Yesterday I posted a quick pic of the energy generation of one wind farm array in Kent. This was taken from RWE, who are one of the major players in renewables in the UK.
In the UK RWE Innogy (No it’s not a typo) operates onshore and offshore wind farms through its UK subsidiary RWE npower renewables, with an installed capacity of over 740 MW.
Had a look today and guess what? Not one of their turbines in the UK were generating at all.
Here are the figures from DECC giving the total capacity of UK onshore wind power.
Wind onshore + 1,737 GWh to 12,121 GWh (17%)
If none of the wind turbines are producing power on this cold windless night. Who’s stupid idea was to build them in the first place.
Don’t all shout at once.
A good indication of how dismal these things are at generating power.
ReplyDeleteAs to the "installed Capacity" propaganda figures given by NWE, This is a capacity that is hardly (if ever) reached. If it is, it is due to a random short term high energy event and will last for a couple of hours. That's a few of hours a year (at best) at the "Installed Capacity"...Hi Ho Hum.
Even the Capacity Factor (or annual average rating) they promote is inflated. Anywhere England is usually in the low 20's% (at best). They usually try and pretend it is 30%.
But this dismal rating is still significantly above the typical or most common daily rating. Wind energy obeys a cube law - double the speed get 8x energy. Sadly the reverse is also true 1/2 wind speed get 1/8 the energy.
So the CF gets inflated by short term random high energy events.
Your 17% snap shot may well be the most common daily output!
How dismal is that. But the size of the ROC subsidies means the carpet baggers are still raking it in.
They'll find other explanations for it.
ReplyDelete