Once again, investment in wind power has proven to be a failure.
This summer the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest and Texas have experienced higher than usual temperatures which have caused peaks in demand for electricity that grid operators could barely manage.
As mentioned in an earlier article, EPA Threatens Grid Reliability, grid operators had to rely on older coal-fired power plants to prevent blackouts.
They couldn’t rely on wind because wind doesn’t generate electricity on hot summer afternoons.
Here is how the New York Times reported the issue:
“Peak supply is also becoming a vexing problem because so much of the generating capacity added around the country lately is wind power, which is almost useless on the hot, still days when air-conditioning drives up demand.”
While the Greens badger us about clean-energy from wind, situation after situation of real world experiences demonstrate the failure of wind.
Denmark must off-load wind-generated electricity, at a virtual loss, to Norway and Germany because Denmark can’t use electricity from wind when it’s being generated.
Spain found that investing in wind energy killed jobs.
In Texas, wind farm owners sell their electricity at a loss so they can collect the wind subsidy from the federal government.
And now, grid operators say that wind is practically useless when there are peak loads on hot summer days.
It’s been clear for some time that wind energy is unreliable, isn’t available when needed, requires spinning gas turbines to back up wind when the wind stops blowing and requires dedicated transmission lines to bring wind from where it’s generated at remote locations to where it can be used – and, when all these costs are included, electricity from wind becomes terribly expensive.
Now, with this summer’s heat wave, in spite of all the hoopla about wind energy, it was coal that saved the day.
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