The context of this Diary is the FDP complaining of too much wind driving down prices and causing other producers to bear the full costs of load balancing which can be extreme in rare cases.  The point I'm making is that if you pay wind operators to contribute to load balancing they could also do so by varying the pitch on their rotors.  (This can be done in real time, can't it?) and thus wind is every bit as effective as a potential load balancer.

This load balancing can be up as well as down if a windfarm is operated at 90% design efficiency so that it can instantaneous ramp up to 100% or down to 80% in response to load balancing requirements.

You might want to ask - why run a windfarm at 90% in the first place - and the answer is only if wind penetration is so high that you don't have sufficient gas load balancing available, or the baseload plants are having difficulty adjusting in a timely manner.

My point is that windfarms don't engage in load balancing because it makes sense to run them at 100% for carbon footprint, capital asset utilisation, and income maximisation in a FIT pricing regimen.  However, technically, there is no reason why higher wind penetration levels must result in increased load balancing concerns provided you are prepared to pay operators compensation for operating their plant at less than 100% potential output - (which is presumably what makes gas turbines economic?).

(PS - this is me testing a theory, not speaking from knowledge or experience! Please correct me if I have gotten this all wrong)

Index of Frank's Diaries