Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
The variability of wind power is altering how the electric grid is managed.
Requirements for integrating wind into the grid have changed over the past decade.
When there were only small amounts of wind power generating electricity, special
operational protocols were not needed. Conventional wisdom assumes large-scale wind
power requires other electricity-generating resources to be ready to quickly come online
due to unpredictability regarding when the wind might stop blowing. However,
development of a smarter grid, accompanied by better meteorological forecasts, has made
grid operators more adept at integrating wind into the electric system. While system
operators originally had to call wind plant operators to curtail turbine output when
transmission congestion or system constraints required, with improved communication
technology this process has become automated in most systems. In some electricity
systems, wind plants now bid into day-ahead electricity markets and are scheduled like
conventional generation resources. A smarter grid for wind means new market
mechanisms, new systemwide data integration, new control algorithms, and the
incorporation of detailed wind prediction models, enabling grid operators to integrate
greaterlevelsofwindpower.Thesesystemscontinuetoevolve,andengineersarecurrently
developing additional controls to allow wind plants to be more flexible and better
integrated into the electric grid.
Throughout human history, people have harnessed the wind to meet multiple societal
functions, from milling grain to pumping water and oil, and now creating electricity. Each
use of wind power involves evolving relationships among people and technology and each
use has fulfilled the needs of different actors. The current evolution and integration of
wind into the electric system is but another chapter in the long use of wind power to meet
changing human desires.
6.2.1 The Evolving History of Wind Technologies
Wind power was used to grind grain in Persia in the seventh century and in Europe and
five centuries in Northern Europe, wind power was harnessed by windmills to grind grain
and became a dominant technology, driven by feudal economics. In the feudal society, the
windmill was owned by the lord of the manor and this was where tenants were required to
grind the grain they grew. In the Netherlands, for example, one windmill was able to grind
enough grain to feed 2,000 people. In addition to grinding grain, windmills pumped water
and helped to drain the Rhine Valley marshes. Windmills also sawed wood and crushed oil
seeds. Windmills dominated the European landscape for 500 years, but their use declined
rapidly with the advent of the steam engine in the late 1700's and the import of grain from
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