Wind power has grown over the past decade from a boutique and unappreciated generating technology to a reliable and much-sought-after resource. Bob Dylan was prescient when he wrote, "The answer, my friend, is blowin" in the wind."
Much of Dylan's early work focused on politics, social commentary, and philosophy, marking him as an establishment outsider. But his enduring qualities have raised him to iconic status. TIME magazine named him one of the most influential people of the 20th century, and his latest album reached No. 1 on the charts this past August. His last visit there was 30 years ago.
The acceptance of wind power is following a similar course, although it will clearly become part of the mainstream faster than Bob Dylan. Overall, the wind power news is good, but many technical and commercial hurdles remain, in the opinion of POWER editors. Many readers may take issue with our appraisal. That's fine: Spurring debate on issues of the day is what POWER magazine does best.
In this lead article of our special report on wind, we discuss a few of the siting issues that are slowing penetration of U.S. wind power. Following it is a companion article—"Wind farmers: Heed the lessons of the merchant gas-power business"—that takes a sensible look at the technology issues. Our purpose is to pragmatically explore the issues and provide a departure point for discussion and studied alternative viewpoints. If you don't agree with our assessments, write me at editor@powermag.com. We"ll print the best of your letters in an upcoming issue.
Wind picking up speed
Today there are several unmistakable signs that wind power has reached the mainstream. Among them are the number of competing manufacturers with full production lines, major utilities such as Xcel and FPL Energy making money with diversified wind portfolios, and growth both in the number and size of projects—and opposition to them. Calling wind power mature would be premature, because not all of its application and siting problems have been solved. But solutions seem to be on the horizon.
Case in point: The integration of wind power into a power system makes predicting day-ahead loads on a real-time basis more variable and uncertain. This uncertainty naturally requires additional operating reserves (spinning and nonspinning) for not just demand and energy, but also for other ancillary services such as regulation, ramping, and load-following (Figure 1). Yet transmission-owning utilities are used to precision when dispatching their fleets of conventional plants. The expectations of your local and state regulators with regard to reliability will also influence how fast wind becomes part of your portfolio. Some regulators are pushing hard for wind generation, while others wouldn't know a wind turbine if they walked into it. More on this issue later.
1. Like herding cats. Predicting wind generation is extremely challenging. The bubbles describe what the load profile really looks like. Source: NREL
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