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India threatens Wind farms with fines. They must accurately predict the wind a day in advance or else!

What the Nanny-State Goddess Giveth…

The intermittent power of wind towers plays havoc with electricity grids. Power black outs in India are so bad, they cut off the supply to 600 million or so people for two days last year. To make the grid more stable, an official somewhere decided it would help to have at least one day’s warning of how much electricity will flow from those towers.  (Why not two days I say?)

“A directive took effect this week ordering wind farms with a capacity of 10 megawatts or more to forecast their generation in 15-minute blocks for the following day. “

To put some perspective on this, here is what 7000 wind turbines across Northern Europe (between the North sea, the Baltic Sea and the Austrian-Swiss border) produced in 2004. You can admire the stable predictable output that comes from averaging so many turbines over such a large area. Right?

Percentage of peak grid power supplied by 7000 wind turbines in Northern Europe in 2004

Sources: German Eon Netz (E.ON) Wind Report 2005, Windenergy  and  WiseEnergy.org  (Wind Energy Facts and Fiction: A Half Truth is a Whole Lie p 7)

[Bloomberg]  Wind Forecast Order Jeopardizes Industry, Tata Power Says

By Natalie Obiko Pearson – Jul 16, 2013 2:49 AM ET

India’s move to stabilize its power grid by asking wind farms to accurately predict their output a day in advance or face fines will deepen the slowdown in Asia’s second-biggest wind market, Tata Power Co. (TPWR) said.

A directive took effect this week ordering wind farms with a capacity of 10 megawatts or more to forecast their generation in 15-minute blocks for the following day. Missing estimates by more than 30 percent will incur penalties. “Forecasting at 15-minute intervals is very challenging,” and could cost a 100-megawatt farm an estimated 250 million rupees ($4.2 million) a year, Tata Power said in an e-mailed response to questions. “Developers will see this as a further handicap” and penalties will “jeopardize” the industry’s growth, the nation’s second-biggest developer said.

Someone in power in India does not like wind turbines.

h/t John Droz (graph) and Willie (news)

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