Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wind-hydro station

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. If anyone so desires, a merge may be proposed on the article's talk page, but consensus seems to be in favor of keeping the content. /ƒETCH COMMS / 03:06, 23 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wind-hydro station[edit]

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I considered this first as a speedy under WP:CSD#A7 as it's so terse it's impossible to tell what the article is about. If it's about pumped storage, we already have an article on that. The Canary Islands example seems no more notable than any other power station project and is only described in a vague and speculative article from two years ago. The images make no sense at all - only one, the German rendering, seems to have any real value. Even that looks more like the cover of a Brian Aldiss s-f novel. Is the "ringworld" structure such a key part of this topic? It's not even mentioned in the text. I know AfD isn't cleanup, but this article is so poor there's nothing here to start cleaning. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:55, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. I did the clean-up, removed vaguely related images. It is not only about pumped storage and not only about wind electricity. It's about the combination, which is an important aspect since wind energy is floating a lot and to use it better or in case one wants to rely on that source almost exclusively one needs large storage. NuclearEnergy (talk) 13:59, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Doesn't seem to be much of an individually notable concept. Only one Google Books hit, which might even be an accident - doesn't seem to be a topic of discussion in industry. The one hit is talking about a pumped storage plant, which article already discusses its application to smoothing out supply from intermittent sources. Google Scholar gives 10 hits for the phrase, all of which are about pumped storage. The existing content isn't much and would be better included in the pumped storage article. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:08, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as content-fork of Wind power. Keeping the title in the hopper as a redirect isn't a bad idea, but there's nothing to merge here, in my estimation. Carrite (talk) 16:09, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

~~Delete~~ . Merge with pumped storage. Combines two separate concepts; generating electricity (which could be a wind turbine, a dam, a nuclear plant, etc.) and storing that energy (which could be pumping water uphill, batteries, a spinning flywheel, etc.) there is no point listing every combination of generating and storing energy. That would be like listing toasters powered by hydro, toasters powered by nuclear, blenders powered by hydro, blenders powered by nuclear, etc. Guy Macon (talk) 16:38, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm happy to accept, in principle, that the German architect behind the images has created some synergistic combination of wind power & pumped hydro, evidently with constructed circular ponds, that is somehow a novel and improved concept over what went before. This is difficult - How does pumped hydro work effectively with such a low head? Where do you put such an artificial lake when the "flat country" most in mind would be the Netherlands, who are usually busy reclaiming land from the sea. Is the architect even competent on the engineering aspect (the low head seems a serious problem) or are we just looking at another KVDP pipe-dream with better artwork? Whichever it might be though, this article is failing to justify it. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:42, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Technology-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 14:34, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. There’s one under construction in Greece [1], [2], the one in the Canaries is in the first phase, whatever that means [3]. The idea’s been around for a while, see Gscholar results for wind pumped storage combination [4]. (Some of these, but not all, discuss wind power and pumped storage power supplementing each other in the same grid, not at a single station). I agree the article needs work, could it be a candidate for Wikipedia:Article Incubator? Novickas (talk) 17:57, 14 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The IEEE paper isn't about "wind-hydro stations", it's about a grid-based load levelling system. That is a long-established technology, already covered at pumped storage. This article, as exemplified by the German rendered sketch, is about something else: a combined single-site station that combines both wind and pumped storage at a single location. This would appear to be technically unworkable, so it needs to demonstrate its viability separately, by some WP:RS that focusses specifically on the form described here. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:20, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The abstract says: "... The Hybrid Power Station (HPS) of Ikaria Island, Greece, which is currently in the construction stage, will be one of the first wind-hydro-pumped-storage hybrid stations in the world." Dicklyon (talk) 01:45, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I'd meant the other IEEE paper. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:55, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep According to news sources, this is a new technology. I wonder if the first one has been completed yet or not. [5] But it is a real thing and it does get coverage. New technologies are often given articles, even if the first one hasn't been completed yet. Dream Focus 23:16, 16 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How is this new technology? Generating power from the wind isn't new (and we have an article on it). Storing energy by pumping water uphill isn't new either (and we have an article on that as well) . Guy Macon (talk) 23:53, 16 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Excuse me. I misread things. Its the "world's first wind-hydro power station". The article also says that Al Gore's cable television network, Current TV, refers to the island as "a blueprint for a sustainable future on planet Earth". Stations of this type are new, even if the technology is not. Dream Focus 01:26, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Being a new combination of current technologies does not establish notability. Nobody has ever hooked up a thorium reactor to a microwave power transmission system, but if they did that would not justify a Wikipedia article on the combination. Guy Macon (talk) 10:39, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It would if they got independent third party coverage from reliable sources. Dream Focus 15:06, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

According to that logic, if Detroit/Hamtramck Assembly has independent third party coverage from reliable sources, then General Motors automobile factories straddling city borders is notable. and if Obukhov State Plant has independent third party coverage from reliable sources, then Soviet naval artillery factories converted to tank factories is notable. Guy Macon (talk) 15:38, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Your examples make no sense at all. The General Motors article could include that information. Their location doesn't seem to be a significant reason to list it in separate article. As for the Soviet factories being converted, has any news organization or other reliable source said that was notable? If it was called "a blueprint for a sustainable future on planet Earth" by a reliable source, then it'd be notable enough to have its own Wikipedia article. Dream Focus 16:12, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I do not believe that anyone called wind-hydro stations "a blueprint for a sustainable future on planet Earth." They called pumped storage "a blueprint for a sustainable future on planet Earth", using one particular wind-hydro station as an example of same. Guy Macon (talk) 09:14, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep – Now that it has been enhanced with independent reliable sources with significant coverage, it's clear that there's a notable topic here. Unless there's some other reason, like the topic being already covered in another article, it's clearly a keep now. Dicklyon (talk) 01:45, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, the particular power station described in the coverage is notable and should have a Wikipedia page, but the technology is no more notable than propane powered tow trucks are (propane powered vehicles are notable, tow trucks are notable, propane powered tow trucks are not). Guy Macon (talk) 10:39, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you read the WP:GNG, you may find that there's no reason to be having opinions about this. Let me help. It says "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed ... notable." Are there reliable sources with significant coverage of propane-power tow trucks? If so, they're notable; if not, not. Are there reliable sources with significant coverage of hybrid wind and pumped-storage plants? Well, yes, and some are cited now, so done deal, no? Dicklyon (talk) 07:19, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Again, that is an argument for an article about these particular power stations, not for power stations as a whole. If a couple of particular propane powered tow trucks became notable (Stars of a sitcom, notable figure marries one, that sort of thing) then the subsequent coverage would justify articles about those particular propane powered tow trucks, but not an article about propane powered tow trucks in general. Guy Macon (talk) 15:38, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. If this article were just about how wind power and pumped storage work together in some grids, that info probably is present somewhere else on WP, but there are two such stations in various stages of construction – on El Hierro and Ikaria. [6]. Two stations justifies an article about it IMO, so that the concept, economics, history (including proposals mentioned in reliable sources [7], [8], [9], all of which I think deserve a sentence or two here) can be discussed in one place. Novickas (talk) 16:54, 17 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Good find! Instead of wind-hydro stations, some call them hydro-wind stations. Dream Focus 16:14, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The NYT article doesn't call them either of those. It talks about a 'hydro-wind project' , not a station.

The difference is significant, not mere nit-picking. Wind-hydro projects have been around for years, they're already covered by pumped storage. It's a basic fact of network design that load-levelling measures like pumped storage work better at the level of a national grid, not isolated stations. Simply being a bigger network helps to even out the load. This isn't new, we don't need a new article for it. Some of these stations (like Dinorwig) were built to take surplus capacity from nukes, but after the closure of Trawsfynydd, there's no surplus nuke to be had - however there is now local wind, which they're using instead.

The article, as it was recently, described something different. It was a plan by a German architect for "combined stations" - an entirely new concept. These would use constructed reservoirs (despite the low head that then entails), with wind turbines mounted directly on them. I see this as technically problematic, because the head is so low, so I want to see real sources to support them, not the usual vague handwaving. Is there any advantage to a closely integrated wind-hydro site? Does it reduce transmission losses in some useful way? Is there a way round the low head problem? Do they have some other advantage?

The article now seems to have done the usual wikibollocks of confusing facts with pattern matching and focussing on words in Google rather than knowledge. A similarly named project in the Canaries has been picked up, despite it not being a hydro-wind station. It's actually (as far as I can see) a very small island-scale grid system, with two quite separate stations, using older technologies that are already covered by existing articles. It's a new build, but it's not a new technology.

The IEEE paper on Ikaria is a bit more promising, in that it does at least describe a station that's a deliberate combination of wind & hydro, i.e. something new in extension of previous pumped storage. To sustain this article though, we have to emphasise this difference, and to explain just why it's not simply the same tech in a duplicate article. The current article is a long way short of this.

There is also the question of whether the encyclopedia read better with one article or two. Is this just better as a section within pumped storage? Andy Dingley (talk) 19:18, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Re the nomenclature – project v. station. For the El Hierro project: European Commission Contract NNE5-2001-00950, El Hierro Island – the title reads BASIC DESIGN OF THE SYSTEM (WIND HYDRO POWER STATION). [10]. It’s called a facility in this proposal published by the govt of Nova Scotia: “Currently CBEX is focusing on the development of a hybrid wind/hydro pump storage power generating facility on the hills above Lake Uist.” [11]

The particulars of the combo are extensively discussed in the body of this website [12] – this is a reprint of the IEEE paper mentioned above. They state “In this paper, the term Hybrid Power Station (HPS) is used to describe a combined station, comprising a wind farm and pumped storage facilities, which is owned and operated by a single entity, the HPS producer.” In the schematic (pdf page 2) you can see a box around the combo separating it from the grid. They go into great detail about the technical, economic, and operational considerations of such stations within the Greek electrical market/regulatory framework. It would be a good basis for expansion, but I hesitate to use it as a reference, apart from the IEEE abstract, since it may not be an authorized reprint of the journal piece.

Re the German architect’s plan – it’s not in the article anymore; I don’t know that we need to discuss it any further.

Whether WP would be better off if it were merged into pumped storage - I'm thinking that readers-at-large would come to this article after seeing web mentions of the proposals and the projects underway and would be better served by an article that does a brief overview, with wikilinks to the major articles, followed by details, than by finding themselves in the middle of a larger article. It's what I prefer when I'm in unfamiliar territory. Novickas (talk) 14:58, 19 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Merge with pumped storage. Whilst I agree that the wind turbine/pumped storage combination is capable of being notable, I agree with the view that at this stage of development the article is just an unhelpful fork. THe principle is the same however the energy is generated in the first place; the distinguishing feature is the storage. --AJHingston (talk) 19:53, 18 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Merge with pumped storage. Seems to be merely an application of wind power to that technology; it's doubtful whether it can be described separately at this stage of its development. Sandstein 05:40, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.