Those useless wind turbines

[pjclarke]

British wind power production reached a record high just before the New Year as storms hit the British Isles and powered onshore and offshore wind turbines, beating the previous high by nearly 20 percent, generation data showed on Friday.

Wind farms produced a record 12.2 percent of UK energy demand on December 28, statistics provided by green energy association RenewableUK showed, displacing the previous record of 10 percent.

Reuters Storms produce record UK wind power output | Reuters

[DodgyAgent]

Reuters Storms produce record UK wind power output | Reuters

If they dont work when its windy you would look pretty foolish wouldnt you?
how about some statistics of their contribution to the country's energy needs when there is no wind?
what is the cost of this energy? and why do we use wind instead of nuclear. If you think that you can brainwash people with a bit of selective reporting you are a fool

[pjclarke]

Average wind power production between December 1, 2011 and January 5, 2012 covered 5.3 percent of UK power demand, RenewableUK data showed.

Wind power is considered a key energy resource to help Britain meet its legally-binding target of cutting carbon emissions by 34 percent below 1990 levels by the end of this decade.

Same source

[Dearnla]

And it's a good job that the National Grid has got a way of forecasting demand by half-hourly intervals and can plug in the weather forecasts too. Trouble is, it still needs to be able to switch on power when there is no wind and a high demand (err, like last winter's month-long stretch of -10 degrees and no wind....) such as natural gas burning power station.

I bought the software for them that allows them to work out all the capacities of all the generating sources, plus transmission losses in order to see if they have enough. Last year they didn't, and had to limit power consumption to certain industrial customers.

[stek]

Remember on an Episode of Twenty Twelve they had a wind turbine to strengthen the sustainabilty of the 2012 Olympics but their wasn't enough wind in Stratford to turn it.

Toyed with the idea of motorising it but the irony won.

So they decided it drive it with energy derived from the Biomass plant, it was, as it was put, 'a win-win situation'.....

[DodgyAgent]

Storms hit Britain over the New Year, which helped power wind farms but also cut off power supply to more than 100,000 households as uprooted trees and debris damaged electricity cables and poles.

So there was'nt much energy getting distributed anyway. Wind farms produced 12% of nothing then?

[EternalOptimist]

Wow, lets have more storms then , eh?
I find the idea of a greeny gloating over storms a bit like a ghoul gloating over dead bodies.

One minute these eejits are blaming the power stations for causing storms, next minute they are banging on about how well their windmills work because of the storms

eejits

[DimPrawn]

As long as all the wind turbines are placed up north and in Wales, and hence I never see them, I'm all in favour of them.

Just keep them out of the SE please.

[TimberWolf]

I marvel at the sight of them, but never really seen one up close and I suppose the novelty might wear off.

[Paddy]