![wind-turbine[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/wind-turbine1.jpg?quality=83)
Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The British CEO of RenewableUK, the British Wind Industry Trade Association, thinks England is not windy enough to justify building any more onshore wind turbines.
England is not windy enough to justify building any more onshore wind turbines, the chief executive of wind industry trade body has admitted.
Hugh McNeal, who joined RenewableUK two months ago from the Department of Energy and Climate Change, insisted the industry could make the case for more onshore turbines in some parts of the UK, despite the withdrawal of subsidies.
But he said this would “almost certainly” not be in England, as the wind speeds were not high enough to make the projects economically viable without subsidy.
…
Current wholesale electricity prices are too low to spur investment in any new form of power generation, so the Government has already had to make subsidies available to new gas plants.
If financial support required by onshore wind is less than that required by gas, the industry argues it should no longer be regarded as “subsidy”.
…
“We are almost certainly not talking about the possibility of new plants in England. The project economics wouldn’t work; the wind speeds don’t allow for it.”
Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/04/england-not-windy-enough-admits-wind-industry-chief/
WUWT have been predicting “peak wind” for some time. In my opinion this admission from the CEO of RenewableUK is an admission that it is happening.
Regarding the lack of investment across all UK energy sectors, I doubt a temporary lull in wholesale price is the issue which is deterring investment, especially investment in new gas generators. The real reason is more likely that the UK energy market is in chaos, thanks to years of heavy handed British government efforts to promote renewables. In the words of Amber Rudd, the British Energy Secretary, “… We now have an electricity system where no form of power generation, not even gas-fired power stations, can be built without government intervention. …”
The effort to “redefine” subsidies as something all energy providers should expect, and therefore not really a subsidy, is telling – in my opinion it suggests Wind energy providers are well aware that their product will never be truly competitive against reliable, dispatchable power generation systems.
The theoretical output from a wind turbine is a cubic function of the mean average wind speed. So if you double the MAW you get 8 times the power out. So MAW is absolutely critical. If you exclude areas of outstanding natural beauty, sites of special scientific interest etc then it is probable that most of the best available sites have already been taken up. The remaining possible sites become less and less worth bothering with unless someone (i.e. the taxpayer) subsidises you.
I have tried to explain this before but will give it one more shot — using the simplest language possible.
The ability to fry birds was designed into Ivanpah! Birds shit on mirrors so fry the birds before they can shit! Based on bird shit computer models it has been proven that over time the savings in cleanup will pay for the entire plant! Its a brilliant concept!
Eugene WR Gallun
Yeah, it’s because the wind speeds aren’t right. Just like drinking arsenic isn’t a good idea because it tastes bad.
The Swiss have figured out about the only way to make wind and solar power useful:
http://www.pddnet.com/news/2016/06/photos-day-1450-mw-pumped-storage-power-plant-hidden-deep-swiss-alps?et_cid=5324276&et_rid=374896906&location=top&et_cid=5324276&et_rid=374896906&linkid=http%3a%2f%2fwww.pddnet.com%2fnews%2f2016%2f06%2fphotos-day-1450-mw-pumped-storage-power-plant-hidden-deep-swiss-alps%3fet_cid%3d5324276%26et_rid%3d%%subscriberid%%%26location%3dtop
Of course it helps to have a lot of mountains.
Pumped storage does not make wind or solar profitable. It just adds many more things that can break down and foul up the system increasing an already sky high maintenance cost.
Not to mention the sky high construction costs.
“The Swiss have figured out about the only way to make wind and solar power useful:”
Just like the 1,728MW one we we’ve got in Wales, started in 1974
http://www.fhc.co.uk/dinorwig.htm
& The 440MW Cruachan Power Station (1959)
& the 360 MW Ffestiniog Power Station (1963)
The big one in Wales is only a little bigger that a single wind generator. You are going to need a lot more pumped storage than that. You need to be able to store many Gigawatt Hrs of electricity. A few Kilowatt Hrs ain’t going to cut it.
Mat,
“The big one in Wales is only a little bigger that a single wind generator.”
I don’t think so…..
Average windmill = 2 MW nameplate.
(Average UK capacity factor for wind ~ 19%
according to government figures (Digest of UK Energy Statistics [DUKES] & National Grid, the actual Annual figure is 19% .
In the last year the UKs ~6,500 Wind turbines (capacity ~ 13 GW) produced average of just 2.56GW that’s a load factor of 19.6%. see http://nationalgrid.stephenmorley.org/ 1/3rd down page.
Dinorwig Pumped storage = 1,728 MW nameplate.
I make that 864 windmills going at full tilt (never been known) or 4’408 on average output.
The energy stored at Dinorwig is 9.1 GWh. That’s enough to supply the UK for just 15 minutes. There are other pump storage facilities in the UK. Altogether they could supply us for 45 minutes (on an average day, shorter in Winter).
Sorry I was off by a factor of a hundred. I should read a little slower sometimes. 🙂
Matt;
Whats a few orders of magnitude between friends ≈(:>D
South Africa built a similar scheme in the 1970s in the Drakensberg. Not using solar power, but from the existing grid.
One of the linked dams also provides back-up water for the Johannesburg area 300 kms away, in times of drought, by releasing water into a river system which finds its way to the Vaal Dam
The intensity of the wind has had little to do with the siting of hundreds of wind turbines in Northamptonshire, UK. It is simply because the connection costs to the grid, which are born by the developer, are extremely low, being close to the Midlands industrial belt.
Hmmmm. It’s not really sunny in the UK either. Oh well, there is an endless supply of unicorn and fairy power that is untapped. The just need a few subsidies to get them off-the-ground
Oh well, we know all about subsidies. Our early EU (Then EEC) membership brought the scene of trucks driving repeatedly through Dover docks, to collect the same food export subsidy multiple times. Seemingly it wasn’t even illegal to do that.
Where there’s a subsidy, there a scam.
As for unicorn power, be aware that like eagle power it is a national resource and likely to be fiercely defended by patriots, so hands off. 😉
The UK should subsidize solar power plants in Spain, to be built in the period 2018-2028, and have the electricity shipped via new HVDC lines connecting Spain with France. This will allow them to feel green and happy consuming solar power.
If England is not windy enough, then nowhere is windy enough!!!
Everyone will have to move to the windiest country.
I think the UN/IPCC could tell us which is the windiest country. We need to able to tell the removalists where to take our belongings.
Here’s a real life example of renewable only power at the Princess Elisabeth Antarctic Research Station. Here are the instructions for switching on something electric:
When a user requests energy, he/she has to push a switch located next to the power socket and wait for the system to check for energy availability. If energy can be delivered according to the system’s priorities, the switch turns green, if not, the switch remains red and the user has to wait.
You can imagine how quickly that farce will irritate you, not to mention the inefficiency of hanging around until the system decides you are important enough to have some power.
Fortunately the station is only inhabited in the summer when it is light 24hrs/day. There is simply not enough power for winter operation. Of course, all the transportation and the standby generation facilities are fossil fuelled. Hey, you wouldn’t want you life to depend on renewables , would you?
http://www.antarcticstation.org/station/smart_grid/
Here are two examples of up and running 100% renewables projects for small islands.
http://www.thelocal.es/20160420/el-hierro-spanish-canary-island-100-percent-clean-energy-spain-renewables
http://www.climateactionprogramme.org/news/worlds_first_100_renewable_grid_being_built_in_the_azores
You really should read further in these reports you post links to. Here is a chart of El-Hierro’s power use
http://s28.postimg.org/6ljlkv58t/temp.png
As you can see they really get less than 50% of there energy from renewables.
Read this article
http://euanmearns.com/el-hierro-renewable-energy-project-end-2015-performance-review-and-summary/
Griff
You need to do research on a subject before quoting the ill-informed copy & paste greenwash rubbish you put on here…such as…
“Denmark has produced 120% of its electricity reqs and sold the extra on to the Germans, etc.”
Here is Denmark’s % of demand today @ur momisugly 10.05 AM 7/6/16
Wind = 7.3%
Thermal (coal, gas & biomass ) = 39%
Import (mix of – nuclear, hydro, thermal) = 53.5%
http://www.statnett.no/en/Market-and-operations/Data-from-the-power-system/Nordic-power-balance/
Save energy – Denmark certainly has produced wind in excess of its reqs and solf it on on multiple occasions.
It is building further HVDC links to other countries. Your 1 day quote does not disprove or invalidate this strategy.
Griff;
Denmark is a net importer of power, check the Danish grid figs.
Denmark has a high penetration of unreliable’s
(leading to – an unstable grid; hence the requirements for increased HVDC connections)
Denmark has the highest electricity costs in Europe
Danes have paid billions in taxes and fees to support wind turbines, which has caused electricity prices to skyrocket even as the price of actual electricity has decreased. Now, green taxes make up 66 percent of Danish electricity bills. Only 15 percent of electricity bills went to energy generation.
Matt
you rightly call me to account: I hadn’t kept an eye on EL Hierro and those figures are disappointing.
I note there is some expectation of improvement in subsequent years:
http://www.jordantimes.com/news/features/el-hierro-spanish-island-vying-100-cent-clean-energy
However, 50% reduction in imported diesel is a considerable saving and for developing economies would be a massive boost. The concept of 100% renewable for smaller isolated grids (islands) where all fuel must be shipped in clearly has a future.
1save
Pioneers like Germany and Denmark have incurred higher costs in rolling out renewables than those of us doing it now… and they have different priorities: I.e reducing CO2 is important to them
Denmark intends it should import electricity and export it… it has moved to that model
If you’re in UK, that system will be coming soon to a home near you.
Green attrrition
The catholics have two theological terms, contrition and attrition.
There was a brief discussion of them in the film “Seven” (Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman).
Basically, contrition is when you know you did wrong and resolve to amend it.
Attrition means you basically have the consequences of your sin/folly rubbed in your face but you persist in refusing to accept you are wrong.
What is happening with renewable energy is green attrition.
The global green dictatorship we all now live in carries on wasting trillions stolen from the taxpayer on doomed and impossible renewable projects.
As they all inevitably fail, the green mandarins sashay from balls-up to balls-up with beaming faces announcing, in Orwellian style, the unstoppable march of progress of green power.
It reminds me of the message Joe Stalin gave to the Soviet Union in the 30’s entitled “dizzy with success”.
The topic of Stalin’s message was the death of several million Ukrainian farmers after communist militias stole all their food at gunpoint.
The PR spin on this was “dizzy with success”.
What happened in Ukraine is now coming back to haunt Russia. They have lost Ukraine forever.
Our green overlords are “dizzy with success” at the unstoppable march of ecofasc1st energy which has already destroyed any semblance of a free market in energy supply.
They are dizzy with success at the achievements of wind and solar simply because of all the destruction to real energy technologies that they have inflicted.
But they wont escape green attrition with the failure of every false dawn that they announce, no matter what heights of dizzyness they achieve.
The skeletons they are burying wont stay down.
Looks like the Russians are about to take over the Ukraine in the same manner that the Soviets did.
Using lots of guns.
The driver is renewable, green, and variable. Applications of the conversion technology should be chosen accordingly.
Got it. Do this, and we’ll all be “dizzy with success”?
We just need to get rid of the word renewable and then everything will make sense.
Perhaps not England, but what about Wales?
And Scotland, Northern Ireland (several new wind plants, grid storage plant and combined solar/wind plants, plus tidal)… and especially offshore.
I truly am blessed, with the ability of speed reading. I just read the entire comments thread while sitting @ur momisugly office loo.
It’s almost better than an entire season of Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
With “Griff” as the perfect Gumby.
Is this the ten shilling argument? Because you are just contradicting me…
Griff I think you need to lay off the green juice .
=> Australia looks likely to achieve it one day from solar,, soalr thermal, wind, batteries and hydro.
OK basic lesson on Australia for you here mate. There are a multitude of PRIVATE COMPANY generators that also feed the grid in Australia. Many of them will NOT EVER allow control to such fickle power source as renewable they don’t even trust the government grids they have interchange agreements with the grid for backup because the supply is critical to the kilns and mines etc on the end of them. This is especially true in WA and here is the list of WA generators
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Western_Australia
Notice the number and size of the GAS fired and compare that to the feeble renewable power generation The people of Perth had a special treat last week when a giant Antonov landed with a new 120 MW GAS power plant. Yes all the private companies are still installing GAS generation and they care little for what the political lunatics think.
There is between 500-650 MW of PV capacity connected to the state’s South West Interconnected System when the sun is shinning and 200-300 MW of wind capacity including the largest wind farm in the southern hemisphere (Collgar Wind farm). However all the renewables do is get used for domestic consumption and make a percentage so the politicians can meet the target for our emissions cuts.
The funny part is the collgar website is the best site to see the southern half of the state power generation and use (http://www.collgarwindfarm.com.au/). That is the live data with renewables never making anything but top up generation.
So do you get the complex picture in Western Australia and yet you somehow bravely claim Australia one day soon is going to achieve total generation from renewables. Well you are either excluding Western Australia or been have drinking a little too much green ale.
So perhaps less of the stupid naive claims may make you slightly more believable.
I see – then what is going on here? This isn’t the only Aussie power company doing this sort of thing…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-19/melbourne-street-to-share-electricity-with-solar-mini-grid/7337196
and I didn’t say soon… just that it was possible and going to happen.
2016 is departure point for serious roll out of domestic storage batteries with domestic solar BTW
Home battery storage? Don’t make me laugh. After 1500 charges most batteries are junk. So lets do the math 1500 / 365 = 4.1 years on average for your $35000 Musk power wall. I’m not saying the battery will be completely dead but it will have lost a large percentage of it’s capacity. Solar cells also have less than a 20 year life expectancy and start loosing output after as little as 6 years. So you can replace the battery 5 times for every time you replace the solar bank.
Griff, you need to get out an Atlas and look at Australia and put it to scale to the country you are in. Melbourne is 4000KM from Perth in Western Australia .. yes seriously 4000KM. Western Australia is predominately mining and natural resources and within Australia the highest use of power per person of all the states. The power given to the Energy board is actually only public grid power it does not include private power from the big mining and industrial companies that is not available to the grid.
I also again tell you we already produce 500 MW of PV power from Solar panel about 1/3rd of which is useless and can’t be used due to its nature. It just sits as oversupply with the inverters on the PV only supply a fraction of what they have available.
So got it we could produce renewable energy until our nose bleeds but the energy is not consistent enough for industry to use and the nearest real population markets besides our small local city are 3000 and 4000 KM away.
So we end up with this crazy situation of over supply
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-26/mike-nahan-tips-solar-power-to-take-over-wa-power-generation/6727558
As detailed in the article solar power and battery storage are actually causing the problem to get worse because the grid has to be able to hold the industries up which can work on the intermittent nature of renewable availability.
So we have got the crazy situation we have massive amounts of oversupply of power but none of it gets used because it isn’t suitable for the large scale industries. So instead we have gas and coal power stations that aren’t really needed but they have to be there because the power we do have is useless.
As stated it’s costing us hundreds of millions of dollars a year and no-one has been able to solve the problem even with that incentive.
Welcome to renewable power.
LdB
http://cleantechnica.com/2016/06/06/2016-will-inflection-point-australian-battery-storage-market/
That’ll solve any oversupply problem.
solar can power industry…
Chilean copper mines use solar PV, as do 7 UK car factories for 10% of their electricity… should work much better in Oz
Matt, your data is out of date. Look at latest home battery offerings and guarantees on them.
“Griff June 8, 2016 at 1:06 am
LdB
http://cleantechnica.com/2016/06/06/2016-will-inflection-point-australian-battery-storage-market/
That’ll solve any oversupply problem.
solar can power industry…
Chilean copper mines use solar PV, as do 7 UK car factories for 10% of their electricity… should work much better in Oz”
You don’t know much do you? As of 2016, we don’t have any car factories in Aus (Ford/Holden). They closed down due to labour costs but also ENERGY costs after Labor, under Gillard, introduced a carbon tax.
LdB
If you don’t have any car factories it seems to me that solar would power anything with a production line and construction robots…
Mr. Scott said it best.
“I cannae change the laws o’ physics, Cap’n!”