Wind farce

Already this year we consumers have coughed up £20 million in constraint payments to wind farms.

Vested interests insist that this is a normal aspect of any power distribution network. It is certainly true that a grid system requires excess capacity to cater for breakdown and maintenance and to cope with an ever-varying demand, but it is equally true that this, especially for the last mentioned, must be from dispatchable (reliable on-demand) supplies – a far cry from randomly intermittent wind power.

If we do want, say, for environmental reasons to include X capacity of wind power in the supply then, as average turbine power is about onethird its design value, we need to have at least 3X installed capacity.

This means that on good wind days we will have to constrain up to 2X.

Conversely, on bad days we will have to have up to X capacity of top-up from a dispatchable source, which would usually be gas-fired. Wind power is thus far more expensive and far less carbon-friendly than we are led to believe.

Further, we need to recognise that on loss of our two ancient nuclear power stations and access to England’s eclectic power mix our planned (?) predominantly wind-powered system would frequently fail to meet demand, a blackout situation. The first loss will happen within the next few years, the second may happen if Scotland becomes independent.

No active mitigating scheme appears to have been initiated. In any case, it would take at least a decade to become fully operational and the cost would be in the order of tens of billions.

A. MCCORMICK Kirkland Rd, Terregles, Dumfries