March 30, 2013
Letters, Scotland

Turbine wind-up

The Scotsman | 30 March 2013 | www.scotsman.com

Your report (29 March) that every home in Scotland could have been powered by green power swallowed the renewable sector’s public relations’ pitch, hook line and sinker.

Of course, if you build thousands of wind generators there will be times in the year when they will produce a lot of expensive electricity.

However, your graph accompanying the article reinforced the point that the amount of electricity generated by wind farms has fluctuated from around 1,500 Gigawatt hours to 2,500 GWh within the second quarter of 2012 alone. In other words, not one house in Scotland could have relied on renewable output for all its ­electricity.

If we are to have security of electricity supplies we have to build new gas or nuclear power stations that can meet all our electricity needs when the wind does not blow. All this means is that the Scottish consumer is faced with funding not only the costs of wind power but also the costs of a secure supply of electricity, which has to provide a 100 per cent back-up for the many weeks when the blades fail to turn.

Alan Black

Camus Avenue


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2013/03/30/turbine-wind-up/