Report blows hole in wind power plan

Report blows hole in wind power plan - Telegraph

The report says: "Wind output in Britain can be very low at the moment of maximum annual UK demand. These are times of cold weather and little wind.

"Simultaneously, the wind output in neighbouring countries can also be very low, and this suggests that intercontinental transmission grids will be hard to justify."

The authors used data on wind speeds and electricity demand from the past six years to work out what impact 25 Gigawatts - about 16 per cent of Britain's needs - would have had on the national grid if it had been supplied by wind farms.

The results show wind is highly volatile. In January 2005, for example, wind speeds varied so much that demand on conventional plants would have varied from 5.5GW to 56GW.

In that month, a 1,000MW fossil fuel plant would have had to come on and offline a total of 23 times to make up the shortfall. At 6pm on February 2 2006 - the point of peak electricity demand for the whole year - wind farms would have been unable to provide any power at all, researchers found.