We had an emergency alert at 7 pm last night to reduce power consumption immediately, or risk power outages. It was -39 C last night.
I realize that the power grid is more complex than wind, solar and coal plants, but still.
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Brian Zinchuk
Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online
As cold temperatures descended upon Alberta’s wind generating assets, you could identify when they shut down due to the temperature, as shown in red. That’s a lot of red, across the 45 wind farms in Alberta. Dispatcho.app,
And as a result, most wind turbines are shut down when the ambient temperatures reaches around -30 C, lest their continued operation cause them to shatter. And such shutdowns were plainly evident the evening of Jan. 11, on both the Alberta Electric System Operator website and on Dispatcho.app. That’s a website that logs the minute-by-minute data published by the AESO regarding the Alberta electrical grid.
The screenshot above was captured at approximately 11 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 11. Temperatures were in the -28 to -30 C range for most of the areas of southern Alberta where the province’s 45 wind farms are located, according to Windy.com. That website is also very useful in showing windspeed and direction. And Windy.com showed that it wasn’t for lack of wind those farms were shutting down. Nearly every location still had 7 to 9 knots of wind. That’s not a lot, but it’s not nothing, either.
This screenshot from Windy.com at 11 p.m., Jan. 11, showed wind vectors and temperatures in southern Alberta, where nearly all of the province’s grid-scale wind generation is located. Windy.com
That was clearly indicated by Blackspring Ridge, which all by itself was providing roughly half of the roughly 400 megawatts of wind power in Alberta at the time. Located near Lethbridge, it was producing roughly two-thirds of its nameplate capacity, despite wind speeds of 7 knots and gusts up to 16 knots at Lethbridge, while the temperature was -28 C. Stirling Wind, on the other side of Lethbridge, was producing 47 megawatts just a few hours earlier, before dropping to 2 megawatts at 9 p.m.
In the hour that followed, Blackspring Ridge, too, appeared to be spinning down in a linear fashion, producing 79 megawatts at 12:15 a.m. And at 7:28 a.m., it was at one megawatt.
As all of this was taking place, the pool price for Alberta flowed around the $450 to $667 range. There was a sharp uptick in prices at 5 p.m., as demand was peaking and wind assets were increasingly going offline.
Wind output continued to fall throughout the night. As the workforce was warming up its morning breakfast and coffee, wind power generation had fallen to 37 megawatts out of an installed capacity of 4,481 megawatts. That’s 0.8 per cent, or eight one-thousandths of nameplate capacity, on one of the coldest days of the year, produced by hundreds of wind turbines across 45 wind farms costing billions of dollars.
By this point, temperatures across southern Alberta had fallen to -31 C in most locations, but wind was still 7-9 knots in most wind-producing locations, according to Windy.com.
And since the sun had yet to rise, solar output was zero, out of 1,650 megawatts.
And power pool prices were expected to spike throughout the day, according to X bot account @ReliableAB
I realize that the power grid is more complex than wind, solar and coal plants, but still.
Most of Alberta’s wind fleet slowly shut down Thursday night, but not for lack of wind
Jan 12, 2024Share
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Brian Zinchuk
Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online
As cold temperatures descended upon Alberta’s wind generating assets, you could identify when they shut down due to the temperature, as shown in red. That’s a lot of red, across the 45 wind farms in Alberta. Dispatcho.app,
UPDATE: By 7:28 a.m., wind output fell to less than 1 per cent of capacity
One of the first lessons any new engineering student learns in their materials class is “cold brittle behaviour” of materials. When it gets really cold, like -30 C or colder, many materials lose much of their strength and are prone to shattering. This applies to wind turbines as much as it applies to car bumpers.And as a result, most wind turbines are shut down when the ambient temperatures reaches around -30 C, lest their continued operation cause them to shatter. And such shutdowns were plainly evident the evening of Jan. 11, on both the Alberta Electric System Operator website and on Dispatcho.app. That’s a website that logs the minute-by-minute data published by the AESO regarding the Alberta electrical grid.
The screenshot above was captured at approximately 11 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 11. Temperatures were in the -28 to -30 C range for most of the areas of southern Alberta where the province’s 45 wind farms are located, according to Windy.com. That website is also very useful in showing windspeed and direction. And Windy.com showed that it wasn’t for lack of wind those farms were shutting down. Nearly every location still had 7 to 9 knots of wind. That’s not a lot, but it’s not nothing, either.
This screenshot from Windy.com at 11 p.m., Jan. 11, showed wind vectors and temperatures in southern Alberta, where nearly all of the province’s grid-scale wind generation is located. Windy.com
That was clearly indicated by Blackspring Ridge, which all by itself was providing roughly half of the roughly 400 megawatts of wind power in Alberta at the time. Located near Lethbridge, it was producing roughly two-thirds of its nameplate capacity, despite wind speeds of 7 knots and gusts up to 16 knots at Lethbridge, while the temperature was -28 C. Stirling Wind, on the other side of Lethbridge, was producing 47 megawatts just a few hours earlier, before dropping to 2 megawatts at 9 p.m.
In the hour that followed, Blackspring Ridge, too, appeared to be spinning down in a linear fashion, producing 79 megawatts at 12:15 a.m. And at 7:28 a.m., it was at one megawatt.
As all of this was taking place, the pool price for Alberta flowed around the $450 to $667 range. There was a sharp uptick in prices at 5 p.m., as demand was peaking and wind assets were increasingly going offline.
Wind output continued to fall throughout the night. As the workforce was warming up its morning breakfast and coffee, wind power generation had fallen to 37 megawatts out of an installed capacity of 4,481 megawatts. That’s 0.8 per cent, or eight one-thousandths of nameplate capacity, on one of the coldest days of the year, produced by hundreds of wind turbines across 45 wind farms costing billions of dollars.
By this point, temperatures across southern Alberta had fallen to -31 C in most locations, but wind was still 7-9 knots in most wind-producing locations, according to Windy.com.
And since the sun had yet to rise, solar output was zero, out of 1,650 megawatts.
And power pool prices were expected to spike throughout the day, according to X bot account @ReliableAB
