OT Wind Farm Databases and Danish Energy

[Chris Hogg]

Been browsing for information on Denmark's energy supplies, to see what actually happens, compared with all the hype. For those interested in such things, I've found these:

for a database of wind farms world-wide. Select by country, and then by whatever detail you want, up to end 2013. For example, the UK has 753 wind farms with 10.5 GW of installed wind capacity (some of the 'farms' may only have one turbine). Denmark has 1512 wind farms with a capacity of 4.8 GW.

For data on Denmark's energy usage:

Click on the map to see up-to-the minute data on energy transmission into and out of Denmark, across its borders with neighbours Norway, Sweden and Germany. Use Google Translate to understand the data in the table Elsystemet Lige Nu (The power system just now). Not sure what the difference is between Centrale kraftvaerker (?principal power stations) and Decentrale kraftvaerker (?subsidiary power stations), but I assume size and distribution.

gives a simpler but wider picture to the above, with the whole Nordic system (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Estonia) electricity system detailed, and energy movements and prices in Euros, updated by the minute. Scroll down to get a summary table of energy imports and exports at any one time, by country.

gives historical data on the Nordic countries. There's a _lot_ of data of all-sorts here, so you have to browse to find what you want. I assume EE=Estonia, LV=Latvia and LT=Lithuania.

shows a map of the Danish electricity system, with the various off-shore wind farms and cross-border interconnects. Specific info on the Swedish and Norwegian interconnects can be had on Wikipedia.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Thanks. Maybe enough for 'gridwatch Denmark' now France isn't playing nice with real time data

[Chris Hogg]

Hey! You're back! We were getting worried.

The whole Nordic system is complicated, run by NordPool. Denmark imports and exports power simultaneously across its borders, sometimes seeming just to act as a transmission line from Norway into Germany, for example. At other times, it can import energy from via one interconnect, and simultaneously export it back to the same country via another one. Seems bizarre, but I assume they have their reasons. Also, Denmark can be importing energy in substantial quantities along one interconnect in the morning, and exporting similar amounts along the same interconnect in the evening. It's a very fluid system. I don't know from where you can download the minute-by-minute data (it's obviously available somewhere), but your understanding of these things is way beyond mine.

In general, Denmark seems to import between about 10 and 20% of its energy requirements. Fossil fuel is generally about 40-45% of usage; renewables (mostly wind; solar is negligible) also about 40-45%, with imports making up the rest. Total energy use is around 4 GW, compared with say ten times that amount for the UK. Wind generation is mostly between 1.5 and 2 GW, significantly less than in the UK most of the time (although our installed wind capacity and our population are both a lot higher, of course). When the wind blows strongly in Denmark, they can cut back on both fossil fueled generation and imports, although how much CO2 they save by doing the former, I don't know. The Energynet site lists CO2 emissions (udledning) in g/kWh, but how that's calculated, and whether it includes 'hot spinning' CO2, I've no idea.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Mmm. lot going on IRL here. :-(

yep. busy restoring links after a massive system upheaval and relocation here.

Will look at that data and see whats what later on.

Have a Danish contact too..

[Dave Liquorice]

Doesn't look right half the number of farms twice the installed capacity for the UK... OK perhaps our farms are bigger than Denmarks but I've never seen UK wind above 7 GW, so where is the other 3.5 to

4.0 GW? Heaven forebid subsidy harvesting...

[Chris Hogg]

Dunno Dave. The max wind energy I've seen for Denmark this year was on

19th Jan, at 105257MWh, which, over 24 hours, equates to a power of nearly 4.4GW, not too far off their max capacity of 4.8GW. Perhaps in the UK, the turbines are never at full whack all together.

As to why we have fewer farms but greater capacity, you'd have to do a detailed analysis of the data (RYTM!),

and but a very superficial (and probably quite erroneous!) glance down the lists suggests that Denmark has quite a lot of farms with single low-capacity turbines, 150KW. We have a few, but perhaps not as many.

[The Natural Philosopher]

there's 2-3GW of embedded wind that doesnt show on gridwatch, and a similar amount of solar.

Danes (went) mad earlier and covered the pace in subsidy farms.

The country is flat and windy and they simply filled it up.

[Bill Wright]

Well I hope you are getting things sorted out. We were beginning to wonder what we were going to do without you.

Bill

[Brian Gaff]

One thing that has always interested me is that there seems little understandable data on when wind turbines work and when they don't such as lowest wind speed, whether gusty wind is easy to cope with and on the high wind end, when it becomes dangerous to let them run.

I seem to recall many years ago, a novel design with vertical paddle type blades that was said to work well in places where winds direction varied on a short time squall and was 'virtually' indestructible... I know famous last words, but you don't see them anywhere so they must have had a big drawback. Brian

[dennis]

Like the one here https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.5375146,-2.0174752,3a,30y,24.91h,86.07t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s7NimgiHI0TtwQKyTRks9vw!2e0

Its outside the company that makes them AFAIK.

[Chris Hogg]

This, from the Wikipedia article on Wind Turbines,

Vertical-axis wind turbines (or VAWTs) have the main rotor shaft arranged vertically. One advantage of this arrangement is that the turbine does not need to be pointed into the wind to be effective, which is an advantage on a site where the wind direction is highly variable. It is also an advantage when the turbine is integrated into a building because it is inherently less steerable. Also, the generator and gearbox can be placed near the ground, using a direct drive from the rotor assembly to the ground-based gearbox, improving accessibility for maintenance.

The key disadvantages include the relatively low rotational speed with the consequential higher torque and hence higher cost of the drive train, the inherently lower power coefficient, the 360 degree rotation of the aerofoil within the wind flow during each cycle and hence the highly dynamic loading on the blade, the pulsating torque generated by some rotor designs on the drive train, and the difficulty of modelling the wind flow accurately and hence the challenges of analysing and designing the rotor prior to fabricating a prototype.

[charles]

There are four, I think, on the roof of the Central Veterinary labs at Addlestone; easily visible from the M25 near J11.

[The Natural Philosopher]

The easily understandable data is this:

1/. Mostly they don't work 2/. when they do its to make money, not electricity.

Unsurprisingly, 1/. has to be obfuscated considerably to ensure 2/.

[The Natural Philosopher]

In short, if ordinary wind turbines are shit, these resemble a bad case of diarrhoea...

[damduck-egg]

Definitely the conditions liable to give you a bad case of wind.

G.Harman

[Bill Wright]

Rather elaborate just for one caravan . . .

Bill

[Bill Wright]

I wonder when they'll start putting adverts on the windmills.

Bill

[Chris J Dixon]

The blades are running a bit slow for those switched LED displays.

Chris

[Vir Campestris]

As a computer person, "Virtual" is the opposite of "Real". (as in virtual memory)

Andy