New Records Set In Best Ever Year For British Wind Energy Generation

[The Eagle]

11% of the UK’s electricity was generated by wind last year – up from 9.5% in 2014.

Wind provided enough electricity to meet the annual needs of more than 8.25 million homes – more than 30% of UK households – up from 6.7 million homes last year.

December 2015 saw a fresh monthly record set, with wind suppling 17% of Britain’s electricity demand at a time of the year when it’s needed most. The previous monthly record of 14% was set in January 2015 – another cold period of the year.

A new weekly record was also set in December, with wind providing 20% of the nation’s needs in the last week of the month – Christmas week – up from 19% in the second week of November.

Wind also broke the quarterly generation record in the three month period from October to December 2015, with 13% of the nation’s electricity demand met by wind – beating the previous 12% high in the first quarter of 2015.

http://blueandgreentomorrow.com/2016/01/06/new-records-set-in-best-ever-year-for-british-wind-energy-generation/

Despite all the moaning by the NIMBYs, clean renewables seem to be making good progress in the UK too.

[Riedquat]

http://blueandgreentomorrow.com/2016/01/06/new-records-set-in-best-ever-year-for-british-wind-energy-generation/

Despite all the moaning by the NIMBYs, clean renewables seem to be making good progress in the UK too.

Support for something and the moaning about NIMBYs. Recipe for something that should be condemned to the deepest pit of hell. Anyone who doesn't have a problem with wind farms plastered over various places needs to clear off to somewhere like Milton Keynes and leave the rest of the country to people capable of appreciating it.

[Rave]

I almost certainly got the link to this from someone here, so credit to them. It's always interesting:

http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

...I spent a lot of time watching it last month. And of an evening, wind was quite often contributing 10-15% of net demand.

I've not once seen an instance where the continental DC lines weren't at full capacity our way. Half of Drax burns 'biomass' now and so does 2GW all the time. Oddly I never saw Dinorwig taking power, most of the time it seemed to be +.7GW. Researching on Wikiepdia, the remaining ~4GW from coal must surely be from the coal bit of Drax, Eggborough, and Ferrybridge, unless anyone knows of another coal power station still operating?

Closed Cycle Gas Turbines seem to be running up and down just fine to balance our loads right now...

[Riedquat]

Oddly I never saw Dinorwig taking power, most of the time it seemed to be +.7GW.

Could be that it's been so wet that it's been refilling naturally fast enough to not need to pump back up.

[Rave]

Could be that it's been so wet that it's been refilling naturally fast enough to not need to pump back up.

And....back to reality...lol

There's no way that could ever happen. They've just been pumping it back up while I'm not looking.

Dinorwig's got 1.8GW peak capacity and I've never seen the 'pumped' gauge on the gridwatch page ever get close to that. The French gridwatch page was interesting over Christmas, they have as much wind as us, loads more hydro, and nuclear up the wazoo- they must have been exporting left right and centre. It's interesting to note that at any point in time they seem to require ~10GW more than us, for a supposedly similarly sized population, and economy...?

[Kurt Barlow]

And....back to reality...lol

There's no way that could ever happen. They've just been pumping it back up while I'm not looking.

Dinorwig's got 1.8GW peak capacity and I've never seen the 'pumped' gauge on the gridwatch page ever get close to that. The French gridwatch page was interesting over Christmas, they have as much wind as us, loads more hydro, and nuclear up the wazoo- they must have been exporting left right and centre. It's interesting to note that at any point in time they seem to require ~10GW more than us, for a supposedly similarly sized population, and economy...?

The French don't use anywhere near as much gas for HW & heating and cooking. French HW/ heating is predominantly off peak electricity with increases in the usages of heat pumps.

[Kurt Barlow]

I almost certainly got the link to this from someone here, so credit to them. It's always interesting:

http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

...I spent a lot of time watching it last month. And of an evening, wind was quite often contributing 10-15% of net demand.

I've not once seen an instance where the continental DC lines weren't at full capacity our way. Half of Drax burns 'biomass' now and so does 2GW all the time. Oddly I never saw Dinorwig taking power, most of the time it seemed to be +.7GW. Researching on Wikiepdia, the remaining ~4GW from coal must surely be from the coal bit of Drax, Eggborough, and Ferrybridge, unless anyone knows of another coal power station still operating?

Closed Cycle Gas Turbines seem to be running up and down just fine to balance our loads right now...

Fiddlers Ferry Near Liverpool (2GW) part biomass

Ratcliffe (2GW)

West Burton (2GW)

Longannet (Scotland) 2.4GW

[Rave]

Fiddlers Ferry Near Liverpool (2GW) part biomass

Ratcliffe (2GW)

West Burton (2GW)

Longannet (Scotland) 2.4GW

Good work fella. I'm not an investigator, just a silly nerd who literally has nothing better to do. And I rarely see more than 4GW generated by coal on the Gridwatch page.

Are they spinning them up and down, inefficiently? Running them for a day, once a week each? Enquiring minds want to know .

[Rave]

Anyway, Ratcliffe is a lovely sight from the M1, here's hoping we get a Nottingham team away in the fourth round of the FA cup! I'd forgotten how majestic it is!

[Hail the Tripod]

Support for something and the moaning about NIMBYs. Recipe for something that should be condemned to the deepest pit of hell. Anyone who doesn't have a problem with wind farms plastered over various places needs to clear off to somewhere like Milton Keynes and leave the rest of the country to people capable of appreciating it.

While I agree with you about your general point that the aesthetic of our built environment is woefully neglected, particularly the hideous fencing everywhere, I actually quite like the windmills.

[Riedquat]

While I agree with you about your general point that the aesthetic of our built environment is woefully neglected, particularly the hideous fencing everywhere, I actually quite like the windmills.

I don't. They'd look good in certain environments but those are usually not very efficient ones for putting them. There are one or two exceptions (some onshore but coastal locations aren't too bad, if the area is pretty tatty, just as long as they can't be seen from too far away). They're badly out of proportion and out of style to their surroundings most of the time.

[AThirdWay]

I don't. They'd look good in certain environments but those are usually not very efficient ones for putting them. There are one or two exceptions (some onshore but coastal locations aren't too bad, if the area is pretty tatty, just as long as they can't be seen from too far away). They're badly out of proportion and out of style to their surroundings most of the time.

I would suggest that you might change your opinion once the lights started going out?

While the WWF Scotland could hardly be described as unbiased, but they are claiming that wind energy has reached significant levels here in Scotland. Mind you, it's not as if we have a lack of wind up here!

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-35277045

[Riedquat]

I would suggest that you might change your opinion once the lights started going out?

No. Having to use a candle every now and then is preferable to large-scale vandalism. The existance of an issue doesn't therefore justify anything done to solve it. In this case short(ish)-term nuclear, long term population reduction. If we really need to make such a mess of the place in order to keep going then we've already lost the plot and the future becomes something to be depressed about. Which it is. Defending doing stuff that's making the world increasingly unpleasant to live in with a necessity argument is just an argument for not having hope.

[Steppenpig]

I presume wind energy requires 100% back up coverage from conventional energy for days when it's not windy? That must push up the ongoing fixed costs a bit.

[crashmonitor]

Anyway, Ratcliffe is a lovely sight from the M1, here's hoping we get a Nottingham team away in the fourth round of the FA cup! I'd forgotten how majestic it is!

The Angels of the Midlands complete with smoke halo

http://orig13.deviantart.net/2bc2/f/2012/336/2/a/ratcliffe_on_soar_power_station_by_captainflynn-d5mul4g.jpg

[Kurt Barlow]

I don't. They'd look good in certain environments but those are usually not very efficient ones for putting them. There are one or two exceptions (some onshore but coastal locations aren't too bad, if the area is pretty tatty, just as long as they can't be seen from too far away). They're badly out of proportion and out of style to their surroundings most of the time.

Love em. Infact so much so I invested 10K (tax deductable) several years ago in some community schemes and get some nice fat juicy dividend payments each year.

[Riedquat]

Love em. Infact so much so I invested 10K (tax deductable) several years ago in some community schemes and get some nice fat juicy dividend payments each year.

I'd rather send money to IS (and I really don't want to do that before some over-zealous security nutter picks up on this thread). Whatever thought processes make them acceptable are utterly alien to me. The same's true of an awful lot of other stuff that plagues the country these days, there's something broken in the heads of an awful lot of people for it to have come to this and it depresses, angers, and sickens me.

[Kurt Barlow]

I'd rather send money to IS (and I really don't want to do that before some over-zealous security nutter picks up on this thread). Whatever thought processes make them acceptable are utterly alien to me. The same's true of an awful lot of other stuff that plagues the country these days, there's something broken in the heads of an awful lot of people for it to have come to this and it depresses, angers, and sickens me.

Weird moral compass you have there to even suggest funding a Terrorist organisation that murders people on mass than accept infrastructure that generates considerable amounts of electricity.

I recall you have a similar obsession with rail electrification.

[AThirdWay]

I presume wind energy requires 100% back up coverage from conventional energy for days when it's not windy? That must push up the ongoing fixed costs a bit.

That's the issue as far as I'm concerned. Storage. Combined with a dam and turbine, they might work. Excess wind energy used to pump water into a dam, water in dam used when wind generation levels are low.

This means much more land is required, with an increased impact on how we live. However, I believe that the vast majority of the population are not likely to be as accepting of rolling blackouts as Riedquat, so the required will to manage this massive change in infrastructure could be there....

[Riedquat]

Weird moral compass you have there to even suggest funding a Terrorist organisation that murders people on mass than accept infrastructure that generates considerable amounts of electricity.

Putting aside the exaggeration for effect these other things are doing far more damage to this country. Add in having completely and utterly lost any faith whatsoever in the human race...

I recall you have a similar obsession with rail electrification.

"Obsession" as in its another thing that helps make the country a sh1ttier place to satisfy the chronically impatient. The world's wasted on most of the cretins who live on it.

This means much more land is required, with an increased impact on how we live. However, I believe that the vast majority of the population are not likely to be as accepting of rolling blackouts as Riedquat, so the required will to manage this massive change in infrastructure could be there....

You're probably right, most people couldn't give a crap about their surroundings as long as they can charge their phone and keep watching rubbish on the TV, those are the important things in life.

[Guest eight]

I'd rather send money to IS (and I really don't want to do that before some over-zealous security nutter picks up on this thread). Whatever thought processes make them acceptable are utterly alien to me. The same's true of an awful lot of other stuff that plagues the country these days, there's something broken in the heads of an awful lot of people for it to have come to this and it depresses, angers, and sickens me.

Do you have anything against regular windmills?

[Riedquat]

Do you have anything against regular windmills?

Is this going to be an attempt to draw a rather daft comparison between them of the "you're not bothered by a small cottage so why are you bothered by a dozen tower blocks?" variety?

Ordinary windmills certainly aren't as ghastly but they'd also be pretty objectionable scaled up to the same size, in the same locations and numbers. I'm not really keen on Victorian follys on hilltops either.

[Guest eight]

Is this going to be an attempt to draw a rather daft comparison between them of the "you're not bothered by a small cottage so why are you bothered by a dozen tower blocks?" variety?

No, I was wondering if there was some kind of traumatic windmill related incident from your childhood.

[Riedquat]

No, I was wondering if there was some kind of traumatic windmill related incident from your childhood.

What a strange thing to wonder.

[AThirdWay]

You're probably right, most people couldn't give a crap about their surroundings as long as they can charge their phone and keep watching rubbish on the TV, those are the important things in life.

To be fair, your just describing the polar opposite to your argument. the extremes of the argument.

The reality is that most people would accept some form of middle ground. A degree of impact on their surroundings in exchange for no oil/gas/coal fired monstrosities destroying the whole planet, or nuclear power stations hovering menacingly over the country, an accident waiting to happen.

If you are given the option of visual pollution, or air/radiation pollution, which would you choose?

p.s. I've heard/read the claims that nuclear power is much safer now, but I tend to agree with the counter-argument.... That's what they said the LAST time!