PG&E Delivers Wind Energy
A newly launched 75 MW facility in Solano County is the first of many such facilities in the works.
Rolling blackouts; energy shortages; price gouging by out-of-state producers. Common phrases from five summers ago that helped bring down a California governor.Just like the California energy crisis a few years spurred the Golden State's investments in renewable energy sources, $70 per barrel of oil may spur more investments across the U.S. The Bush administration is making noise in favor of renewables, hopefully favorable policies will follow. Luckily we won't have to rely completely on the current administration: what happens in the Golden State, eventually gets adopted nationally.
A Solano County project built in response now helps reduce the chance of such a thing happening again.
Solano County's Shiloh Wind Project, the first energy generator built in California since the statewide energy crisis of 2000, recently began delivering power to PG&E, a spokeswoman for the utility said Monday.
"Very few energy generation sources were built after the
Not only does the Shiloh wind farm contribute 75 megawatts of energy to the thousands needed in Northern California daily, but the power generated is clean and renewable, Randle said.
posted by BEN LORICA @ 6:44 AM
1 Comments:
Note that the quoted report is incorrect in stating that the Shiloh facility contributes 75 MW to northern California's needs.
That is its rated capacity. It produces at that level only when the wind is within a specific range of speeds (and all turbines are working perfectly). The average output of wind facilities in the U.S. is typically 20-30% of their capacity. The Shiloh facility would therefore be expected to produce at an average 15-23 MW.
Of further note, because of the cubic relationship of power output to wind speed, the turbines would produce at or above that average rate only a third of the time.
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