The Trouble with Wind Farms

From the Telegraph.co.uk (Jan. 1):

Despite high demand for electricity as people shivered at home over Christmas, most of the 3,000 wind turbines around Britain stood still due to a lack of wind.

Even yesterday , when conditions were slightly breezier, wind farms generated just 1.8 per cent of the nation’s electricity — less than a third of usual levels.

The failure of wind farms to function at full tilt during December forced energy suppliers to rely on coal-fired power stations to keep the lights on — meaning more greenhouse gases were produced. [read more]

Make sense to me. If you don’t have wind, you don’t have energy. Plus I don’t think the turbines store any energy either.

To make things worse British customers face huge bill for wind farms that don't work in the cold as reported in the Telegraph too.

The moral of this story is if you rely on an energy source that is not at a consistent level all the time you will have these problems. Ask T. Boone Pickens about his investment in wind farms. He is not putting wind farms in Texas as he originally intended. Solar power is a little better. Even then you have to worry about the sun going behind a cloud or even setting. When dealing with inconsistent energy sources you always have to take into account the location of the source or you’ll have more scenarios like the one in England.