Wind farms in the UK....
Gee, can't they even put them in the right places???
It's not exactly rocket science – when building a wind farm, look for a site that is, well, quite windy.
But more than half of Britain’s wind farms are operating at less than 25 per cent capacity.
In England, the figure rises to 70 per cent of onshore developments, research shows.
Europe's biggest windfarm, Whitelee, near Glasgow, boasts 140 turbines which last year ran at less than 25 per cent of capacity
Experts say that over-generous subsidies mean hundreds of turbines are going up on sites that are simply not breezy enough.
Britain’s most feeble wind farm is in Blyth Harbour in Northumberland, where the nine turbines lining the East Pier reach a meagre 4.9 per cent of their capacity.
Another at Chelker reservoir in North Yorkshire operates at only 5.3 per cent of its potential, the analysis of 2009 figures provided by energy regulator Ofgem found.
Enlarge wind-farm.jpg
The ten turbines at Burton Wold in Northamptonshire have been running for just three years, but achieved only 19 per cent capacity.
Europe’s biggest wind farm, Whitelee, near Glasgow, boasts 140 turbines. But last year they ran at less than a quarter of their capacity.
2 Comments:
As they say, we didn't abandon the wind age because we ran out of wind...
Umm, what would it mean to be "operating at capacity?" The maximum wind level and output 100% of the time? Of course you're going to operate at a fraction of that.
Are they operating at their EXPECTED capacity? Or what fraction of their expected capacity?
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