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Heath reported Boswell saying that "The wind farms only work 30 per cent of the time". This is a very similar claim to that made by the anonymous writer of Stop These Things, another of the organisers of the failed rally; Mr STT said "the average windfarm only produces energy about 25% of the time". That this is quite false is shown by the the average South Eastern Australian wind farm having a capacity factor of 35%. That is to say, a typical 3MW wind turbine will, on average, generate about 1MW. Quite obviously, since there is a significant amount of time when it is running at less than full power, it must produce power much more than 30% of the time to achieve an average of 35% of its installed capacity. It could be that Senator Boswell was thinking of capacity factor when he wrote about the proportion of the time that wind farms generate power; but even if he was, he was still wrong. The graph above, which was from the data of the most recent full day available at the time of the claim on the STT net site, shows that of the 27 wind farms logged by the Wind Farm Performance site, most were generating most of the day. This is a typical day of wind farm operation. |
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While this may be close to the fact, it ignores a fundamentally important point. Unlike gas or coal-fired generators, the great bulk of the cost of wind farms is up-front. Once the gas or coal generators are built the operators have to continually pay for fuel; in the case of a wind farm, there are no fuel costs at all. The wind is free. Did Senator Boswell not realise that the wind is free while oil and gas must be paid for, or did he simply choose to ignore that fact, because his argument would otherwise fall down? Again, this shows either gross ignorance or a willingness to misrepresent the facts in order to achieve his aims. |
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In his Senate speech of 2010/11/23 Senator Boswell discussed
capacity factors.
(The capacity factor compares the installed capacity to the power generated.
For example, a typical modern Australian wind turbine will be rated at 3MW,
but will generate an average of a bit more than 1MW; ie. its capacity factor
is about 35%.)
The smaller part of this misrepresentation by Senator Boswell was his statement that the capacity factor of wind power is around 20% to 30%, while the fact for the average of all south-eastern Australian wind farms is a capacity factor of about 35% (from Australian Energy Market Operator figures). The larger part of Senator Boswell's misrepresentation here was when he compared the wind power capacity factor to that of oil and coal, which he claimed to be "closer to 80%". As an example of actual figures, below are the capacity factors for various power generators from the US Energy Information Administration (via Wikipedia).
Senator Boswell, the 11.4% of gas is not closer to 80% than is the 35% of Australian wind power! |
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In his speech in the Senate in November 2010 Senator Boswell said:
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Not only is Senator Boswell opposed to wind power, toward the end of his
speech to the Senate in November 2010 he showed that he is also very opposed
to solar photovoltaic power.
He said:
"We can dump roof-top solar, which is now totally discredited as a sensible way to reduce emissions."Senator Boswell, with over a million Australian houses now having rooftop solar, I think there are many who would disagree with you on that one. |
Senator Boswell is clearly out of touch both with the realities of renewable energy and with the desires of the Australian people, who are strongly in favour of renewables, as is shown in a piece on the ABC's The Drum titled The real public opinion on renewable energy. |
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A half truth Capacity factors Concluding remark Just plain wrong Other errors Solar too Top |
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