A previous article covered the remarkable growth of Spanish wind and the success in incorporating this electricity into Spain’s grid. It focused on the periods in November when wind provided much of the country’s electricity, peaking at almost 54% in the early morning of 8 November 2009. Wind was almost 23% of the Spanish total electricity production during the month of November, beating nuclear for the first time. Solar also grew rapidly in 2009, up from 1% in 2008 to 3% of national output.
The effect on CO2 emissions from power generation was striking. Carbon dioxide output fell by over a sixth, largely as a result of the growth in renewables.
Those who oppose the growth of wind in countries like the UK often say that renewables are so unreliable that conventional power stations have to operate at the same time, just in case the wind drops. They say that therefore wind or solar have no effect on CO2 emissions. Spain’s 2009 figures demonstrate that this is not true.
Spanish electricity consumption fell by about 4.3% in 2009 because of the poor state of the country’s economy. The output from renewables – excluding hydro – was up 22% over the year.[1] So we would expect carbon dioxide emissions to fall somewhat. But the decrease was magnified by the substantial fall in coal and gas use in power stations. Coal was down 24% and gas 9%. In total, the CO2 output from the country’s power generation sector was down 17% on the year. The Spanish electricity producers association wrote (30 December 2009) about the fall in CO2 emissions and its relation to rising renewable production saying ’Paralelamente, las emisiones de CO2 descendieron en torno al 17%’ (In parallel, CO2 emissions fell an overall 17%).
This data should provide the strongest possible rebuttal to those who claim that wind power doesn’t reduce CO2 emissions
Footnote
[1] The original article said that wind output increased by 23%. In the comments below, Vinny correctly points out that the 22% was for renewables within Spain’s ‘Special Regime’, which includes solar as well as wind. I’ve changed the article to reflect Vinny’s correction.
Tags: CO2 emissions from electricity generation, power generation, REE, renewables, solar, Spain, UNESA, wind power
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As you say, an impressive rebuttal. I’ve just spent an hour or so trying to find a way to knock it over and this is the best I can do:
Wind generation was up 16% in 2009, not 22%. (UNESA’s 22% is the increase for a subtotal of wind, solar and a large dollop of unidentified etcetera. The 16% figure comes from the Spanish Wind Energy Association.) The combined contribution from other ‘green’ sources (combined-cycle, hydro, ‘etcetera’ and solar) increased by a lot more than that. I can’t find directly comparable numbers with which to do a totally reliable calculation but the ‘other green’ increase was about three times the size of the wind power increase.
Which proves?
Not a lot. Only that wind power played a smaller part in reducing carbon emissions than your article suggests. It still played a part, though.
(Of course, all countries aren’t the same bla bla, costs bla bla bla, subsidies bla bla …)
Your previous article is less convincing. All you did was show that the Spanish grid could cope with a day that had a slightly higher than normal contribution from wind turbines (16% for the day versus 13% for the year). It would be more useful to know what happened on 27th of August, when wind-generated electricity was briefly only 1% of the total. Was the supply gap filled? What happened to emissions?
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D’oh! Wood for the trees!
‘This data should provide the strongest possible rebuttal to those who claim that wind power doesn’t reduce CO2 emissions.’
Who makes that claim? I’ve never heard it. The usual objections are about energy reliability, cost, ugliness, noise and dead birds.
Consider your rebuttal rebutted.
(I could have saved myself an hour.)
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Vinny,
A couple of comments
1) The claim that wind power doesn’t reduce emissions because other power stations ‘have to work anyway because you can’t rely on wind’ is a very frequent comment across the internet and in places like the Daily Telegraph and Mail. The Spanish data was the first explicit linking I have seen of the month to month impact of wind and other renewables on emissions. That’s why I thought it was worth noting.
2) You are right to point out that the 22% increase in renewables disguises a more rapid increase from solar than from wind. Apologies. I have changed the text to reflect the comment.
3) I don’t think your wider conclusion that ‘The combined contribution from other ‘green’ sources (combined-cycle, hydro, ‘etcetera’ and solar) increased by a lot more than that’ is true. Combined cycle (gas) was down 9% and hydro was up by only 8%. Solar, but only solar, did indeed grow more rapidly than wind.
4) The point in the earlier article was simply that the Spanish grid had no problems coping with 54% wind share early in the morning of 8th November in contrast to a 2008 episode when high wind speeds caused the grid to have to disconnect a lot of turbines. I don’t know where the 16% figure you mention came from. Early November was extremely windy and across the whole month, wind gave Spain 23% of its electricity.
What I’m trying to do in these two articles is show that the evidence from Spain is that wind can make a big difference to carbon emissions and contribute effectively to an electricity generation portfolio. This is perhaps a obvious point but I can say from extensive personal experience that this assertion is very widely contested in the UK.
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A more fair criticism would be: Wind and solar are among several viable ways to reduce carbon emissions from electrical generation by 20% or so; the problem is that unlike nuclear, they are not viable ways to economically produce the 80% reductions which are required.
The Spanish data does nothing to refute this, as clearly if the amount of wind farms were doubled (to 30% or so of demand), there would be many times when much of the wind power would be unneeded and go to waste, driving up the cost.
The problem is the variability of the wind: some days there is a lot, other very little. In Europe, solar is not much better, with many a cloudy day. Both require a breakthrough in energy storage in order be viable as the main source of electricity.
Solar thermal plants can accomodate storage, and if placed in the desert, could be a large energy source. But the cost of long distance transmission adds to the already high cost of solar.
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Thanks for the response, CG.
1. Fair enough.
2. Your change to the text is still slightly misleading, as is note 2 itself. UNESA’s 22% estimate was for ‘renovables y residuos’, not just wind and solar. (I took ‘residuos’ to mean ‘other stuff’ but it probably means ‘rubbish’. Methane?) And although the percentage increase in solar-powered generation was much larger than the percentage increase in wind-powered generation, in absolute terms the increases were about the same. RED’s preliminary 2009 report suggests that the increases in 2009 generation (for peninsular Spain; couldn’t isolate national totals) were about 4,900 GWh for solar and 4,100 GWh for wind. (For ‘residuos’? No idea. The RED reports lump it in with cogeneration and other non-wind Special Regime sources.)
Incidentally, the RED report says that wind-powered generation increased nationally by 13% in 2009 (to about 13% of the total). I got the 16% estimate from the Spanish Wind Energy Association (AEE). Treat with suspicion. It looks like it routinely puffs wind with inflated figures. (Geddit?)
And RED says CO2 emissions from electricity generation fell by 15.5 %. (UNESA said 17%.)
3. I can’t remember where I got the ‘about three times the size’ from. The numbers in RED’s preliminary 2009 report show that the absolute increase from hydro power plus non-wind Special Regime sources (solar, cogeneration, ‘residuos’ and possibly some SR hydro and other bits and bobs) was about two and a half times the size of the wind-generated increase. I probably did a rough calc based on data from UNESA or AEE and misidentified cogeneration as combined-cycle.
4.The 16% figure came from your earlier blogpost. Perhaps I misunderstood. You wrote: ‘The outturn was about 16% for most of the night.’ I took this to mean that wind provided about 16% of Spain’s electricity for most of the night. The average for the year was 13%. OK, the average for that (particularly windy?) November was 23% but 16% isn’t much of a drop from that.
But yes, I take your point that the Spanish grid coped with an unexpected shortfall from wind turbines. (Though I still think an analysis of the 1% day in August would be instructive.)
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None of that is particularly important. Your main (should-be-obvious) point in this blogpost stands: wind power can help reduce emissions. Cost, reliability, national circumstances bla bla bla: separate issues. (As is NW’s point about how much of the burden wind and solar can feasibly be expected to supply.)
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