The 8% - a follow up

Recently, I published a post (republished on Climate Spectator) on a media release issued by the office of David Ridgway, looking into the availability and generation of wind energy on particularly hot days in summer:

"[There is] no correlation between temperature and wind energy supply. Again, this is exactly what we expect - what we can say for sure is that there isn't less wind when temperature are high. Those who claim a strong negative correlation (Ridgway), and those who claim a strong positive correlation (no one) are wrong - it's shotgun scatter."

In my original post, I quoted the press release, and claimed that:

'As the transcript for the hearing is currently unavailable, it's impossible to determine exactly what was said during the hearing'. 

The transcript remains unavailable, but Electranet's submission to the parliamentary inquiry is public - I didn't realise that at the time of writing, which was a genuine mistake. It's here [PDF]. Let's have a look at Electranet's remarks, regarding the 'eight percent availability' figure:

"Based on observed performance, AEMO reports that an estimated 8% of the installed wind capacity is available at peak load times on hot summer days."

It would seem here that Electranet are unambiguous in their assertions of the 8% availability of wind energy on 'hot summer days', and consequently, that David Ridgway reported their remarks quite faithfully.

Whilst we're on the topic, let us delve into the origin of AEMO's 8% figure, and whether it's being interpreted correctly. 

From Electranet's PDF, there seems to be little to indicate that the submission is referring to 'firm' availability, rather than 'actual'. From their statement alone, it would indeed seem that wind farms perform abysmally during those times electricity is highest in demand by Australian residences. 

AEMO also made a submission to the inquiry. Theirs is #160 [PDF]. Included in their submission they write: 

"For the purposes of assessing reliability in the presence of wind power, AEMO develops a wind power contribution factor, which is the percentage of installed wind power capacity in a region can be relied upon, with an 85 percent confidence level, to generate at peak times. For South Australia this has been determined as 8.3 percent. Therefore for every 100 MW of wind capacity available to operate, AEMO considers 8.3 MW as being firm for the purpose of meeting peak demand."

Here's the analysis that AEMO cite in this paragraph - it's interesting and rigorous work, and you can also download the data set, if you bear the same irrational fondness for spreadsheets that I do. 

AEMO derived the 8.3% from actual historical performance - they explain the 'confidence interval' much more clearly than I can:

"For example, based on the historical performance of wind generation during the top 10% of summer demand periods, South Australian wind generation contributes at least 8.3% of its installed capacity for 85% of the time."

Does this mean that wind is pumping at a measly 8% capacity during peak summer demand periods? We're glossing over two important words in their statement:

'at least'

For about 85% of the time, wind energy will be more than 8.3% - it's a minimum, not an average. This is the key distinction that is left out of Electranet's statement. The chart above, taken from page 11 from the South Australian wind study published by AEMO illustrates this beautifully - keep in mind that these are for the 'top 10% of season demand periods" - the times when demand is the highest. As AEMO state:

"Wind generation contributes approximately 20% or more of its installed capacity for 50% of the time."

AEMO's analysis is a mathematically sound method for determining the contribution of wind energy to the electricity market, during periods of high demand. 

Let's briefly revisit the phrase 'SA has more than 1000 megawatts of installed wind power capacity sitting uselessly, blades not turning, when demand is greatest'. 

Looking at 2011-2012, we can access the accuracy of this quite directly:

The statement is true for 32.1% of peak demand periods in South Australia. AEMO's data shows that for 67.9% of peak summer demand periods, wind is generating at >205 megawatts - ie, <1,000 megawatts of generation is offline

I raise these figures to highlight an important point - though wind energy spits out electrons like any other generator, its pattern of generation is not easily comparable to other fuel types in the energy market. The assessment of wind energy needs careful analysis, and a string of inevitable caveats and clarifications. 

The complex nuances of the energy market are not often at the forefront of public discussion on wind energy. As I touched on previously, the web-based network of anti-wind groups will often seize on figures like '8%', and the many intricacies and caveats of the calculation of that value fade into the past.

In my last post, I stated that 'I suspect [Electranet's] statements were slightly more nuanced than is made out by Ridgway and his advisers.' I was quite wrong about this - Electranet did strongly infer that the 8% figure was a typical level of wind energy generation for the hottest days and it was very reasonable for David Ridgeway to rely on Electranet’s submission. 

This does not change the fact that AEMO’s data shows the typical wind generation to be about 27% of capacity on the hottest days---which is not far below the year round wind energy capacity factor of about 30% .  

Click here for the spreadsheet used to generate the usefulness chart, or explore the raw data below. 

Hard Lessens about Energy

I was walking through a nice park today - children were playing with a ball, a few immensely happy beagles galloped past my feet, fixated on their play. I turned on my beloved smart phone, and read an article, and then I ran to a nearby swing set, and banged my head on the pole repeatedly. 

The article was written by Bjorn Lomborg, the world's favourite moderate climate skeptic, and centered around Earth Hour - an awareness-raising campaign that began right here in Australia, several years ago. 

Gordon Ramsey Bjorn Lomborg

Lomborg occasionally makes a couple of decent points in the article, worth thoughtful consideration, particularly by people like myself, who work in the renewable energy industry. 

He also manages to hurl, directly onto his keyboard, several stale bowlfuls of ridiculous myth, whilst grinning broadly, satisfied that he's issuing cold hard fact to the religious green-ideologues. The flailing of his arms, as he types, causes wet fiction to splatter on the walls. 

We are smothered in weird, soggy falsehoods, and we quietly pick them out of our hair as we pat ourselves on the back, because we don't subscribe to the nonsense that all those other people wallow in. 'No', we say, peeling viscous chunks of bullshit off our brow, 'we're better than that'. 

Dear reader, shall we go for a dip?  

"Earth Hour Is a Colossal Waste of Time and Energy —Plus, it ignores how electricity has been a boon for humanity."

I always knew that Earth Hour was a secret conspiracy to rid the world of electricity. As everyone already knows, if you reduce your consumption of anything, you pretty much have to rid yourself of it entirely. That's why Earth Hour 2014 will consist of citizens literally destroying power stations and network infrastructure. With axes. Well spotted, BL.  

"the reality is that Earth Hour teaches all the wrong lessens [sic], and it actually increases CO2 emissions....................during Earth Hour, any significant drop in electricity demand will entail a reduction in CO2 emissions during the hour, but it will be offset by the surge from firing up coal or gas stations to restore electricity supplies afterward."

When electricity demand rises slightly, (for example at the end of Earth Hour), do hundreds of dormant coal fired power stations fire up, frantically shoving piles of coal onto the furnace? 

"Jimmy, get back here! Earth Hour just finished!"

The mental picture seems neat, but unfortunately, it's a figment of Lomborg's handsome, blonde imagination. Lomborg is implying that shifts in demand (and, logically, shifts in generation) cause a resultant increase in the carbon intensity of thermal power plants. It doesn't. 

Wind energy and demand both work in similar ways, in terms of integration into an energy market - fluctuations, both small and large, are accounted for by the market operator [Page 8]. Variations in generation and demand are also conservatively preempted, to ensure that reserve capacity is always available, whether a 2,000 megawatt coal-fired power station trips offline, or a whole bunch of human beings turn their lights on. 

This is why wind farms don't increase carbon emissions - and it's also why changes in demand don't increase carbon emissions. As the National Grid operator in the UK (the market to which Lomborg refers) states:

"Variations in power station efficiency may be due to a range of reasons, including,  but not limited to, the age of the plant, temperature, maintenance schedules and  operating strategy and whether the plant is generating at or near its Maximum Export  Limit or its Stable Export Limit."

Sorry Bjorn. Standard fluctuations in demand don't significantly change the efficiency of thermal generators, and Earth Hour does not increase carbon emissions. 

"In the United Kingdom, there are now more than 5 million fuel-poor people, and the country’s electricity regulator now publicly worries that environmental targets could lead to blackouts in less than nine months"

This is what the world will look like, if we move away from fossil fuels. 

Ofgem is the UK's electricity regulator. In October 2012, they raised the remote possibility that rapid decarbonisation could bring about shortfalls in energy supply, possibly leading to blackouts. No, Bjorn, this doesn't mean Earth Hour is going to cause blackouts:

"Andrew Wright, a senior executive at Ofgem, played down the chances of a return to 1970s-style power cuts. "It is too early to be alarmist about the lights going out," he said on Friday, but "it is likely the tightening of the market will lead to higher wholesale prices"."

Never let nuance get in the way of hyperbole, Bjorn. 

"[Wind and solar] are also unreliable (we still have no idea what to do when the wind is not blowing)"

Renewables offset thermal generation - well connected states and high-capacity infrastructure result in wind energy being utilised across Australia's national electricity market with regularity. 

South Australia has an installed capacity of 1,205 megawatts of wind energy. When the wind doesn't blow, does the entire state plunge into darkness? No. Again, the grid is balanced by the market operator - and still, wind energy contributes significantly to the total generation of the state. 

Wind energy in South Australia is kicking arse and taking names.

Bjorn fails to see the link between human behaviour and electricity demand, a link that is burned into the brains of those who work closely with energy markets - technicians, engineers and scientists associated with both thermal and renewable generation. A large portion of his criticism is predicated on catastrophic misunderstandings of the mechanics of energy markets. 

He also seems to proudly proclaim the demented delusion that Earth Hour is an 'attack on electricity' - that the proponents of Earth Hour are privileged, ignorant, feel-good slacktivists, whipping off their lights for an hour as part of some cultist green ritual to rid the world of electrons. 

You're appallingly, devastatingly, ruinously wrong, Lomborg. The deployment of wind energy, combined with the inestimable prowess of engineers and scientists, delivers a huge quantity of energy to Australian homes. Solar PV is pushing demand down. Logical minds are forming solutions to retaining and enhancing human wellbeing whilst reducing our reliance on fuel sources that badly damage the Earth's physical systems. 

Meanwhile, savvy citizens understand the benefits of pushing down their consumption. They don't hate electricity. They love electricity - it enriches their lives. You can cut down on your consumption without ripping the cord from your lifestyle - Earth Hour doesn't fix all of our problems. It shows us that there's nothing to be scared of. 

Do Wind Turbines Make Your House Explode?

Occasionally, when trawling through the reams of eagerly repeated but consistently unchecked myth, absurdity and pseudoscience about wind energy on the internet, I come across something that is well-researched, considered and intelligent. 

This is not one of those times. 

"The problem is, turbine towers are just the right size to be “vibrated apart” (my term) by ocean wave resonance.....This is akin to what happens inside a house. Turbine infrasound creates a resonance (vibration) within certain-sized rooms, in some cases shaking the house apart."

Recently, a professor at the University of Norway made public some work that suggested offshore wind turbines may, in certain circumstances, be affected by the resonance of waves - a phenomenon known as 'ringing'. As with nearly all research about wind energy, the anti-wind blogosphere blew the consequences of the modelling absurdly out of proportion.

Hilariously, the authors of WTS.com decided to take it a step further - awkwardly and forcibly  comparing the impact of ocean waves on wind turbines to the impact of sound energy on houses. They assert that the 'resonance' from wind turbines can shake houses apart. 

Should have built a coal-fired power station instead

How do we know that wind turbines can make houses violently deconstruct? 

"Witness the home of Anne & Mark Cool, Falmouth, MA, where nails are coming out of the walls in a relatively new home"

Yes, nails are coming out of their walls - and in a relatively new home as well, removing dilapidation as an explanation. This leaves us with only one explanation - wind turbines. 

"Wind energy has entered the realm of slapstick. Three Stooges comedy. Except, it’s so tragic."

Agreed. 

Randall Bell's Call to Arms

It seems that there are several basic rules of discourse, that most people seem to be intuitively in sync with. For instance, if someone says "I'm going to be late to your party", you don't reply with "I hate you more than I can possibly describe". When we encounter someone who is utterly unaware of these unspoken guidelines, it's odd, and unnerving.

Recently, Victoria's premier Ted Ballieu resigned in an odd, frothy maelstrom of subterfuge, betrayal and cunning - a stark and concerning reminder of the occasional nastiness of political life. His legacy, a set of pointedly anti-wind and anti-renewable planning laws, including the infamous two kilometre setback, now sits on unstable ground. His replacement, Denis Napthine, was recently petitioned to revoke the oddly stringent planning legislation for wind farms. The issue was covered in a brief article in the Herald Sun, over the weekend:

Yes, you read that second last sentence correctly. "If Dr Napthine reneges on that policy, I'll break his arms."

Randall Bell is a registered lawyer in Victoria, head of the Victorian Landscape Guardians, and good friends with Ted Ballieu. The context for their hostility towards wind energy is well covered in this fantastic article in the Global Mail, written by Mike Seccombe, along with the afore-linked piece by Oliver Wagg, in Renew Economy.  

Violence, vandalism and threats seem to arise with regularity, as far as anti-wind lobbying is concerned. For instance, 

"An axe was taken to Acciona's 120-metre-high meteorological mast used to measure wind patterns at Waubra. A misspelt warning was left scrawled near the felled $150,000 machinery: ''no turbins''." 

Horribly, a man had his property trashed, and vandalised with slogans like 'Wind turbines suck".  - simply because he was approached by a wind developer, five years prior to the vandalism. He does not host any wind turbines on his land. The hashtag #turbinessuck has recently been co-opted by several anti-wind Twitter feeds. 

Tom Hamilton's property, vandalised by an anti-wind group. Source: Peter Pickering, Ararat Advertiser

Bell's comment may have been an unfortunate turn of phrase, or a poorly-considered joke. It's almost impossible that Bell would follow through and actually seek out and injure a state premier. Yet, the savagery lies in the words, rather than the possibility of actual violence - the strange feeling in our stomach as we watch the standard of discourse plummet deep into the depths of empty, intemperate threats and weirdly misplaced phraseology. 

Unfortunately, this sort of thing is likely to grow in severity, as the tactics of the anti-wind lobby stray further into anti-vaccination-esque pseudoscience. As their deficiencies in evidence and logic grow more clear, I suspect their only refuge will be higher amplitudes of aggression, threat and emotion. 

No fact-checking when it's most needed

It's always interesting seeing the birth of a myth. Myth works in quite a specific way, within the hallowed halls of the anti-wind lobby. They begin simply - a piece of research or information is misrepresented, mutated or mauled. This is published, repeated, re-blogged and emailed until the myth becomes reality. A great example is the absurd claim that wind farms contribute to the effects of global warming. 

Occasionally, you can catch these myths in their embryonic form - just prior to moment they reproduce furiously across the internet. Let's have a look at a media release from David Ridgway, current Liberal Party Leader of the Opposition in the South Australian Legislative Council.

Electranet is a Transmission Network Service Provider (TNSP) in South Australia. Last Thursday, they testified as part of a South Australian parliamentary inquiry into wind farms. The transcript isn't available - the only information I've been able to find on it has been a media release on David Ridgway's website, and a few breathless tweets:

ElectraNet tells Parli inquiry only 8% of SA's installed wind farm capacity avail at peak load on hot summer days cos wind don't blow then
— Hendrik Gout (@HendrikGout) February 28, 2013

SA has more than 1000 megawatts of installed wind power capacity sitting uselessly, blades not turning, when demand is greatest
— Hendrik Gout (@HendrikGout) February 28, 2013

Gout's twitter profile lists journalism as his profession - he is currently chief of staff for David Ridgway. As the transcript for the hearing is currently unavailable, it's impossible to determine exactly what was said during the hearing. Nevertheless, we can still analyse the accuracy of the statements on Ridgway's media release. 

"No Wind Power When it's Most Needed

A parliamentary inquiry into wind farms in SA has heard that only eight per cent of the State’s installed wind generating capacity is available on hot summer days when demand is greatest."

Availability can mean a few things, and without the transcript, we don't know the context in which the statement was made.

With regards to the National Electricity Market (NEM), availability refers to the capacity for a generating unit to generate. So, to suggest that 92% of all wind turbines in South Australia are offline and unable to generate on every single 'hot summer day' is absurd - it's too silly to debunk. 

What's more likely is that the individual they quote was referring to 'firm' availability - a quantity of power that can be guaranteed to be available - as AEMO state in their '2012 South Australian Electricity Report':



"AEMO has increased its determination of the proportion of installed wind generation capacity that can be considered to be firmly available to meet maximum demand from 5.0 per cent to 8.3 per cent for summer...The increase is due to more wind farms operating in the state, providing greater geographical diversity, and also improvements to AEMO’s wind data analysis methodology."

This hypothetical assumption, used as part of the Electricity Market Dispatch Engine, is not representative of the actual supply of wind energy on hot days - it's a conservative mathematical operator, not a historical measurement of supply. 

This is not what Ridgway states in his press release. The title of the press release is blatant in its assertion: "No Wind Power When it's Most Needed".

There are fourteen wind farms in South Australia - their total installed capacity is 1,205 megawatts. Wind energy is variable - sometimes, wind farms operate at full capacity, at other times, they operate at a lower level. The same logic applies to hot, summer days: on some days, they are generating a large proportion of their installed capacity, and other days, they are generating less.

Let's have a look at the summer that just passed - Australia's hottest on record. Below is daily maximum and minimum temperature, measured in Adelaide, South Australia, sourced from the Bureau of Meteorology website. I've superimposed a red line for 30 degrees - a maximum temperature above that could well be classified as a 'hot day'. 

Now, let's have a look at the average daily capacity factor of wind farms, over the course of the month - the data below are sourced from the AEMO 'Market Management Systems' database. 

The data are as you'd expect - wind varies from day to day. No one claims wind energy correlates precisely with demand levels. But, is wind energy at lower levels on hot days, as put forward by Ridgway? Let's combine these two data sets - temperature and capacity factor - on a scatter plot: 

Again, no correlation between temperature and wind energy supply. Again, this is exactly what we expect - what we can say for sure is that there isn't less wind when temperature are high. Those who claim a strong negative correlation (Ridgway), and those who claim a strong positive correlation (no one) are wrong - it's shotgun scatter.  Squint hard enough, and you can see any pattern you want. 

“We've got more than 1000 megawatts of installed wind power sitting uselessly, their blades not turning, when demand is at its greatest”

What Ridgway seems to be implying is that wind energy is specifically muted on hot days. Let's look at wind energy supply on the 10 hottest days of summer, in Adelaide:

Note one important concept - An average South Australian 4-person household consumes 18.2 KWh per day, in summer. When 18.2 KWh of energy are exported to the grid, that unit is assumed to be equivalent to powering one household. The power output of generators changes over time, as does the consumption of power by households and industry. The number of homes powered is a static benchmark from which to gauge how much energy is produced from a particular source, over a time period.

Wind farms do contribute a significant quantity of energy to the grid. The statement that only 8% of wind energy capacity is 'available' on hot days is indefensible. The generation and temperature data make that pretty obvious. 

Despite the demonstrably inaccurate nature of both assertions, the myth has already flourished online. The Hansard for the inquiry will take two to three weeks to be publish online - when it is, we'll be able to compare the media releases to the remarks made in the hearing. I suspect their statements were slightly more nuanced than is made out by Ridgway and his advisers.  

Data Sources
Click here for the full Excel file used to generate the data (includes the raw data) - 32 MB

The disease with perfect English

In an earlier post, I used some information from an anti-wind website to establish the geographical boundaries of anti-wind activism, and correlated that against the language spoken in those countries. As it turns out, health complaints about wind farms seem, by and large, to correlate with English speaking countries. 

This fits neatly with Simon Chapman's 'nocebo' hypothesis - the idea that reports of Wind Turbine Syndrome are a psychogenic phenomenon: not caused by wind turbines but rather directly related to scare-mongering about wind energy. 

I recently re-discovered a great website named 'Ill Wind Reporting' - another wind-based-pun-headlined anti-wind website, originating in Ontario. The site purports to 'uncover and document the many instances of negative effects from wind developments in rural communities.'. The first thing you see when you visit the website is a handy map of their reports of complaints:

It looked familiar to me. A map of areas across that world that are predominantly English speaking, taken from here: 

As we saw in my previous post, England, Canada, America and Australia are all hotbeds of anti-wind activity. Unsurprisingly, they correlate with the highest incidence of complaints, conveniently gathered for us by Ill Wind Reporting. A quick graph of installed wind farm capacity, across the world:

China, Germany, Spain, India, Italy, France and Portugal are under-represented, in terms of health complaints. China also happens to have a population of ~1,344,130,000. 

The conclusion is simple: health complaints about wind farms are not correlated with the presence of wind turbines. They do seem to be largely linked to the language spoken in that region, and, I suspect, some measure of anti-wind activity.

I sign off with a few of the more curious, animal-themed claims listed as genuine reports of the impacts of wind turbines - each marked with a small green 'verified' tag: 

"My 6 month old dog has been throwing up often. Approximately 7 times (that I know of) in the last few weeks."

"Bitch has been in heat for over a month. This is the second time this has happened this year. Prior to turbines this never happened. She also runs away and didn't pre-turbines." 

"Cat disappeared into basement. Change in normal behaviour. Very strong sustained vibration at time." 

"Turbines are loud. The dog does not want to go out for his evening pee, he cowers outside and wants back inside the house." 

"A farmer on an outlying island told the BBC he had lost more than 400 animals after eight giant wind turbines were installed close to his grazing land." 

"Since the turbines started up, the horse's stall is a total disaster every morning... "

And, there's this:

"The distraught gran-of-three is convinced the “nightmare strobe light” effect is causing her dog Shadow to live in constant fear. Irene claims that since the turbines were erected in 2009, the 10-year-old labrador collie cross has also suffered epileptic fits, varying in frequency from monthly to daily.

The seizures, which can last up to four minutes, cause the rescue dog to drop to the ground, shake uncontrollably, and foam at the mouth. The fits can leave Shadow disorientated for up to four hours."