South Africa's Untapped Wind Power Potential

[Nanfeishen]

So with Eskom wanting 385billion for "upgrading" existing infrastructure, what are we getting, more coal power, higher Co2 emissions, and very expensive electricity, and why , well basically nothing more than profit, as Eskom is a business, not a power supplier, (which they should be).
It is all about money not about power(?) and certainly not about providing power to the people.
So what is South Africa's wind power generation pottential ?
According to page 9 of the following report - 70 000MW just blowing in the wind
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q...gzmTag&sig=AHIEtbTemS0rwmoRi6Dhi-dpJZsx9ftp_A

The following report also gives a good indication of wind energy potential:
http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache...2009.pdf+eskom+wind&cd=33&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=za

Thats not to say that Eskom isn't looking at wind generation there are a few projects "in the pipeline", but small compared to what is potentially out there.
This from an article from 2008

ESKOM has confirmed that it will invest R1bn in a 100MW wind farm on the West Coast to feed into the national electricity grid by the beginning of 2010.

http://mybroadband.co.za/news/General/2764.html

The Best comment WRT Eskom though is from this article from 2004

Eskom estimates that the practical usable wind resource on South Africa's coasts is about 1 000 megawatts. And wind farms can be built relatively quickly - it takes only a year to build one with a capacity of 100 megawatts.

http://www.southafrica.info/business/economy/infrastructure/windpower.htm
Eskom claims that our wind capacity is only "moderate", and all reports WRT wind are taken on minimum levels from them, not on average levels.
And if according to them it only takes a year to build a wind farm that means in the 5 years since we should have added at least 500mw of power to our grid via wind farms, -- yeah right, like that really happened.

According to Eskom their power production is:

In South Africa we produce about 34 000 megawatts of electricity to meet current demand, and this figure is growing year by year. The most economical method available to us is to use our abundant supplies of low-quality coal in Mpumalanga and the Northern Province, in power stations sited next to the coal deposits.

http://www.eskom.co.za/live/content.php?Item_ID=5625

So with the upgrades and planning the new Medupi coal-fired power station will cost Eskom R124bn to produce 4 764-MW of power.
http://www.esi-africa.com/node/10853
According to Eskom a 100mw wind farm cost only 1bn to build, 124 bn on a wind farms would yield 12 400mw of power, 3 times what 1 coal powered station could supply and at the same cost.
As demonstrated by this project in China 1.2Gw (12000Mw) for a cost of 120Bn yuan , (Rand to Yuan exchange is pretty much 1 to 1)

expected to have an installed capacity of 12.71 gW by 2015, with an investment of 120 billion yuan

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2009-07/07/content_8385497.htm

Not only that, wind farms can be built in rural areas, closer to demand areas, thereby reducing line laying from source.

Wind turbines vary in size very nicely as well from 5Kw domestic off grid systems from about R70 000
http://www.mywindpowersystem.com/pr...rbine-solution-by-mywindpowersystem-off-grid/

to large industrial turbines of 1.5mw which come in at about 14Mil
http://www.mywindpowersystem.com/products/2009/10/saip-s77-1-5-mw-wind-turbine-system-on-grid/

Wind power is the answer to South Africa's energy needs, and should be explored to its full capacity, something it looks like Eskom is not willing to do as obviously profit is more important than bringing power to the people.

To compare , Germany which is 1/3 the size of South Africa produced 25 000Mw of power through Wind in 2009, Spain comes in at half the size of S.A and produced 18 000Mw , which is about 13% of Spains total energy requiremnts.
As of 2009 South africa doesnt even feature in the top 35 countires generating power from wind:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power

Eskom - do what is right, be an energy provider, not a thief.

 

[Saidar]

Excellent post thanks,

There is one problem with wind power. It is SEASONAL. It won't produce enough energy every second of the year, so you cannot only depend upon wind power.

The fact that we have an over abundant source of coal for many years to come will definitaley not attract Eskom to the fact of using wind power.

One thing which you did not consider was the area needed for all those turbines. 4 gigawatts worth of wind turbines would span a HUGE area, adding up to costs, and then not to mention the fact that they only provide seasonal energy, not sustainable energy.

I may be wrong about this, only my opinion

 

[WilD_CaT]

Its the cost of the land.

The cost of the materials to build all the windmills. Which have to be mined so the greenies can shush.

How to store energy. Wind comes and goes. We need energy on demand. The only practical way to store large amounts of energy is to pump water up a mountain when energy is being generated by wind and dam it.

Then when we need energy we let it run downhill and have turbines producing hydro electric power when wind is low.

So the cost of building and operating that has to be included as well as you cannot just use large amounts of batteries. There is the fact that energy will be lost during this process so your yields will be lower.


It is also a fact that huge amounts of resources are being used and the yield is very inconsistant and low. If the wind was blowing and windmills are running, then your generation will be good.

However that is not the case all the time. In fact they will be operating at 100% very little of the time. To me thats a waste of resources. To build and operate something that doesn't run at 100% for most of the time.

Rather get on nuclear.

But for now coal is the practical answer.

 

[Albereth]

Economically speaking, wind power is not worth the capital outlay. Coal is still way too cheap.

And with climate change looming large - there could be changes in weather patterns that affect the wind farms.

Interestingly - a move to solar power will heat the world. Solar panels are black and absorb heat. Only about 15% of the sun's energy gets converted to electricity, the rest is radiated adding to global warming.