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Comment by gordon_freeman | Hacker News Reader

Not sure if it's relevant question here but here I go: I was driving from LA towards Joshua Tree National Park and I saw so many wind turbines which were not operating even though there was plenty of wind blowing and the adjacent wind turbines were running. Is there any reason they were not operating? Can't be maintenance problem as I saw so many not running.

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I believe this is because wind turbines are brought online and taken offline according to demand. Nukes/gas stations can't have capacity adjusted very quickly, and take hours to get up to full production. Wind can be started/stopped quickly as demand rises and falls throughout the day

"Demand response may also be used to increase demand during periods of high supply and/or low demand. Some types of generating plant must be run at close to full capacity (such as nuclear), while other types may produce at negligible marginal cost (such as wind and solar)."[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_response

If the wind force is too much for the turbine/blades to handle I think that the blades are locked in place. Don't know if that's what you saw though.

If your base load (power that can't easily or efficiently be switched off; typically coal, nuclear and hydro) plus your renewable production exceed demand, then the best solution is normally to turn off some of the renewable.

It could be curtailment due to overcapacity or lack of transmission infrastructure to get the electricity to consumers [1]. I'm not quite sure why a more expensive source wouldn't be shut down instead, but maybe the unpredictability of wind power makes them the first to fall when demand is low?

1: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/why-arent-those...

The key thing is reliability and most Balancing Authorities will have procedures dictating which generation comes offline.

Perhaps turning off some turbines can provide a marginal increase in efficiency for the entire turbine farm?

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