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

Wind does not blow on demand 

Airtricity states that all its output goes onto the national grid (Letters, July 30) but fails to mention that this power is about as useful to the grid as a spare groom is to a wedding. Unlike water from your tap, electricity cannot be stored and must be generated exactly to meet demand minute by minute.

Unfortunately, the wind does not blow on command. Its volatility, unreliability and unpredictability make it a nightmare in balancing supply and demand on any power grid. In fact, at many times of peak demand, when wind energy could be useful, it is typically not available.

High pressure conditions in winter and summer respectively produce the coldest and warmest weathers resulting in peak electricity demands, but no wind. Similarly, wind speed regularly drops at dawn and dusk just when electricity demand tends to peak.

On the other side, wind power generated in the early hours of the morning and other off-peak times is a total waste.

However, the overwhelming drawback of wind energy is the need to have conventional power plants on permanent stand-by, fully manned and belching out CO2, ready to kick in when the wind stops.

The total carbon footprint is almost certainly much worse than before wind turbines were introduced.

Wind power can indeed be useful for certain types of projects, which can use the power whenever it is generated, like storage heating systems or pumping water to higher reservoirs for later hydro power generation. But wind energy and power grids are fundamentally incompatible.

If the wind industry has any interest in the environment, apart from using it as an excuse to make money, it should immediately stop this wind farm madness and use its huge resources on properly researched schemes.

Dick Keane

Silchester Park

Co Dublin

independent.ie

6 August 2007

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