Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online
Look closely at the semis at the base of this wind turbine south of Assiniboia. They are parked right beside it. That gives some idea of the scale of these turbines. Photo by Brian Zinchuk
ASSINIBOIA, HERBERT – In recent weeks, wind power has been usually running around 10 per cent of power production, usually a bit over 300 megawatts, averaged out over 24 hours, while the average power generation for the whole province came in around 3,300 megawatts.
Total power generated that day averaged 3,252 megawatts, meaning wind accounted for 1 per cent of total average daily production.
But on Dec. 13, that average was 30 megawatts, for the entire day. And as an average, that means there were times when it was lower than 30 megawatts, as well as higher. Wind’s average power output for the day was 4.8 per cent. Again, as an average, the spot-output percentage was indeed lower, as well as higher, than 4.8 per cent, throughout the day. And at at least one facility, it was zero, when the winds became totally becalmed.
That’s half of what wind put out on Nov. 4, when it dropped to 60 megawatts for the daily average power production.
SaskPower average power production, in megawatts, on Tuesday, Dec. 13. SaskPower
For more detailed reporting, go to skelectricity.info, a new independent website which logs SaskPower’s data, including total power production that is updated every five minutes. You can follow it on Twitter at https://twitter.com/SkElectricity.
On Dec. 13, coal produced 41 per cent of power production, or 1,323 megawatts, while natural gas produced 38 per cent, or 1,245. This is a reversal from recent trends, as natural gas typically out-produces coal these days. Hydro produced 12 per cent, of 405 megawatts. “Other,” including small scale wind and solar, was eight per cent, or 247 megawatts. Solar output was negligible, at an average of 1 megawatt, out of 30 megawatts nameplate capacity.
Assiniboia is home to the largest wind facility built to date in Saskatchewan. At 200 megawatts nameplate capacity, it’s called the Golden South Wind Facility. Temperature is significant, as wind turbines are shut down at -30 C, lest cold brittle behaviour cause them to shatter. But it was not anywhere close to -30 C. It simply didn’t blow.
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According to Environment Canada, on that day the temperature varied at Assiniboia between -11 and -12, staying within a 1 degree band for 24 hours. Wind speed ranged from 24 kilometres per hour at midnight, down to 14 kilometres per hour at noon, and then from 5 p.m. until 11 p.m., ranging between six and 10 kilometres per hour.
The next largest wind facility is the Blue Hill Wind Facility, south of Herbert, which has a nameplate capacity of 175 megawatts. The closest weather station to there is Swift Current. On Dec. 13, the temperature ranged between -11.5 and -17.1 C. Wind speed ranged from 18 kilometres per hour at 1 a.m., and dropped to total calm at 7 a.m. By 11 a.m., it was 13 kilometres per hour and ranged between nine and 17 kilometres per hour for the rest of the day. It did snow most of the day. This information was not available for Assiniboia.
SaskPower’s grid-scale wind fleet totals 617 megawatts. But it will soon expand, with the Crown corporation intending on building 3,000 megawatts of wind and solar power generation in the coming years. On Nov. 7, it announced it had approved 700 megawatts – 400 megawatts of new wind, and 300 megawatts of new solar, to be built in south-central Saskatchewan.
While not specifically mentioned in that Nov. 7 announcement, BluEarth Renewables lists a 230 megawatt wind project northeast of Coronach, near Big Beaver. The company decided against calling it the Big Beaver Wind Facility, and instead has called it the Outlaw Trail Wind Project. According to documentation on the project website, it was originally referred to as the “Hand Hills Wind Project.”
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