This is all a convenient fiction because you can't say for sure that Windmill A's power will actually physically travel to Factory B who is buying that power. But it all works out in the end because the load gets served and the utilities contracts are satisfied.

So it's meaningless to say that 10% of MISO generation is wind, because utilities don't just buy from a mass, combined MISO pool. The overall breakdown of MISO's generation doesn't reflect the generation and use of electricity in Iowa specifically. Even though 10% of MISO's load is served by wind, a greatly disproportionate segment of that 10% is located in Iowa. MISO is more like a commodity market with a limited set of traders. Integrated utilities use their own generation to serve their own load and buy or sell the excess or shortfall. This is MidAmerican. Their wind will be used to serve MidAmerican load first. When/if MidAmerican is able to build enough wind in Iowa to cover 100% of its Iowa load, then most of the time they will be using 100% wind to serve its Iowa load. Sometimes, it would sell excess back out into the MISO market, other times it would buy other generation out of the MISO market. Independent generators sell into the market. Load serving entities buy power from people who have it to sell. MISO is the facilitator of these trades, but does not "own" the power themselves or pool it together. The wind energy generated in Iowa is most likely to be used in Iowa, both from a "real" electricity perspective and a contract perspective.

But yes, storage is the next big thing for renewables. California is starting to see the problems of too many renewables and too few traditional generators.

 

[Sigmapolis]

I don't think you're against wind, just trying to correct what I think are some misunderstandings about how the power market works.

As someone who works in the industry, I'd say your point about MISO is both right and wrong. Yes, most Iowa utilities are MISO members and generation is dispatched by MISO across the whole territory. But just because wind generated in Iowa could be dispatched to Illinois or Minnesota doesn't mean that it will be. A lot of this is governed by various power purchase agreements, marginal prices on the day of, etc. Power generated within the MISO footprint doesn't just get spread out evenly across all the utilities and the load. You can look at it in two different ways - "Actual" power flow and "Contract" power flow. In terms of what really happens, power follows the path of least resistance. The power generated is used locally first, because that's the easiest path for it to follow. Then once local demand is met, it flows out into the larger grid to serve more remote load. In terms of the "Contract" portion - it's point to point. Company A owns generation and sells it to Company B. It doesn't just go out into a general pool where you might be getting wind, gas, coal, nuclear, or whatever based on luck of the draw. You contract to buy power from a specific generator. This is all a convenient fiction because you can't say for sure that Windmill A's power will actually physically travel to Factory B who is buying that power. But it all works out in the end because the load gets served and the utilities contracts are satisfied.

So it's meaningless to say that 10% of MISO generation is wind, because utilities don't just buy from a mass, combined MISO pool. The overall breakdown of MISO's generation doesn't reflect the generation and use of electricity in Iowa specifically. Even though 10% of MISO's load is served by wind, a greatly disproportionate segment of that 10% is located in Iowa. MISO is more like a commodity market with a limited set of traders. Integrated utilities use their own generation to serve their own load and buy or sell the excess or shortfall. This is MidAmerican. Their wind will be used to serve MidAmerican load first. When/if MidAmerican is able to build enough wind in Iowa to cover 100% of its Iowa load, then most of the time they will be using 100% wind to serve its Iowa load. Sometimes, it would sell excess back out into the MISO market, other times it would buy other generation out of the MISO market. Independent generators sell into the market. Load serving entities buy power from people who have it to sell. MISO is the facilitator of these trades, but does not "own" the power themselves or pool it together. The wind energy generated in Iowa is most likely to be used in Iowa, both from a "real" electricity perspective and a contract perspective.

But yes, storage is the next big thing for renewables. California is starting to see the problems of too many renewables and too few traditional generators.

I think we would both agree this is complicated and there are several potential ways to slice it.

You could try to build it up through financial agreements, in the way you describe, but I am not sure that is really reflective of the reality the electron could come from anywhere at any given moment. That includes from other neighboring systems, too, especially PJM and SPP, given the interchange flows between the different regions.

The financial arrangements may say that Mid-American is generating for Mid-American first, yes, but the power is not a particular box with a tracking number on it. It all kind of ends up in the same bathtub.

I think my overall point that going (Iowa wind generation) / (Iowa load) = 40% is not really an accurate way to think of it stands, however. That is an impressive number, but it needs a high degree of tempering to the reality that Iowa does a lot of importing and exporting from neighboring states that are very fossil-heavy, like Illinois.

And like you said, until we get large-scale economical storage, it likely stays that way.