I wish he would reconsider using the term “intermittency,” however, as it applies to wind performance. Truth is, intermittence is a condition of all electricity generation, occasioned by a number of understandable factors. The intermittence of conventional generation is overwhelmingly predictable and controllable, though; if it weren’t, the problematic unit(s) would be summarily withdrawn from the grid.

If wind output were merely intermittent, even unpredictably intermittent, it might actually do some good as a “fuel saver,” which is what most wind engineers ultimately state as the ultimate rationale for their “technology.” Controllable intermittence would certainly not impose nearly as much inefficiency on wind following generation as the real wind problem does. Most vehicles today have intermittent windshield wipers that nicely complement a safe driving experience, for example.

The real wind problem, the one that turns wind machines into the lemons they are, is the relentless fluctuating volatility of its output. It is wind’s continuous, second by second variability caused by performance at the cube of the wind speed that perverts its integration into a grid system, subverting fuel savings and increasing costs, including, as he states, costs for new, virtually dedicated transmission lines and voltage regulation. Moreover, wind projects don’t require “back up” akin to the way conventional units are sometimes replaced by other conventional units, mostly on a temporary basis. Rather, wind output must be entangled by conventional generation at all times throughout the entire range of its installed capacity.

So why not replace the word intermittence (an actual word) with the word variable? Or, perhaps better, with the phrase “unpredictable and highly variable?” And why not desist using the term back up when in fact he means to convey the idea of comprehensive prosthetic support for its variability?

Although I appreciate the way he documented wind’s capacity credit with ERCOT, MISO, and the PJM, this is rather old news. Or rather, it is consistence with wind performance virtually everywhere. It is a general truism that wind, in the best wind areas, produces an annual average capacity factor of 30%. However, around 60% of the time, it produces less than this. And about 10% of the time, it produces virtually nothing, often at times of peak demand. Conversely, wind projects typically produce most when demand for it is least. Whatever wind does produce is continuously changing, minute-by-minute–which has substantial implications for any wind-induced fossil fuel savings or overall reductions in CO2 emissions.

Perhaps he would consider building upon my own work in looking at wind in Texas and Colorado, investigating whether there is evidence for any overall reductions in coal or natural gas production CAUSED by wind performance. In looking at year to year fuel use over the last decade, and accounting for imports/exports, level of demand, and changes in other fuel generation, I can’t even find a correlation, let alone a causal link, between wind output in MWh and the output of coal or gas in MWh. Wind of course must replace existing generation essentially 1:1 as it enters the grid; however, as it bounces around on the back end of its performance, it imposes such substantial inefficiencies on mainly thermal plants that any “savings” evidently disappear over time. This seems the most plausible explanation for why the historic generation mix doesn’t seem affected by wind.

Pretending to do credible levelized cost comparisons between variable unfirm wind capacity and firm conventional generation is an exercise that should embarrass good economists. And while I understand the use of low value as a literary balance with high cost, the phrase does a real disservice, implying that wind has some benefit. When in fact, at so many levels of consideration, it is only dysfunctional.