Fossil fuels displaced by wind in Nova Scotia

It would appear there is a misunderstanding about wind energy and it's relationship to use of fossil fuels.

This is most recently demonstrated in a comment made on the previous posting but is also heard in the media and from all levels of government, including a past Minister of Energy who really should know better.

In Nova Scotia, wind energy has not, does not now nor will anytime in the near future, replace coal generated energy. It can replace some oil and natural gas but, by its very nature, cannot replace coal. This is discussed in the NSPI website http://www.nspower.ca/about_nspi/generation/dispatching.shtml and confirmed in a conversation one of my contacts had with their media contact people.

Power demand can be predicted and met by energy generated from dispatching generating stations. The two basic ways dispatched (scheduled) power is generated in Nova Scotia can be compared to the tortoise and the hare.

Everyday energy use is called basic load. In Nova Scotia, we only have one way of generating power for basic load and this is from generators fueled by coal and coke. Other provinces have nuclear and hydro stations that produce basic load. These are big generating stations that take days to start up and shut down. This is the tortoise: slow, dependable, expensive to initially invest in, but relatively cheap to maintain.

The intermediate load comes from oil and natural gas fueled generators. These can kick into action fairly quickly to supplement energy demands at peak load times which vary during the day and with the time of year, but are still predictable. This is the hare: quick and adaptable, cheaper to set up, but with higher operational costs.

To supplement demand on really cold, really hot or long dark winter days, peak load generators which can be started up even faster than the intermediate generators. In NS, they are oil, gas, wind and hydro generated. These are the hare's cousin: relatively inexpensive to invest in, often with high fuel costs (if oil or gas) but are only required intermittently.

Wind and tidal power is considered non-dispatchable because it cannot be depended upon to be there when required. There is no predicting when the wind will blow. Tidal can be predicted, but is not always available at a time of day that makes it useful to supplement basic load. These forms of energy are useful to supplement intermediate load, but too unpredictable to be used for basic load.

To carry on with the analogy:
The tortoise works just fine left alone to produce basic load. He cannot respond quickly enough and adjust his pace to input from the hares. It is very costly to slow down or shut down just to accept power from the hares which could just as easily stop mid race.

That is more-or-less how it works in this province as things now stand.

There is technology that could allow wind or tidal turbines to pump water to a hydro station which could then generate power for basic load, but that does not exist here right now and is highly location dependent - not only do they have to be where there is a good wind/tidal regime, but they also have to be in the right territory for an extensive reservoir or lake.

If dependable, inexpensive power storage becomes available, all of this could change.

In the meanwhile, NSPI can only handle a maximum of wind generated power. Too much undependable, fickle power can affect the other generating stations and cause brown outs.

As Charles Demond of AWPC told us at a Pugwash Chamber of Commerce meeting last summer, the Province can currently only tolerate about two hundred 2MW turbines. (More could be tolerated if power is exported out of the Province.)

Germany has over 19,000 wind turbines and is dedicated to eliminating nuclear power. Electrical demand has continued to increase and despite all these turbines, they are planning on building at least 20 coal burning generating stations to produce base load. So, anyone who thinks wind can replace coal is, unfortunately, wrong.

Until we can find sources and/or technologies that can produce clean, dependable basic load what we have to do is start reducing consumption.

If you really, really want NSPI to burn less coal, then use less power!