From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
AEP continually extols the virtues of solar power.
Just as in the UK though, solar farm productivity plummets in winter months.
Whereas it produces at around 20% of its capacity all year round, In January this year, the figure fell to 10%.
And guess what fills the gap?
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
My neighbour rents short term accommodation to contractors, most of whom are Bulgarians, Spaniards, and Poles employed to install solar farms in and around Gloucestershire in the west of England.
The contracting firms are immensely amused at the amount of money they get paid for such work in UK, Ireland and Denmark. London gets about 1500 hours sunshine a year; Malaga in Spain gets about 3000.
The Net Zero folly rolls on. https://www.juststopnetzero.com/
My fellow Englishmen are too idle to do the work it seems.
Just yesterday, here in western Pennsylvania, I passed a house with shiny new solar panels on it’s roof, all on the northward facing side. At this point the jokes just write themselves.
its clearly in preparation when the Earth axis aligns with that of the seventh planet (98 degrees). They may have misunderstood the possibility of the magnetic poles wandering. Or of course, they’ve been scammed. Delete as applicable.
OMG, ROFLMAO!!!
Unclear on the Concept.
Or potential Darwin award nominee (at least an honorable mention)
In Australia, a major renewables sales company has a pretty commercial with a bowl shaped artistic structure filled with solar panels, giving all 360 degrees an equal chance. Dumb. Geoff S
Who will rid us of the troublesome priest, Miliband?
Will Labour’s fracking ban end practice in the UK for good?
Ed Miliband’s move to bring forward ban is gambit to stop would-be Reform voters from backing Nigel Farage’s pro-fracking party – The Guardian
What a…
No government can be held to the policies of the previous government.
Obstacles are a Labour forte – Starmer wrote the book on avoiding deportation.
Hoever they are bound by commercial contracts entered into….
Which means buying your way out of them.
Just apply a windfall tax equal to the contract payments.
What a…
Pile of Malarkey?
Steaming heap of Manure?
Try Dipsh*t…it fits nicely.
UK solar averages about 10% capacity factor.,
AEP will extol whoever pays him the most.
Journalist for advertorial hire…
So that’s likely something near 100% for 20% of the time in prime latitudes and 50% for 20% of the time in poorer latitudes…like the UK. If the UK averages 10% then it’s likely nearer to 5% in Winter.
What I see near the Canada-US border is that winter output is close to zero. It hits half in September.
Just when you think things couldn’t get worse!
And I notice the entirety of the British Isle lies north of the 49th parallel, the great western stretch of the border. It does make one wonder about the quality of thought that goes into these green decisions.
Paul, here on the east coast of the US, AEP stands for “American Electric Power.” I am unable to discern an alternate meaning for “AEP.” Please advise.
Ambrose Evans Pritchard.
A British journalist who lives in France. Writes for the Daily Telegraph which is the only centre or right wing paper in the UK but now drifting leftward.
AEP is apparently an economist, but is certainly a climate nut job.
I was wondering the same thing.
Thanks, altipueri, for clarifying!
I hope that the capital and operating costs (including depreciation) of these “solar farms” are noted as a line item on everybody’s monthly electric bill. Be sure to include the amount of “free electricity” they generated.
“Well, I see that we’re still paying on all the land and hardware (including depreciation) we bought to supply ‘free’ solar power, but I don’t see where it actually produced any power this month. Maybe they can hire some people to scrape the snow and ice off the solar cells. Not sure what to do about all the clouds and short winter days.”
Add in decommissioning… or rapid weather driven disassembly
“rapid weather disassembly” Nice phrase, I’ll keep it close because we’ve had more than a few here in the States. Tornados and large hail are truely remarkable at disassembly.
Like the greens themselves, Solar is fragile, to say the least.
Definitely “Fair Weather” preferential and “Foul Weather” detrimental energy sources. Definitely predictable though, you know that after 2pm production drops and after 4pm they become useless until 7:30am the next day…fair weather permitting.
[ Start “Pedant alert !” … ]
There is no such thing as “the UK electricity grid”.
“The island of Ireland grid”, including Northern Ireland, is supervised by EirGrid, while “the island of Great Britain (GB) grid” is managed by NESO.
Connections between these grids are limited to the Moyle, East-West and Greenlink interconnectors (with a nominal capacity of “only” 500 MW each, or 1.5 GW total, which when used are mostly configured in the “GB to Ireland” direction).
[ End “Pedant alert !” … ]
While more subject to natural variability than solar, there is a definite seasonality to wind electricity generation for the Brits as well.
Wind turbine productivity goes down markedly in the summer months over the island of GB (and the North Sea).
NB : A similar pattern can be seen in the US offshore (North Atlantic) wind farm data from the EIA, e.g. for the Block Island installation starting at the end of 2016 (direct link to dataset).
Pointing out inconvenient facts, yet another service Mr Homewood provides!
The Telegraph, whether people want to face it or not, was captured a long time ago. True you get the odd piece here and there against the grain, but still they do their bit for the narrative just the same.
Floods end hottest summer on record
Yellow weather warnings put in place by Met Office across parts of southern England and Wales until Friday afternoon
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/29/floods-set-to-end-hottest-summer-on-record/
Yellow belly warnings, indeed.
Lord, here comes the flood
We’ll say goodbye to flesh and blood
If again the seas are silent, in any still alive
It’ll be those who gave their island to survive
Drink up, dreamers, you’re running dry
The only persons STILL unaware of the intermittency, seasonal variability, non-dispatchability, erratic nature; that is – the fundamental insufficiency of ‘renewable energy to sustain civilization’ are the advocates whose paycheck depends upon their being unaware. Voltaire said it first.
To those same persons, ‘reliable, sufficient, and low cost energy’ is the devil personified.
HOW is the incompetent, sniffing, disgusting Starmer in power still? It is the same way his fellow travelers in France, Germany, and the US remain in power. Normal people do not vote for their own demise.
There are only a few power generators suited or the grid, wind and solar aren’t among them.
I don’t understand why the Solar line in the graph does not go to zero each day for a while. Is there that much battery in place?
The plotted value is total daily output energy (MWHr) not power (MW).
Solar not much use in the late autumn, Winter and early Spring evenings when arriving home, cooking, showers/bath, heating, TV.
Don’t they understand you need sunshine to produce solar power?
Power output is of no interest to them, it’s the level of virtue signalling that hits the mark.
The island of Great Britain has a much smaller area than most American TRO regions (CAISO, ERCOT, MISO, PJM, …), which makes it more susceptible to individual “extreme weather events”.
After updating the latest version of my “30-minute time resolution scratchpad spreadsheet” of the GB grid for the last 10 days I generated the attached graph.
.
Notes on the “Solar” line
– Most “Solar (PV)” farms on the island of Great Britain are located within 100 miles or so of the south coast of England, from Cornwall to Kent. This puts them in the 50-51.5°N latitude range.
– The 29th and 30th of September appear to have been “mostly [ 97% ? ] cloudless” days. Around two weeks after the autumn equinox, however, solar panels are not going to get anywhere near the “nominal / nameplate capacity” line.
– It looks like on the 3rd of October the weather fronts “ahead of and below” Storm Amy conspired to block most sunshine from reaching the Earth’s surface from Cornwall to Kent for the crucial 8-hour “solar production” period …
– “Weather dependent electricity sources”, you say ? Yes, we’ve heard of them.
Berljn, Germany beginning in 2023 mandates roof top solar for new and renovated construction. Ten’s of thousands panels have been installed. They consider the mandate a great success.
Copilot
During the winter months (December, January, and February), the average solar capacity factor in Berlin, Germany is quite low due to limited sunlight and frequent cloud cover. Based on detailed solar PV analysis for Berlin:
The solar capacity factor in Berlin during winter is approximately 3.8%.