Wind power can’t be counted on
Letter | Lincoln Journal Star | journalstar.com
Recently, the Nebraska Legislature’s Natural Resources Committee heard from the leaders of NPPD, OPPD, LES and Southwest Power Pool. During his testimony, Lanny Nickell, chief operating officer for SPP, gave a good definition of accredited capacity: the “amount of nameplate rating that you expect to show up when you need it.”
The expected wind energy on the Valentine’s Day weekend cold spell was 3,500 megawatts out of 28,000 megawatts installed in the SPP footprint. That would be 12.5% efficiency expected out of the entire SPP wind fleet. The claim is that wind performed better than expected. Yes, slightly better at about 14.5%.
This shines a bright light on the dismal expectations from this highly subsidized energy source. As demonstrated over and over, you cannot count on wind as an energy source – especially when you need it most!
Dan Schmid, Dwight
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2021/03/17/wind-power-cant-be-counted-on/