LOCATION/TYPE

NEWS HOME

[ exact phrase in "" • results by date ]

[ Google-powered • results by relevance ]


Archive
RSS

Add NWW headlines to your site (click here)

Get weekly updates

WHAT TO DO
when your community is targeted

RSS

RSS feeds and more

Keep Wind Watch online and independent!

Donate via Paypal

Donate via Stripe

Selected Documents

All Documents

Research Links

Alerts

Press Releases

FAQs

Campaign Material

Photos & Graphics

Videos

Allied Groups

Wind Watch is a registered educational charity, founded in 2005.

News Watch Home

We’d need 12,000 more turbines to keep lights on 

Credit:  By John Paul Breslin | The Sunday Post | 13 April 2014 | www.sundaypost.com ~~

A former power chief has blasted Scotland’s green energy plans as it emerged it would take almost 12,000 extra turbines to keep Britain’s lights on.

Sir Donald Miller insists the electricity generated by the UK’s wind turbines is unreliable and contributes just a fraction of what’s needed.

The ex-chairman of Scottish Power, also believes a turbine based energy strategy is flawed because they only work when the wind blows.

His intervention comes on the weekend it was revealed there are 4,338 turbines in Britain – more than half of which are in Scotland.

He said: “The turbines installed in the UK can generate around 6,000 megawatts, but they seldom produce anything like that.

“It varies from hour to hour, day to day, week to week. No one knows what they are going to produce.

“If the UK Government wants to achieve their emissions target by the year 2020 there would need to be 36,600MW provided by wind turbines in the UK.

“I hope no one thinks these figures would be achieved though as we’d all end up bankrupt.

“The Scottish Government has said it wants 100% of Scotland’s electricity demand to come from renewables such as wind by 2020. This would be unnecessarily costly.

“You need a mix of different kinds of generating plant to meet the UK’s energy needs. Nuclear is ideal for base load as it is consistent. Coal is also reliable.”

An average large turbine can produce 2.5MW of electricity.

If every existing turbine could produce this amount of electricity all the time they would still only meet around a quarter of the UK’s average daily demand for electricity.

It would take a further 11,660 turbines performing at their best at all times to get enough electricity and even then this wouldn’t be enough to deal with spikes in demand.

Anti-wind farm group Scotland Against Spin also states that turbines only produce around 25% of their maximum output on average, suggesting four times that amount would be needed.

Joss Blamire, senior policy manager at Scottish Renewables, said: “We need a balanced mix of technologies including wind, biomass and hydro, among others, to reach our ambitious 2020 renewables targets.”

The Scottish Government said renewable generation met around 46% of Scotland’s electricity demand last year.

A spokesperson said: “As set out in Scotland’s Future, Scottish renewable energy will continue to represent the most cost effective means for the rest of the UK to meet its renewable ambitions.”

Source:  By John Paul Breslin | The Sunday Post | 13 April 2014 | www.sundaypost.com

This article is the work of the source indicated. Any opinions expressed in it are not necessarily those of National Wind Watch.

The copyright of this article resides with the author or publisher indicated. As part of its noncommercial educational effort to present the environmental, social, scientific, and economic issues of large-scale wind power development to a global audience seeking such information, National Wind Watch endeavors to observe “fair use” as provided for in section 107 of U.S. Copyright Law and similar “fair dealing” provisions of the copyright laws of other nations. Send requests to excerpt, general inquiries, and comments via e-mail.

Wind Watch relies entirely
on User Funding
   Donate via Paypal
(via Paypal)
Donate via Stripe
(via Stripe)

Share:

e-mail X FB LI TG TG Share


News Watch Home

Get the Facts
CONTACT DONATE PRIVACY ABOUT SEARCH
© National Wind Watch, Inc.
Use of copyrighted material adheres to Fair Use.
"Wind Watch" is a registered trademark.

 Follow:

Wind Watch on X Wind Watch on Facebook

Wind Watch on Linked In Wind Watch on Mastodon