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Peetz Table halfway there
Because of wind variability, there is no way of predicting exactly how much energy the wind turbines will produce at a specific time on any given day.
Xcel Energy spokesman Tom Henley at the Denver office said Xcel adjusts for this variability with its Heat Rate Exchange Program, a centrally located part of the company's computer system. The program reads the input from Xcel's various power generating plants, from wind farms to coal- , gas- and water-powered plants.
When the wind farms are going strong, the computer system will cause the most expensive power source to "back down." This will probably be one or more of Xcel's gas-fired power plants, Henley said. Coal-fired plants, such as the Pawnee Power Plant at Brush, won't be turned down. They are cheaper to operate than gas-fired plants, and also would take longer to get fired back up to full power when the input from the wind farms dropped. A gas-powered plant can be fired back up in as little as half an hour, Henley said.
August 21, 2007
by Carol Barrett
in Journal-Advocate
PEETZ - For months, dozens and dozens of enormous wind turbines have been rising skyward across the Peetz Table, bringing this landscape of pastures and wheat fields into the space age.
For most of that time, blades on top of the growing numbers of towers have stood motionless under the summer sun.
Now they have started to turn.
The 133 turbines of Peetz Table Wind Energy's Phase I are finished and generating electric power. Along with the accompanying transformers, power lines, underground cables and a substation, this completes the first of two phases for the Peetz Table project.
"Phase I is all done," Brandon... [continue via Web link]
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