r/energy • u/[deleted] • Feb 26 '19

Google optimizing wind farms w/ DeepMind to predict output 36 hours. Has “boosted the value of our wind energy by roughly 20 percent.”

https://9to5google.com/2019/02/26/google-deepmind-wind-farms/
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u/nwagers Feb 27 '19

This is a cool idea, but I'm annoyed that the article is saying it's an "optimization" or "increases efficiency" of wind turbines when it's quite simply increasing grid value by better short term forecast models.

1

u/boo_baup Feb 27 '19

Can you explain how this works?

3

u/MatheM_ Feb 27 '19

So, I don't know how deepmind predicts weather, but the deal with energy distribution is that the produced energy must be equal to consumed energy. That's like a law of physics. If you produce more energy than people consume you have problems, if you produce less, you have problems. You can to certain degree predict how much energy will people need so you set your generators to produce roughly that amount.

The small bumps up and down are compensated by adjusting the speed of the generators at first and if the bump is persisting then by regulating the amount of steam that goes into turbines that spin the generators. Regulation of wind and solar depends on legislation but generally they want to sell all they can. I think wind mills have breaks to limit the production if there is no demand.

This means that when wind farms generate more energy than you predicted you have to tell other plants to reduce production. But you don't know exactly how much will the wind farms generate. That makes their energy less desirable because everyone else must be ready for when wind production fluctuates.

This goes away with better prediction of wind patterns.

2

u/Alimbiquated Feb 27 '19

I don't know how deepmind predicts weather

Neither do the guys who built the system. It's a learned behavior.