Lincs campaigners welcome council’s anti-windfarm stance

“It's a shame there isn't a way to harness all the hot air on here and use that as renewable energy source.”

“lincsL200.

You say, "Germany is advancing its wind power generation as they have opted not to build new nuclear plants due to public concerns" - correct apoliticasl decision that has had Dena, the German state energy agency tearing its hair out and has alreadu caused the resignation of one energy minister.

You may not be aware of the histroy of german wind power. We have been here before - the Greens held the balance of power in the coalition government in the 1980's, the price of their supoport was the wind programme which we were told would allow all nuclear capacity to be shut down. so Germany built some 27,000 turbines, covering nearly all suitable onshore sites (as you will see if you go to N Germany).

At the end of the onshore wind build they found they were still entirely dependent on nuclear and coal-fired base load power stations. Indeeed we had seen a spate of new coal-fired stations being built even before the closure of some nuclear:

"Demand increases and supply volatility arising from a growing share of erratic production from renewable sources still make new coal and gas-fired power stations necessary, Dena Managing Director Stephan Kohler said during a trade fair.'
"Kohler illustrated problems with wind energy, saying 23,000 MW were nominally installed, but high pressure fronts in January curbed wind speeds. On one day, only 113 MW capacity was active. [0.5% of capacity]'
"'This is nothing against renewables, we will just run into problems if we have 45,000 MW of weak load in the system (2020), we'd have to store power (which is technically not yet possible) or look abroad in the European market environment," he said.'
"'But imports from neighbouring Europe could not solve the problems as it faced wider supply shortfall scenarios itself.'
"Also, more trade would necessitate more spending on cross-border transmission lines, which faced uncertainty, Kohler said.'
( 'German state agency calls for new power stations', Reuters, 10 February, 2009.)

Nothing has changed, Germany has an even more unstable system which is on the edge of crisis (one coal-fired power station going offline in February would have resulted in nationwide blackouts). They are destabilising neighbouring countries, especially Poland winth surges of wind power and building large numbers of very dirty coal-fired power stations.”

“LincsL200.

I am well aware of the wind industry trade body RenewableUK (formerly the British Wind Energy Association) website. As it happens the total installed cqapacity figure is one of the few things on there that is fairly accurate, because it comes from DECC.

I you really questioning info from National Grid?

You really ought to know that wind farm output is metered for RO payments which are used by Ofgem and on the Balancing Mechanism website, which is where I get most of my figures:

Under 'New Electricity Trading Arrangements' (NETA) the Balancing Mechanism Reporting System (BMRS)
"provides near real time and historic data about the Balancing Mechanism which is used by the National Grid (System Operator) as a means of balancing power flows on to and off the electricity Transmission System in Great Britain."

See: http://tinyurl.com/6jws7j

Ofgem publish the individual, metered WF output figures on which RO subsidy certificates are awarded.

These are published in an accessible, searchable form at: http://tinyurl.com/3t68qlh

Do you really think you know better than these sources?

Do tell us the source of your individual WF outputs - unnamed and unattributed.

And do tell us what significance they have - as I have previously explained, nobody doubts that the output of randomly variable intermittent and erratic generators can be large, when you have a large installed capacity.

That does not change the fact that if they produce large amounts when it is not needed they are an expensive nuisance - Germany 'curtails' 10-20% of wind output a year (i.e. shuts it down but still pays the feed-in tariff subsidy and normal market wholesale price).

We are already doing exactly the same, paying operators huge amounts - many times the wholesale price, plus subsidy) - not to produce. The cost per MWh, from National Grid, have been obtained by REF - http://tinyurl.com/cxrbu9l

NB The constraint cost per MWh is many times what ordinary coal- and gas-fired stations agree with NG. Indeed, they often do not charge anything due to fuel cost savings.”

“"Germany is advancing its wind power generation as they have opted not to build new nuclear plants due to public concerns following fukushima in Japan."

Well if that's the case they're idiots, as is anyone else who uses Fukushima and the Japanese earthquake as an argument against nuclear power in the UK. Firstly, it is geologically impossible for us or Germany to experience an earthquake anywhere near that magnitude. Secondly, the reactors survived the quake itself, the problems arose because the diesel generators that powered the cooling system were taken out by the following tsunami.”

“Aeolus...
"Little has changed, except the Chinese are now going big on nuclear.

Suggest you check what is happening in Germany with over-reliance on wind"

I think i'd rather the Chinese built wind turbines than nuclear.....
Germany is advancing its wind power generation as they have opted not to build new nuclear plants due to public concerns following fukushima in Japan.”

“Aeolus,

Yes I do, and before this I worked on conventional power projects - When I did, I faced people who quoted facts and figures as to why we shouldnt build power stations because they're bad for the environment - No I face people who quote facts and figures as to why we shouldnt build wind farms because they dont look very nice - Yet offer no viable alternative?

If you have a look at renewables uk... You'll find the uk's capacity for wind power.
http://tinyurl.com/lrt57k

Interestingly, this morning i've taken sample readings from a few sites in the UK.....

1 Large site in scotland - out put 300MW at 17m/s wind speed
1 Small Site in Scotland - out put 1.5MW at 6m/s Wind speed
1 Small Site in Northern Ireland - Output 24MW at 11m/s Wind speed
1 large offshore site in England -Output 340MW at 18m/s Wind speed

These are actual site outputs - not figures taken from the national grid.”

“Graculus.

It's not a conspiracy, just do some research:

"According to a February report by the China Electricity Council (CEC), about one-third of China's wind turbines are idle, a sign that China's wind power industry has some serious problems to solve." (Xinhua news agency, 'Love wind, fear wind: growing pains of China's wind power industry', 2 May 2011).

The Chinese are also building large numbers of new coal-fired power stations next to wind installations to back them up - clever eh? "In Jiuquan, new coal-fired power plants with 13.6 million kilowatts of installed capacity — the same amount of energy generated by Chile in 2009 — will be added by 2020. The need to add baseload coal-fired power plants has the effect of reducing the clean benefits of wind power." ('China's Wind Power Plans Turn On Coal', NPR, Dec. 2009).

Little has changed, except the Chinese are now going big on nuclear.

Suggest you check what is happening in Germany with over-reliance on wind.”

“LincsL200.

Do you really work in the industry? My job means that I talk to a lot of wind industry employees and few of them are as ill-informed as you.

1. Even ReUK, the wind industry trade body, has stopped trying to pretend that there is a 30% average load factor - check DECC's figures. Eastern England in general and Lincs in particular are considerably worse.

2. Your cumulative figure is a complete joke. Please read what I wrote in my previous post - you obviously don't understand it.

3. What is "free" about wind when consumers are paying a 100% production subsidy (or 90% after 2013) for onshore and 200% for offshore.

4. The 'smoothing' argument was discredited years ago when Mr Graham Sinden was made to look a complete t*t by the Chair of the Select Committee on Science and Technology.

Sinden correctly claimed that it was very rarely the case that wind failed to generate any power at all anywhere in the UK.

But, as the Chair pointed out, Mr Sinden had cherry-picked the worst possible case and had avoided examining the frequency of very low, rather than zero, wind speeds over the whole of the UK, a frequent occurrence:

"Recent history has shown that wind power output at the time of the winter peak can be very low. The winter peak normally occurs when temperatures are low and this often results from anti-cyclonic conditions that also mean very little wind. High pressure normally extends over a large area and this could mean there would be very little wind generation in Western Europe."
(National Grid, 'Winter Outlook Report 2009/10'. 'Generation Side Risks', 167, p.54).”

“Aeolus, just out of interest... Which one are you in the photo??

Yes there is the argument that balancing the wind load makes conventional power generation less efficient; however the more wind farms that come on line the less balancing will be required as it will always be windy somewhere!

The uk has 6629mw of wind capacity, if we take say 30% of that we get a power output similar to cottam power station (coal) which is circa 1970mw. So if we can produce 1970mw of power for "free" that's better than using 20,000 tons of coal per day to produce the same amount of electricity!”

“"Opinion polls consistently show that a majority of people support wind power and only a minority even find wind turbines unattractive."

Lie.

Oh, right, you've convinced me by the sheer overwhelming force of your argument.”