Bishop Hill In Poland, workers and windfarms sit idle
Aug 12, 2015 Energy: coal Energy: grid Energy: wind Foreign It's hot in parts of Eastern Europe at the moment - this happens in summertime I believe - and so people are switching on the airconditioning in droves.
In Poland this has produced some pretty major problems because the electricity grid can't supply sufficient electricity to meet demand. It's a familiar story: Poland relies on coal for the bulk of its electricity, but nobody wants to invest in new coal-fired power plants because the market is being rigged in favour of renewables and the EU is going to shut them all down anyway. Meanwhile there is hardly a puff of wind to be found anywhere in Europe so Poland's wind fleet is not helping either.
;)
The solution is the same one planned for the UK - industrial users are switched off so that workers, like the wind turbines, sit idle.
Reader Comments (30)
"industrial users are switched off"
That was always the plan of the academics and other industry haters like the BBC - destroy European industry.
So, the solution is simple: the first people to lose power in these circumstances should be the public sector and particularly the universities.
Edgar Allen Poeland?
'Meanwhile there is hardly a puff of wind to be found anywhere in Europe so Poland's wind fleet is not helping either.'
and that is an example of why 'even if it not sunny windy hear it will be somewhere else '
in winter it would be much worse , a cold night with little wind across most of northern Europe it not at all uncommon , and it is at this time of peak demand when renewable totally fails. Add a few of nights together and you start to see the bodies pile up.
It's not a real story until it affects the middle-classes
It's a major story for the steel millsfrom lengthy article in The FT"The crisis has exposed limitations in Poland’s creaking power supply networks, which rely heavily on old and inefficient coal-fired plants."
..Yeh they should have built NEW and inefficient SOLAR plants ..and special night-time solar aswell.
Perhaps this offers a clue to Poland's problems:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-07/german-green-power-forces-neighbors-to-bolster-blackout-d
Of course, in summer it's the solar surges that do the damage - and they're much bigger.
It will feel a bit cooler when the wind picks up....ohhh.....errr....Let them eat solar is what the BBC would say. Until sunset.
Still, it's good that the Poles are allowed to have more air conditioners than under communism, even if EUminism prohibits the use of electricity to operate them. Can't have your cake and eat it, it seems.
Is this also happening in the US? I reckon not. Ask yourselves why.
Big Green can award themselves a Red Star Merit Badge, for returning Polands industrial and CO2 productivity to that of Antarctica.
Poland is a great example of what can be achieved, with concerted stupidity, by clueless idiots, sat in airconditioned offices, paid for by other people's hard work.
Brute: the reason should be obvious – though not a people with a reputation of being the brightest of sparks, they have a healthy irascibility with imposed authority, and tend to do things their own way. Fortunately (or not, if you like “freedom”) they are slowly being educated out of this – witness the aftermath of the Sandy storm, when they dutifully returned to their homes, and sat quietly, awaiting help.
" ... industrial users are switched off so that workers, like the wind turbines, sit idle."
But they're cool about it.
The Bloomberg article gives strong weight to the impact of power plant cooling restrictions due to high river temperatures.
I wonder what the grid connectivity is like for some new coastal gas turbine installations. Isn't Poland rich in shale opportunity?
golf charlie
The Bloomberg article says first time since the 1980s this has happened. This takes us back to the Communists regime, thereby proving Greens and Communists can achieve the same thing.
Well its plenty windy in Norway. You'd think they'd make an elaborate system of tubes...
Don't know what you're all talking about.
'The wind is always blowing somewhere .....' - email response from the DECC a couple of years ago when I deigned to question their stance on 'renewables'...
So there...
Apparently Utility scale wind farms need winds of 15 mph in order to be net positive electricity generators. I would be interested in alternative viewpoints.
I just looked the figures for Denmark based on the above post. They are currently importing 40% of their electricity and wind is generating less than 15%.
http://energinet.dk/EN/El/Sider/Elsystemet-lige-nu.aspx
It's always windy somewhere, reminds me of the "It's 5 oclock somewhere"
Germany has been building coal plants so they could turn off their nuclear plants
Eureka!
"Scientists Develop Solar-Powered Wind Turbine for Ultimate Energy Generation"
http://inhabitat.com/scientists-develop-solar-powered-wind-turbine/
SandyS 1:19, just goes to prove that you should not judge people according to their political flag. Manual hammers and sickles work as efficiently under communist rule, as they do under EUminism (thanks michael hart!)
It's worse than they thought!
Not only are wind farms across Europe virtually becalmed, some, such as Piecke in Poland are actually making a negative contribution to the grid.
That wind farm, rated at 72 MW is currently DRAWING 242kW FROM the grid.
http://tinypic.com/m/ivbnsg/3
I know it from Germany, Holland and Paris when I have lived there. The Parisians legit every summer and I used to land up in a cold bath...often. And thats when power was available but no such thing as a domestic aircon was available to the plebs!
Nothing changed and nothing learned?
Joe Public, the maintenance engineers need power to fix broken wind turbines, plus fuel to get to them, make them, and scrap them.
And we all have to pay for this, to guarantee the owners profits, for doing nothing, whilst nothing is being generated, so that Greens can take the credit for fresh air.
It is a Fresh Air Con.
@Radical Rodent
It is indeed worth considering how/why the US government is able to claim so much concern for the "climate" yet do so factually little.
A cynical mind could conclude that "climate warming" is a scheme from Washington meant to con economic competitors.
Certainly, a realistic mind can see that it has achieved precisely that.
Luckily, the EU recently banned the sale of high power vacuum cleaners!
Just think how much worse it would be if they hadn't! :-)
I escaped from an unbearably hot movie theatre during the main feature in a Berkshire town a few years ago. Chatting to a staff member who, like me, was out in the street enjoying some cooler air, I asked why no AC in the theatre. He laughed and informed me that fitting AC to a Listed Historic Building is a no-go. Odd rationale, it seemed to me, how many movie theatres were built during defined Historic periods? Why do officials resist any form of rational change for the better?
Not long after that, our family traveled to the Czech Republic in mid-summer for a family wedding. No AC anywhere.
I did warn you!
A standard example of how the Green Blob 's warnings of catastrophe are a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Surely people are missing the point. What is important about wind turbines is that they don't emit any CO2 (sorry I should have said "carbon") whether they are turning or not. Therefore just by being there they are saving the planet, or, in the words of the great poet Milton:
They also serve who only stand and wait.
Not a breath from Zed, Russell etc. either.
In some parts of the UK over the last 12 months or so, utility companies have been trialling the reduction of mains voltage as a means of reducing demand.
Apparently it has been a success and is planned for the whole country when brownouts are predicted.
Does this mean we`re waiting for Brussels to ban air conditioning?