Institutional Problems The posture of the electric utilities on WECS is conservative and skeptical, and industry-based associations like the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) artd the Edison Electric Institute (EEi) are hardly encouraging their implementation. However, there are a few mavericks in the.industry, as evidenced by the over (,0 utilities that responded to Request for Proposals (from the DOE) to have government-bought demonstration WECS hooked into their electric grids. But it is . uncertain that the current demonstration WECS are realistic prototypes of commercial models likely to be off~red in the future. Without a national survey of sites where utilities would actually place WECS, it is unlikely that the demonstra-. tion units would be the most efficient or economical prototypes for a commercial market. The resulting delay in the use of large WECS will alldw the conti'nued consumption of massive amounts of fossil fuel without the fuel saving benefits of larger WECS in the utility grid. Meanwhile, the more responsive.small WECS industry has begun to .expand due to 'increased demand for these units. Even if the farm and residen- .tial markets were. saturated with small WECS, the large utility WECS could still supply an additional 10.5 to 15.2 percentl. of the national electric energy demand in 1995. It would seem reason'.1ble then for DOE to place,quantity orders for la.rge WECS to be used by the federal power agencies such .as BPA, TVA or the Bureau of Reclamation.2 That would be a demonstration program! That would cause mass production lines to be started up immediately. The resulting effect would be WECS that are priced competitively enough •to entice public and private utility orders. Operating experience and implementation capability would be developed within DOE to assist interested utilities. Given the,existing potential market and need for WECS, the present DOE wind program6 is·not scaled'to the level of national ~enefits resulting from the use of wind.power. Why? Scrutiny of DOE policy reveals that the commitment to wind energy is minimal as evidenced by the level of monetary sup- . port. The present federal program is less than the "business as usual" (BAU) case for wind power described in the FEA Project Independence Report3 of 1974. Since then, oil has become considerably more expensive than $7 or $11 per barrel. Recent energy cost a.od performance studies have shown that the 1 MW WECS (in Ref. 3) energy cost is too high and its performance too low. In spite of these and other ' developments7, the Federal Wind Energy Program6 has not been upgraded or expanded to even the BAU level. The comments about wind energy in a recent ERDA report4 describing government policy anc;l goals. demonstrated a poor understanding of the technological and economic considerations of wind energy. Today, with all th~ new information available (most of it paid for by ERDA/DOE), the.federal wind program needs to be reevaluated. Evidently, those at the top in DOE who formulate policy and who lobby for program support are still grossly misinformed or uninformed about wind energy. So far, the cost effectiveness of the ac- . complishments of private enterprise in the construction and operation of WECS, here and abroad, far exceeds that of the Federal Wind Program. . -= ~ (I) z 0 ~ _, i ~ .,:. (I) 0 ' (J > C, a: w z w C, I- ~ May 1978 RAIN Page 15 Figure 1. WTG Energy.Cost 40 35 \ , 30 25 20 WTG Rated Capacity 60ou KW: .15' sooo·kw 400<fkw 10 3000 KW: -- - 5 1000 KW 0 4 5 6 7 8 V in meters/sec. The Impacts of Production What if, somehow, orders for large WECS were placed and industry tooled up for mass production? This question was addressed in depth in the Mission Analysis.1 Given the maximum 199 5 potential market, a scenario was constructed which assumed that industry would gear up for a rate of production and installation that could be sustained for at least five years, or not more than 8100 WECS/yr. A model was made taking into account.labor and material quantities and costs. The manufacture o{ the Mod O blades at Lockheed provided some empirical data for the model. Since it takes'· approximately 20 months to make a WTG, from mining the ore to its completed erection on site, production was assumed to begin in mid-1978 with the first deliveries of 1 QO units in 1980. Thereafter, the annual delivery rate would be 500, 1000, 2000, 4000, 6000,'to a peak rate of 8100 units per year in 1986. Thirteen WEC5 designs were analyzed for what it would ta½e to construct them. Th.e cost model provided labor hours, and material costs and quantities. Three of these exemplary U,!!its are shown in Table L At the average wind speeds given (Vin m/sec.) the diameters are 280, 417 and 367 feet left to right. For the 4 MW, V=7 m/s WECS, the weight br~akdown of materials is 49.'5% concrete, 48% steel, 1.8% aluminum and .7% copper. At ~HOO WECS/yr, production of basic materials would have to increase, copper wire by 2.5%, aluminum. sheet 1.8% and steel 1.9%. The production of steel castings would also rise by 48%, and this represents the only possible bottleneck in the materials supply. If less than 8100 WECS/yr. are produced, then all the results reported here can be adjusted proportionately.
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