Letters to the Editor

Fortnightly Magazine - October 2010
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Green Blackouts?

While Robert Blohm’s article (Op-Ed, “Green Blackouts,” August 2010) did correctly highlight the problem of declining frequency response on our power grid, his attempt to blame the problem on wind energy defies logic for several reasons:

1) Modern wind plants can provide frequency response as well as, or better than, conventional power plants. NERC, the entity responsible for maintaining bulk power system reliability in North America, noted in a report last year that modern wind turbines, with their advanced power electronics, “can provide comparable inertial response/performance to a conventional generator.”

2) As the chart in Mr. Blohm’s article makes clear, frequency response on our power grid has been steadily declining for decades. This decline pre-dates the rapid growth of wind energy over the last five years by at least a decade, making Blohm’s decision to blame this problem on wind akin to accusing someone of committing a crime that occurred a decade before they were born.

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