John Petersen, Seeking Alpha, seekingalpha.com 24 April 2011John Petersen, Seeking Alpha, seekingalpha.com 24 April 2011
Earlier this month I wrote a pair of articles (here and here) that questioned the reasonableness of the near universal assumption that the wind is always blowing somewhere and wind power infrastructure with a wide enough geographic dispersion would offer a relatively stable power output. I presented graphs from the Bonneville Power Administration and a study by the John Muir Trust that raised substantial doubt in my mind. The articles drew a well-reasoned response from my colleague Tom Konrad (here).
While many commenters understood the point I was trying to make, many others argued that the sample areas were too small or they didn’t fairly test the geographic dispersion theory. Since I hate unresolved questions, I went looking for a better answer and found it in historical wind power production data from five power authorities:
Most people would agree that a sample of five major systems spread over 17 timezones and two hemispheres has enough geographic diversity to provide a reliable basis for analysis. To simplify the process I took the following steps:
While the model is not a perfect representation with spot on accuracy, it’s certainly close enough to provide a reasonable representation for the purpose of testing the geographic dispersion theory. When all the calculations and adjustments were done, my model wind supergrid produced the following combined output for the month of January 2011.
It produced the following combined output for the month of July 2011.
Overall, the model wind supergrid would include over 16 GW of installed capacity. In January 2010, it would have had 16 intervals where it was unable to provide 2 GW of reliable power and two intervals where it was unable to provide 1 GW. In July 2010 it would have had 30 intervals where it was unable to provide 2 GW of reliable power and two intervals where it was unable to provide 1 GW.
My undergraduate degree was in accounting and while my first two articles on this topic were only enough to raise a question about the fundamental validity of the geographic dispersion theory, I believe a five power authority model that’s about as dispersed as anyone could imagine does far more than raise an inference.
It proves the theory of geographic dispersion is complete and unadulterated balderdash! The harsh reality is that wind power will never be stable or reliable enough to serve the needs of an industrialized society.
I continue to believe that investments like the First Trust ISE Global Wind Energy Index ETF (FAN), the PowerShares Global Wind Energy Portfolio ETF (PWND) and a host of publicly traded wind power stocks should be avoided.
Disclosure: None.
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2011/04/24/avoiding-wind-power-stocks-geographic-diversity-debunked/