Volatile generation causes blackouts.
Bloomberg reports:
India’s move to stabilize its power grid by asking wind farms to accurately predict their output a day in advance or face fines will deepen the slowdown in Asia’s second-biggest wind market, Tata Power Co. (TPWR) said.
A directive took effect this week ordering wind farms with a capacity of 10 megawatts or more to forecast their generation in 15-minute blocks for the following day. Missing estimates by more than 30 percent will incur penalties.
“Forecasting at 15-minute intervals is very challenging,” and could cost a 100-megawatt farm an estimated 250 million rupees ($4.2 million) a year, Tata Power said in an e-mailed response to questions. “Developers will see this as a further handicap” and penalties will “jeopardize” the industry’s growth, the nation’s second-biggest developer said.
This requirement is great for electric grid stability. The requirement is to give accurate estimates of the power you can deliver. You should have a extra power reserve for the variation in wind. This is a fair requirement vs. the over hype of wind turbine power production.
I’ve often read about the problems of adapting highly variable energy sources into grids — wind and solar being at the top of that list. Certainly we want the grid intact. This starts to sound like a reason for not putting wind on the main grid, though — perhaps use it locally while still having access to the grid. Which sounds like the prime argument against wind as it now operates: you have to have the base load and surge capacity of conventional electric generation.
India is huge and it has a number of weather zones. Some areas may have relatively predictable weather much of the time. It seems like a blanket requirement like this would be hard to meet.
But requiring it does not necessarily have to be. To me it signals their unwillingness to destroy the grid.
Besides, predicting the next day’s average wind strength to within 30% in 1-hour intervals (and maybe even shorter intervals) seems doable in some places on this planet, like Midwestern U.S. I hear about other places where weather patters are even more stable and easier to predict. I have no idea what India is like in that regard.
In England, weather forecasting is next to futile at all intervals.
“Forecasting at 15-minute intervals is very challenging,” Is that ever an understatement. If I could forecast wind speed in 15 minute intervals 24-hours in advance, I’d just support myself by buying winning lottery tickets when I needed some cash.
Huh? Surely trying to predict wind behavior in 15-minute increments from 24 hours out is an exercise in futility.
Someone experienced in developing “powerful” models should volunteer for this project.
India, in spite of being an awful mess overall, has some very rational and enlightened people in its government.
Don’t you just LOVE accountability?