Beyond Fossil Fuels: Leon Steinberg (CEO of National Wind) on Wind Power

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http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=energy-steinberg-national-wind

April 23, 2009

Beyond Fossil Fuels: Leon Steinberg on Wind Power

The CEO of National Wind weighs in on the hurdles facing his industry

Editor's note: This Q&A is a part of http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=beyond-fossil-fuels-energy">a survey conducted by Scientific American of executives at companies engaged in developing and implementing non–fossil fuel energy technologies.

What technical obstacles currently most curtail the growth of wind power? What are the prospects for overcoming them in the near future and the longer-term?

One of the primary obstacles is balancing electrical generation, load, and storage over time, since wind energy is a variable power source. As more utility-scale wind energy projects are developed across the U.S., the number of wind turbines operating in a given area will increase. This has been shown to inherently reduce wind's aggregate production variability, making it more predictable and reliable. Experience has also shown that using well-functioning hour-ahead and day-ahead markets and expanding access to those markets are effective tools for dealing with wind's variability. A deep real-time market is the most economical approach to providing the balancing energy required by wind plants with variable outputs. However, some regions of the U.S. lack centralized markets, so we need to continually pursue ways to provide access to balancing and related services.

Unlike many traditional power sources, wind cannot be accessed on demand. Wind is an energy source, not a capacity resource. Capacity sources are made available on demand, to meet system peak loads. Incorporating wind energy into power system operation and planning requires new ways of thinking about energy sources. To date, no backup capacity for wind energy has been added. Because wind is an intermittent resource, it is used when it is available. Therefore, surplus wind energy can grow substantially during times that do not match customer use patterns. There is a strong need to find ways we can store this surplus energy. Two proposed off-peak electricity uses of this surplus energy are the deployment of plug-in hybrid vehicles with off-peak charging and production of hydrogen to power vehicles.

Another primary technical obstacle is the lack of transmission infrastructure to enable delivery and trade of energy resources efficiently. To utilize the considerable wind resources the U.S. has, a significant amount of new transmission will be required. Every era of the U.S. has been accompanied by construction of new transmission. The last era of significant construction occurred in the 1960s and 1970s. In fact, transmission investment has lagged substantially in the last two decades.

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