# General > General >  Wind output at 8.25am on 2nd August 2010.

## ywindythesecond

The 2110MW windpower metred by National Grid was producing one single Megawatt of power at 8.25am on 2nd August 2010. 

That was 0.0473933% of capacity.

I defy anyone to make a virtue out of that!

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## Cinderella's Shoe

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## tiger woods

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 Took the words right out of my mouth!!

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## Happy Guy

> The 2110MW windpower metred by National Grid was producing one single Megawatt of power at 8.25am on 2nd August 2010. 
> 
> That was 0.0473933% of capacity.
> 
> I defy anyone to make a virtue out of that!


Thats probably because the wind energy on the 2nd at about that time was very low. Scrabster records just under 5 mph and Keiss just about zero at 8am ish (see www.tugmistress.co.uk for Caithness Weather)

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## gillsbay

Ah ywindy I think you are boring them, maybe you should surprise us by posting with a dramatic headline every time there is a moment when the production is high!

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## Aaldtimer

> Thats probably because the wind energy on the 2nd at about that time was very low. Scrabster records just under 5 mph and Keiss just about zero at 8am ish (see www.tugmistress.co.uk for Caithness Weather)


Really?! Well, blow me down with a feather! Who'da'thunkit, eh? :Wink:

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## Mystical Potato Head

> Thats probably because the wind energy on the 2nd at about that time was very low. Scrabster records just under 5 mph and Keiss just about zero at 8am ish (see www.tugmistress.co.uk for Caithness Weather)


Mystery solved then, ::

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## ywindythesecond

> Ah ywindy I think you are boring them, maybe you should surprise us by posting with a dramatic headline every time there is a moment when the production is high!


You are right Gillsbay, but every time that happens, the wind doesn't stay around long enough to boil the kettle. This was July, a bit like buses, all come together in a rush and then a long wait for the next one.

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## Corrie 3

Thank God we have Nuclear and Coal Stations to back up the useless unsightly things or we would not be on here posting this week would we?

 ::  ::

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## _Ju_

Early 20th  Century the motor vehicle became ubiquitous.  Ford motor vehicle company made a car affordable to a large proportion of the masses: the model T. It might have been one of the first worlwide recognized brands. 
It's consumption was of a huge 13 miles per gallon, very inefficient when compared with current consumptions due technological advances. At the time trains were more more efficient in converting energy to motion, but the model T had the obvious advantage of transporting the individual at will to where they wanted. As for consumption, there was no need to worry about anything. Texas was drowning in oil and as far as anyone knew, it was an infinite resource, or present in such huge ammounts that it's finity did not matter. As for the impact on the way it changed the look of the environment: roads galore! So it was a technology that was given the oportunity to evolve. We have cars that can give us 70 miles per gallon. Hibrid cars that can give over 80 miles per gallon. And soon electic cars who can have zero emissions and no fossil fuel consumption. And roads going everywhere, accompanied by high voltage and distribuition cables for electricity and communications.

The point is that technology evolved. It has to evolve. It does not go from being efficient to being inefficient. The pressing need for alternative energies will push things along so that technologies will develop more quickly. 

If you are going to talk about nuclear energy, I will tell you that the cost of it is too high. Not at the point of consumption, but at the disposal of the by-products. The earth is not infinite. Gone are the days when you could get Agentina (or any other economically strife nation) to stockpile our waste. Decomissioning is far too expensive. I don't know when Dounreay produced it's last electrical current, but it is easy to find dates for decommissioning and cleaning that go to 2025 at the earliest. It would be impossible to predict it's financial cost, which is already in the billions. It's environmental cost? Who knows. Certainly not the people living nextdoor to it. Certainly not me. 

Windmills used to be used for their motor force, to grind grain or minerals. They now produce, however inefficiently, electricity. Their efficiency can only improve. And other renewable resources will be explored. In the mean time we have to let it happen and hope that we aren't too laate to make changes to the way we produce and use energy.

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## Gronnuck

> Early 20th Century the motor vehicle became ubiquitous. Ford motor vehicle company made a car affordable to a large proportion of the masses: the model T. It might have been one of the first worlwide recognized brands. 
> It's consumption was of a huge 13 miles per gallon, very inefficient when compared with current consumptions due technological advances. At the time trains were more more efficient in converting energy to motion, but the model T had the obvious advantage of transporting the individual at will to where they wanted. As for consumption, there was no need to worry about anything. Texas was drowning in oil and as far as anyone knew, it was an infinite resource, or present in such huge ammounts that it's finity did not matter. As for the impact on the way it changed the look of the environment: roads galore! So it was a technology that was given the oportunity to evolve. We have cars that can give us 70 miles per gallon. Hibrid cars that can give over 80 miles per gallon. And soon electic cars who can have zero emissions and no fossil fuel consumption. And roads going everywhere, accompanied by high voltage and distribuition cables for electricity and communications.
> 
> The point is that technology evolved. It has to evolve. It does not go from being efficient to being inefficient. The pressing need for alternative energies will push things along so that technologies will develop more quickly. 
> 
> If you are going to talk about nuclear energy, I will tell you that the cost of it is too high. Not at the point of consumption, but at the disposal of the by-products. The earth is not infinite. Gone are the days when you could get Agentina (or any other economically strife nation) to stockpile our waste. Decomissioning is far too expensive. I don't know when Dounreay produced it's last electrical current, but it is easy to find dates for decommissioning and cleaning that go to 2025 at the earliest. It would be impossible to predict it's financial cost, which is already in the billions. It's environmental cost? Who knows. Certainly not the people living nextdoor to it. Certainly not me. 
> 
> Windmills used to be used for their motor force, to grind grain or minerals. They now produce, however inefficiently, electricity. Their efficiency can only improve. And other renewable resources will be explored. In the mean time we have to let it happen and hope that we aren't too laate to make changes to the way we produce and use energy.


Meanwhile we're all paying dearly for our electricity AND being ripped off paying for the development of these windmills  :: .

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## Duncansby

> Meanwhile we're all paying dearly for our electricity AND being ripped off paying for the development of these windmills .


I think you've missed Ju's point? 

Wind generation is becoming more efficient and will continue to do so as more research and development takes place. In turn this will reduce the cost.

The cost of electricity derived from wind has fallen considerably and is competitive with that from coal and nuclear power stations. (The average cost of generating onshore wind is 3-4p per kwh while coal is 2.5p-4.5p and nuclear 4-7p.)

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## Tubthumper

I remember Denmark & bits of Holland & Germany being peppered with turbines 25 years ago. The technology is about as mature and efficient (as long as we're using them to supply electricity to large-scale grids) as it's likely to get. And it's all stitched up by mainland European countries. Unfortunately we seem to have missed the boat for actually making any money out of them (as opposed to simply recycling credit and permitting a few folk to grab a bagful of cash - oh and meeting our Kyoto obligations), but look on the bright side, the biggest tidal power experimental rig so far has just been launched...


... In Cornwall! ::

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## ywindythesecond

> I think you've missed Ju's point? 
> 
> Wind generation is becoming more efficient and will continue to do so as more research and development takes place. In turn this will reduce the cost.
> 
> The cost of electricity derived from wind has fallen considerably and is competitive with that from coal and nuclear power stations. (The average cost of generating onshore wind is 3-4p per kwh while coal is 2.5p-4.5p and nuclear 4-7p.)


I dont know where you get your figures from Duncansby, but the average price of windpower at the nfpa auction on 13th July was 9.67p per kwh. http://www.nfpa.co.uk/auctionprices.html
This includes the value of a ROC, average price on 24th June was £49.16, so the cost of wind at the turbine is about 4.75p, but of course none of it would be generated without the ROC.  You have to add in the cost of standby generation which you also pay for when the wind is blowing.
You can have the most mechanically efficient turbine in the world but it is of no use at all when the wind doesnt blow, and it will never operate reliably because the wind is uncontrollable.
The graph I posted earlier shows very dramatically why we can never close down a thermal plant to rely instead on wind.  In the first two weeks of July wind rapidly rose or fell in excess of 700MW out of 1588MW on nine occasions, and on 11/12th, it fell from 1376MW to 14MW in just under 12 hours, a loss of 85.76% of capacity.  When we have 32GW wind connected and this happens again, and it will, then we will lose 27.45GW of power. To put that in context, peak demand last winter was in the order of 59.4GW.  This means that wind must be backed up by 100% of its connected capacity, or demand side management clicks in, being a euphemism for disconnecting large parts of the country.
And the really crazy bit is that when we have such an amount of wind connected, brand new thermal plant will have to be built solely to back up wind generation. And we will pay for that as well.
Incidentally, at the precise time of winter demand peak, 1588MW connected wind capacity was generating 71MW, 4.47% of capacity. Just a coincidence?

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## Duncansby

Nature is largely uncontrollable, yes, but it is there for us to harness and if we are to hope to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050  wind must play a part. In 2009 997 MW of installed capacity existed delivering 23% of total delivered energy from electricity (NATTA). The Committee for Climate Change envisage that 27GW from wind and 7GW from other renewable sources will be achieved by 2020  this will make up 15% of delivered energy. Now whether this target is met is another story as approval rates from planning are at an all time low of 25%, perhaps an indication of inappropriate siting or overly large proposals. Nevertheless, although wind will never provide all of our energy needs, nor should we want it to, wind will play a significant part in supplying our energy needs in the future.

My previous figures came from the DTI.

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## ywindythesecond

> In 2009 997 MW of installed capacity existed delivering 23% of total delivered energy from electricity (NATTA).


 Not being picky but I don't understand this sentence. I Googled NATTA and got nowhere. Could you provide a link to the source please.

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## Duncansby

> Not being picky but I don't understand this sentence. I Googled NATTA and got nowhere. Could you provide a link to the source please.


Sorry here's a link to the site. Those figures were in the most recent publication which hasn't been archived yet I see.

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## Jeid

Very good. Better take all those windmills down. No point in them being there.

Moan moan moan etc etc etc

It really is tiresome reading the same old threads day in, day out. Get a new record, this one is well and truely scratched

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## ywindythesecond

> Very good. Better take all those windmills down. No point in them being there.
> 
> Moan moan moan etc etc etc
> 
> It really is tiresome reading the same old threads day in, day out. Get a new record, this one is well and truely scratched


When Russia turned off the oil to Ukraine the world took a sharp intake of breath and started to worry about security of energy supply. 

When National Grid publishes figures that prove that zero energy output from wind is a reality, Cinderellas Shoe, Tiger Woods and Jeid all say _b-o-o-oring_.

Jeid, I doubt if you do read these threads. 

If you did you would be wondering why, when National Grids own records show that;

a) Wind output is much less than claimed for it
b) Wind availability is unpredictable
c) Wind output can be highly volatile as well as plain lethargic.
d) Zero output is a reality
e) 100% back-up is essential
f) the coincidence of a low wind event and maximum winter demand has a 100% record this year.

then why is the country planning to have wind power as a significant percentage of our energy production, why are we subsidising a technology which cannot deliver, why does our governments have their heads in the sand?

And Jeid, you clicked the button.

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## orkneycadian

> The 2110MW windpower metred by National Grid was producing one single Megawatt of power at 8.25am on 2nd August 2010. 
> 
> That was 0.0473933% of capacity.
> 
> I defy anyone to make a virtue out of that!


What relevance does this have for the North of Scotland?  National Grid own the transmission system in England and Wales.  In Scotland, its Scottish Power Transmission Ltd and Scottish Hydro Electric Transmission Limited who own the equivelent of what National Grid do in England and Wales.  In this thread, you say that the total wind capacity is 2,110 MW, whilst in another thread... http://forum.caithness.org/showpost....04&postcount=1 you have posted, its 1,588 MW - Yet, UK national (including Scotland then) connected capacity is almost 4,600 MW (source = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_po...United_Kingdom) so the figures you are quoting appear not to include windpower production in Scotland, which I would have thought would have been far more relevant for here.

In any case, none of the wind turbines / wind farms in Orkney, bar perhaps those operated by Scottish and Southern (the minority then) have data connections to "National Grid", or any other system that would allow for real time data such as this to be gathered and presented on the internet.  The data graphs being linked to on here would therefore appear to exclude all the wind energy production in Scotland, and certainly most of the wind energy production on Orkney.

Oh, and by the way, at the time you mention, the wind turbines on Orkney were producing more than the 1 MW in the data above, which appears to be presented as for the whole UK, claims....   :Wink:

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## ywindythesecond

> What relevance does this have for the North of Scotland? National Grid own the transmission system in England and Wales. In Scotland, its Scottish Power Transmission Ltd and Scottish Hydro Electric Transmission Limited who own the equivelent of what National Grid do in England and Wales. In this thread, you say that the total wind capacity is 2,110 MW, whilst in another thread... http://forum.caithness.org/showpost....04&postcount=1 you have posted, its 1,588 MW - Yet, UK national (including Scotland then) connected capacity is almost 4,600 MW (source = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_po...United_Kingdom) so the figures you are quoting appear not to include windpower production in Scotland, which I would have thought would have been far more relevant for here.
> 
> In any case, none of the wind turbines / wind farms in Orkney, bar perhaps those operated by Scottish and Southern (the minority then) have data connections to "National Grid", or any other system that would allow for real time data such as this to be gathered and presented on the internet. The data graphs being linked to on here would therefore appear to exclude all the wind energy production in Scotland, and certainly most of the wind energy production on Orkney.
> 
> Oh, and by the way, at the time you mention, the wind turbines on Orkney were producing more than the 1 MW in the data above, which appears to be presented as for the whole UK, claims....


Thanks orkneycadian
If you check, you will see that I wrote The 2010MW windpower *metered* by National Grid
The data comes from National Grids NETA website www.bmreports.com.
National Grid meters 2110MW connected wind power since 14th JULY 2010. Before that date it metered 1588MW. I doubt if it all changed at once, but that is the date on which it changed on the website.
Before 14th July, all the metered power was in Scotland because NG can only see windfarms which are directly connected to the grid, not those embedded in the distribution system. In England and Wales, NG operates the High Voltage system, almost all 400KVA and other companies operate the distribution, so NG cannot see the windfarms connected to the distribution.
The list of connected windfarms is found by going to www.bmreports.com General-Electricity data summary- Peak wind generation forecast- Power park modules Excel spreadsheet. Hover your mouse over Information in any of the windows, and up comes an explanation.The frame above tells you the metered capacity.
The 2110MW now metered added the following to the list:

*NAME*


*CAPACITY (MW)*


*COMMISSIONED*
An Suidhe 19 Recently

Barrow Offshore 90 September 2006

Burbo Bank 90 October 2007

Clachan Flats 18 Late 2009

Crystal Rig 2 164 Unknown status

Dunlaw 47 November 2009

Fairburn 42 February 2009

Long Park 38 October 2009

Whitelee 14 Unknown



Barrow Offshore and Burbo Bank took me by surprise, but it means that the metering is no longer exclusively Scottish.
Sanday, Spurness in Orkney is one of the windfarms metered in the mix. It may well be that the single MW being generated at 8.25am on 2nd August came from Sanday, but that means that the other 2109MW worth was totally idle. From Caithness to Liverpool Bay, and Skye to Aberdeen.

BM reports website is full of information. It is not speculation, it is the operation of the UK National Grid, and it is updated every five minutes

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## orkneycadian

As a source of data it seems very iffy....

The only Orkney windfarm listed in the "mix" as you say is Spurness, operated by SSE.  The spreadsheet lists the installed capacity as 11 MW.  Yet, there are only 3 x 2.75MW turbines installed on site - 8.25MW by my calculations.  Planning approval was granted for 4, but only 3 were ever erected due to limitations in the power export capability.  With a glaring error like that, the best capacity that site could ever achieve using that webpage data, is 75% even when the output is running at 100% capacity.  As a result, percent capacity is always going to be under-reported, and shows how wrong the statistics can be.  

Spurness is connected at 33 kV, so very much in the distribution network operators domain, and not the transmission operators.  And yet, it appears to have been since before the 14th of July.

Meanwhile, another 2 x 33 kV connected windfarms on Orkney are not listed in the mix, along with all the 11 kV ones.  

It appears then that the data that provides the charts is very limited, and even erroneous, in the case of the 8.25 vs 11 MW total.  It hardly represents a true picture of the actual amount of generation at any one point in time, when it only accounts for less than 50% of the installed UK capacity.  It accounts for less than 25% of the wind power capacity on Orkney, and 0% of the wind power capacity on Shetland, so is not really a very good representative indicator for the "winded" North of Scotland!  As we live in a windy area, its more relevant to us what local generation is doing, rather than what is happening in windless areas in England.

As far as Orkney is concerned, less than 25% is reported in these graphs, and the 1 site that is reported is erroneous, with a consistent 25% under-reporting.  Hardly a good basis for conclusive data.  Between that, and a complete lack of reported data for Shetland, I fear it is a lot closer to speculation than reality.

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## ducati

Do they put wind farms up in windless parts of England? I wonder why?

I have my own measure that I find very accurate. I wet my finger and hold it in the air. If there is no wind I jump to the conclusion that the windfarms I can see are not generating. (it happens quite a lot).  ::

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## orkneycadian

They do a lot of things in England that are not relevant here in the north of Scotland!  Such as...

Make and drink warm flat beer.Dress up in suspiscious clothing and dance around banging sticks togetherUse funny looking banknotesPlay cricket
None of it is relevant this far away though ( :Wink: ), although we will, (grudgingly!) accept the banknotes, as long as we eye them with the same level of suspicion as they do the Scottish ones!

Seriously though, taking a view based on statistics that are erroneous, and mainly relevant for a different part of the country (or another country depending how patriotic you feel...) is far from accurate.  Somewhat akin to carrying out a poll in Manchester and saying it represents the views of folk in Caithness.

BTW, if you drive by another type of powers station (coal, gas, nuclear, oil, hydro, etc) how can you tell how many of its generating sets are running?

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## ywindythesecond

> As a source of data it seems very iffy....
> 
> The only Orkney windfarm listed in the "mix" as you say is Spurness, operated by SSE. The spreadsheet lists the installed capacity as 11 MW. Yet, there are only 3 x 2.75MW turbines installed on site - 8.25MW by my calculations. Planning approval was granted for 4, but only 3 were ever erected due to limitations in the power export capability. With a glaring error like that, the best capacity that site could ever achieve using that webpage data, is 75% even when the output is running at 100% capacity. As a result, percent capacity is always going to be under-reported, and shows how wrong the statistics can be. 
> 
> Spurness is connected at 33 kV, so very much in the distribution network operators domain, and not the transmission operators. And yet, it appears to have been since before the 14th of July.
> 
> Meanwhile, another 2 x 33 kV connected windfarms on Orkney are not listed in the mix, along with all the 11 kV ones. 
> 
> It appears then that the data that provides the charts is very limited, and even erroneous, in the case of the 8.25 vs 11 MW total. It hardly represents a true picture of the actual amount of generation at any one point in time, when it only accounts for less than 50% of the installed UK capacity. It accounts for less than 25% of the wind power capacity on Orkney, and 0% of the wind power capacity on Shetland, so is not really a very good representative indicator for the "winded" North of Scotland! As we live in a windy area, its more relevant to us what local generation is doing, rather than what is happening in windless areas in England.
> ...


I think we need to put things in perspective here.
Correct me if I am wrong, but as far as I can tell there are five small turbines on Shetland with a capacity of 3.68MW, and six big turbines on Orkney with a capacity of 16MW. With of 8.25MW in the metered grid mix, Orkney is well represented.

This is SNH’s Map of Wind Farms in Scotland March2010. 


Unhelpfully, the red ones are consented and constructed, or just consented – not yet constructed..


Most consented windfarms have yet to be constructed, and SNH acknowledge there might be errors. However, every Scottish windfarm in the BMreports list is shown and I have put a red box around them. You can see that they fairly represent the geographical spread of windfarm areas in Scotland, and if the metered windfarms are generating well then the unmetered windfarms will also be generating well and vice versa. 

It is clear from this map, that conclusions can be drawn with confidence relative to Scotland’s wind generation.
Only Barrow offshore and Burbo Bank are in England, totalling 180MW, and these were not part of the mix prior to 14th July.


The criterion for whether a development appears on the list or not is whether NG has a meter on the output at the point of connection. In Caithness, Causeymire and Buolfruich are connected at substations and are listed. Forss, Achairn and Flex Hill are connected remote from a substation and are not.

There is a weakness in the listed connected capacity, in that the recent rise from 1588 to 2110MW metered appeared overnight on the website, but most of the newly added plants have been operational for a few months, and some like the two offshore English windfarms for a few years. I have asked bmreports for an explanation and they have referred me directly to NG, I haven’t asked NG the question yet. When I do I will ask specifically about Sanday, and ask if there are any other similar anomalies. 

The result of the connected capacity being understated at any time is that an even lesser percentage of generation is being achieved.

The purpose behind the BMreports website is commercial. It is the record of what is being generated by whom and when so that companies participating in the Balancing Mechanism can be paid. If you trawl through the Information buttons on the website you find out the caveats and limitations. There is no reason to believe that the reported outputs are anything other than accurate. The information comes from National Grid itself.

It is not possible to draw nationwide conclusions from the spread of windfarms metered,
But Scotland is geographically well represented and it is reasonable to assume that the aggregate performance of all the windfarms connected in Scotland will be similar to the metered mix at any one time.
The conclusion that can be drawn when output is very low, is that there is little or no wind across the Scottish Mainland, and if weather maps indicate similar conditions across UK, then it is likely that there is very little wind generation across UK at that time.
This happens frequently. These two weather sites are useful.
http://www.xcweather.co.uk/GB/observations
http://www.windfinder.com/forecasts/wind_europe_akt.htm

This is the recorded UK situation at 8.08am on 2nd August 2010.

 
The deeper the blue, the less the wind.

This was the forecast for Europe at 11am the same morning, not sure which time zone


The deeper the blue the less the wind.

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## Bazeye

Right then, down to the nitty gritty. How windy is it going to be on Piel Island tomorrow and is it going to rain. Supposed to go across there tomorrow, camping, on the low tide at about half past two. There is a pub there if it is raining but if youre going to be in there all night may as well go out on the town instead. theres a band supposed to be playing as well, so I must know before then. decisions...decisions... :Wink:

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## orkneycadian

Oh dear, ywindy, your data is getting more and more unaccurate. There are 16 operational windfarm scale (850 kW and bigger) turbines on Orkney (counting them up in my head), not 6. Installed capacity is 28.75 MW, not 16. Those are even greater percentage errors than on the site you mentioned before.

Its little wonder that your statistics are giving you such pessimistic results.

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## Bazeye

Going out now for a couple while I decide.....Oh how i do hate making decisions. Should i stay or should I go now.....If i go it may be windy.....and if i stay it might not be...... so you gotta let me know... will it blow or will it snow.. Wheres Tugmistress when you need her . :Wink:

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## ywindythesecond

> Oh dear, ywindy, your data is getting more and more unaccurate. There are 16 operational windfarm scale (850 kW and bigger) turbines on Orkney (counting them up in my head), not 6. Installed capacity is 28.75 MW, not 16. Those are even greater percentage errors than on the site you mentioned before.
> 
> Its little wonder that your statistics are giving you such pessimistic results.


I Googled the windfarms on SNH map. I had missed the 900kw turbine at Westray, and didn't realise that there seem to be a few Windfarms all called Burgar Hill.

Missing 12.75MW of connected wind in Orkney out of 28.75MW is a statistically huge mistake on my part, but it is totally insignificant in the nationwide scheme of things.

How about addressing the real issue, that this country is heading for energy disaster through reliance on wind which can and does effectively stop. Have you looked at the wind maps I posted?

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## orkneycadian

ywindy, before diverging off on another topic, the statistics you are basing all this on are so far off track, that it has local and national significance.  What authority SNH are on windfarms is beyond me, but their map is even more erroneous that what you posted from National Grid!

SNH maps show a wind turbine at St Andrews Community Centre, all 6 kW of it, but fails to show the 2.3 MW turbine on West Hill in Flotta!  It completely omits the 3 x 900 kW turbines on Stronsay which have been there since 2002 or thereabouts, and another 2.3MW machine on Burgar Hill.  The 850 kW turbine at Northfield on Burray, there since 2004 is not shown, nor the 5 x 900 kW turbines currently being constructed on Hammars Hill, even though the map says that things in Red are consented.

If the 6 kW turbine at St Andrews Community Centre is counted of relevance, then so should the other 100 or so 6 kW machines on Orkney.

Your data sources are so itsy bitsy and wildly erroneus, that it lends no credibility to your statistics.

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## Jeid

> When Russia turned off the oil to Ukraine the world took a sharp intake of breath and started to worry about security of energy supply. 
> 
> When National Grid publishes figures that prove that zero energy output from wind is a reality, Cinderellas Shoe, Tiger Woods and Jeid all say _b-o-o-oring_.
> 
> Jeid, I doubt if you do read these threads. 
> 
> If you did you would be wondering why, when National Grids own records show that;
> 
> a) Wind output is much less than claimed for it
> ...


You've got nothing much better to be doing with your time eh?

Oh look, wind is low so as a result, so is the power output.

There's a lot worse things happening in the world and indeed, in the UK that are more of a concern than the wind/power.

The fact is, they've built these things and I very much doubt, in fact... I'm pretty certain, they ain't going to give up on them now. With all the money they've thrown at it, they'll stick it out.

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## ywindythesecond

> You've got nothing much better to be doing with your time eh?
> 
> Oh look, wind is low so as a result, so is the power output.
> 
> There's a lot worse things happening in the world and indeed, in the UK that are more of a concern than the wind/power.
> 
> The fact is, they've built these things and I very much doubt, in fact... I'm pretty certain, they ain't going to give up on them now. With all the money they've thrown at it, they'll stick it out.


Thanks Jeid, its my time and my choice.Wind is occasionally effectively zero, so is the power output.Agreed there are more immediate things of concern happening in UK and the world today, but that is a poor reason for not looking to the future.Built windfarms should not be "given up on".  Every windfarm built to date has been built as a result of Government Policy. Right policy or wrong, approved schemes should be allowed to run full term.

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## ywindythesecond

> ywindy, before diverging off on another topic, the statistics you are basing all this on are so far off track, that it has local and national significance. What authority SNH are on windfarms is beyond me, but their map is even more erroneous that what you posted from National Grid!
> 
> SNH maps show a wind turbine at St Andrews Community Centre, all 6 kW of it, but fails to show the 2.3 MW turbine on West Hill in Flotta! It completely omits the 3 x 900 kW turbines on Stronsay which have been there since 2002 or thereabouts, and another 2.3MW machine on Burgar Hill. The 850 kW turbine at Northfield on Burray, there since 2004 is not shown, nor the 5 x 900 kW turbines currently being constructed on Hammars Hill, even though the map says that things in Red are consented.
> 
> If the 6 kW turbine at St Andrews Community Centre is counted of relevance, then so should the other 100 or so 6 kW machines on Orkney.
> 
> Your data sources are so itsy bitsy and wildly erroneus, that it lends no credibility to your statistics.


I used the SNH map because when I looked at the Google map facility on the ukrenewables website (formerly BWEA) it doesnt even show Spurness windfarm on Sanday. Perhaps National Grid, SNH, Google, and BWEA (ukrenewables) have their eye on the bigger picture.
In NGs list of windfarms monitored, the capacity heading says MAXMW. Spurness got planning permission for 11MW so I guess that is where NG got its figures, and I also guess NG has installed metering for 11MW.
This is my last response to nitpicking about trivia. If you want to discuss important issues like security of supply or the fact that at 7.15am GMT (8.15am BST) today, the *2107.25MW* windpower metered by National Grid was producing only 7MW, then I will be happy to do so.

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## orkneycadian

Still using little bits of data I see.... :: 

*Population of Caithness this morning - 3!*

Well, it could be if I only counted the number of folk with 1 green and 1 blue eye, an artificial right leg and a West Highland Terrier called Jock!

I am sure however that most folk over there would respectfully point out that there are somewhat more of a population than meet my criteria, and that focussing on that limited group gives me a rather skewed picture.

What about using some real data?  At 0715 GMT this morning, a random survey of the output of 3 turbines on Orkney of mixed sizes between 850 kW and 2MW showed them to be totalling 567 kW or 13% of their total capacity.  That represents just over 8% of what your claim appears to make for the whole of the UK.  Sure, you caveat it with "Wind production metered by National Grid", but thats not more accurate than my claim for the Caithness population being 3!  Using your methodology in saying that these 3 turbines should be representative of all 16, and taking the 567 kW of actual (measured) generation this morning and multiplying by 28.75MW/4.35MW, the output from all the wind turbines on Orkney this morning should be somewhere around 3.75 MW.  More than 50% of what you are tyring to portray as for the whole of the UK, and also more than half the Orkney summer minimum demand of 7MW.

We can say therfore, with a reasonable degree of confidence, that even on this very light wind morning, more than 50% of Orkneys demand was being met from wind energy generation.  Sounds a lot more accurate than "This morning some wind turbines (quantity uncertain and data source unreliable) produced some electricity (quantity uncertain and data source unreliable)"

How much more of the National Grid data is erroneous remains to be seen.  You mention "Spurness got planning permission for 11MW so I guess that is where NG got its figures, and I also guess NG has installed metering for 11MW."  That may well be the case, but again it lends no credibility to the statistics if the figures being used on what someone got planning consent for rather than what they have connected.  How many more in the calculation are wrong like that?  Spurness was the first one I looked at and it was wrong, so not a very good accuracy rate for starters!

Anyway, the real data discussed above has shown how woefully underestimated the National Grid charts are for the real picture, in that "li'l ole Orkney" appears to be producing more than 50% of the UK's Wind Generation - I don't think so somehow, so I too agree there is no need to further dwell on the inaccuracy of all the data on the National Grid webpages.

Your request to discuss energy security then.  Casting aside for a moment the fact that we have just denounced the online data as inaccurate (don't worry, we are going to compare 2 sets of data from the same site, so the errors should cancel themselves out!).....

In this posting http://forum.caithness.org/showpost....04&postcount=1 you were concerened that the "Balancing Boys" at National Grid had there work cut out when the energy production from a minority of connected windfarms fluctuated by about 1,400 MW (1.4 GW).  I think these "Balancing Boys" as you call them have somewhat more to worry themselves when they have to deal with the daily UK demand fluctations, as here....  http://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/Elect...nd/Demand8.htm.  This seems to be fluctuating from between 22,000 MW (22 GW) and 41,000 MW (41 GW), a twice daily swing of some 17 GW on weekdays.  If a weekly 1.4 GW of varaince on your wind power output is giving you sleepless nights about energy security, what on earth does the weekly 19 GW swings (more than 13.5 times the wind fluctuation) do for you?

Put another way, the "balancing Boys" at the National Grid are dealing with daily "intermittency" created by the UK population 13.5 times greater than any intermittency they have to deal with from the wind varying, as reported on the chart in your posting.

Put yet another way, if the UK population could be persuaded to stop creating intermittency in demand, we could have 13.5 times more windfarms in the country and the "Balancing Boys" jobs would be no harder than they are today!

My suggestion for this is as follows....

Demand intermittency varies by the hour on a 24 hour cycle as folk get up, put on the kettle, go to work, come home, make dinner, watch TV, go to bed etc.  This intermittency could be smoothed out significantly if we all spread our routines acress the 24 hour period.  For this, anyone who's name starts with A should get up at 00:00 have breakfast and go to work.  Those with B's should bet up at 01:00, C's at 02:00 and so on.  X, Y's and Z's are few an far between enough that they can all get up at 23:00 without upsetting the balance too much.  Initially, I thought that this should be done on surnames (to preserve houshold integrity) but then realised that there will be a heck of a power swing in the North of Scotland when all the Fletts in Orkney and Gunns in Caithness get up and put on breakfast at between 05:00 and 06:00 so first names it will have to be....

As a result of this, demand profile will be nice and flat, as not only will folks breakfast times be staggered, their working days will be too.  Demand in factories will be spread over 24 hours, and as a spin off benefit, business owners will get 24 hour utilisation of their assets!  We'll be able to buy chips at 4 in the morning (unless your name is Iain, in which case you should be sleeping as its 4 hours before your alloted get up time....) and pubs wont have to close!

OK, so its a daft scenario, but one which would have a far greater effect on contributing to energy security than campaigning against windfarms!  But yet, we don't see all those concerned about UK energy security (read - protesting about wind turbines) mention the far more significant intermittency in demand when they are talking about intermittency in wind generation!

So, if you are genuinely concerned about intermittency, and the impact it has on energy security, lets hear what your views are first of all on the 19 GW of intermittency the UK population are responsible for, before we worry ourselves too much about the 1.4 GW of variance in windpower in a week.  The former has 13.5 times more effect on the grid than the latter, so it is only right we discuss the major items first.

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## Rheghead

Energy from wind in 2008, 7.1TWh

Energy from wind in 2009, 9.2TWh

An increase of 30%.

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## ywindythesecond

> Still using little bits of data I see....
> 
> *Population of Caithness this morning - 3!*
> 
> Well, it could be if I only counted the number of folk with 1 green and 1 blue eye, an artificial right leg and a West Highland Terrier called Jock!
> 
> I am sure however that most folk over there would respectfully point out that there are somewhat more of a population than meet my criteria, and that focussing on that limited group gives me a rather skewed picture.
> 
> What about using some real data? At 0715 GMT this morning, a random survey of the output of 3 turbines on Orkney of mixed sizes between 850 kW and 2MW showed them to be totalling 567 kW or 13% of their total capacity. That represents just over 8% of what your claim appears to make for the whole of the UK. Sure, you caveat it with "Wind production metered by National Grid", but thats not more accurate than my claim for the Caithness population being 3! Using your methodology in saying that these 3 turbines should be representative of all 16, and taking the 567 kW of actual (measured) generation this morning and multiplying by 28.75MW/4.35MW, the output from all the wind turbines on Orkney this morning should be somewhere around 3.75 MW. More than 50% of what you are tyring to portray as for the whole of the UK, and also more than half the Orkney summer minimum demand of 7MW.
> ...


The quote above is not complete because I am restricted to 10,000 characters, I am not editing you out.
Very interesting debating technique. Take something I did not say and tear it to shreds with great conviction and almost poetic licence.
I posted _If you want to discuss important issues like security of supply or the fact that at 7.15am GMT (8.15am BST) today, the 2107.25MW windpower metered by National Grid was producing only 7MW, then I will be happy to do so_.
I made no claim for the whole of the UK. Entertaining approach, but irrelevant.

Now, the topic of demand fluctuations is worth pursuing.
Referring again to www.bmreports.com, there is a window entitled Day/Day ahead demand and Gen(eration). This shows how much energy is likely to be required, and also how much generation should be scheduled to meet that demand. There is another window, entitled System Demand. This shows what demand was forecast and preliminary figures for what demand actually was. National Grid is very good at projecting what demand will be. It has had decades of practice, and people are creatures of habit, so daytime/night-time, weekday/weekend, high days and holidays are bread and butter to the Balancing Boys at National Grid.
Here is the graph of generation on 20th/21st March. Nothing special about it, it is just good for illustration.


The key tells you which sources are included. Each column represents all generation sources used in the half-hour period.
Coal, gas, and nuclear are the principal power sources. Coal is the source mostly used to deal with day/ night etc demand fluctuations, but gas also plays a part. Nuclear runs constantly. Over the summer it has been running around 5GW, in winter it was steady around 8GW. The French Interconnector comes and goes, and is also used for balancing. In this example, it seems to be scheduled generation.
Above the interconnector is wind. NG has no control over this and is obliged by government to take windpower when it is available. Above wind, there is Hydro, pump storage hydro, occasionally open circuit gas, and very rarely Oil. These are the technologies that NG use to fine-tune the balance. Hydro and PS hydro are excellent for the purpose because you can have power literally at the turn of a tap, but it is used sparingly for balancing and emergency back-up because once the water is used, you cant be sure when it will fill up again.
Everything is under control except wind. Life was a doddle at NG Balancing before wind. All they had to do was keep a good forecast, keep a bit in hand for human error, make sure there was enough spare to deal with rare catastrophic outages. Now they have this wild card to deal with.
Life isnt too bad yet at NG Balancing, but as wind becomes a bigger part of the mix, things will get harder. High winds at low demand periods are just about as bad as low winds at high demand periods. Too much wind at low demand will lead to NG asking windfarms to switch off and NG will pay for their loss of revenue which will end up in our bills. Low wind at high demand coupled with a major outage will turn the lights off. Sooner rather than later.

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## orkneycadian

> I made no claim for the whole of the UK. Entertaining approach, but irrelevant.


OK, will give you that one.  Your posts do say metered wind output each time - They just omit to clarify to the average orger (those that can be bothered to follow these types of threads!  :: ) that "metered wind output" is not "all of the UK's wind output, metered" as it appears, but "the minority percentage of the UK's wind generation, the metering for which feeds into this set of data"  They also omit to clarify that the percentage figures are inaccurate as well, as the data on which they are calculated are wrong, and based on (amongst other things) generation capacity based on what was applied for in planning rather than what has actually be installed.  

Regards demand / wind forecasting, fortunately we humans have even more experience in forecasting the wind than we have forecasting the demand from an interconnected electricity distribution system.  Wind generation doesn't just come and go as it pleases.  It follows the windspeeds (obviously!) which can be predicted in the same manner as demand.  

Managing the demand is not just about following graphs.  17 GW of generation variance twice a day is a lot of generating sets that must be started up and shutdown as the demand comes and goes.  It might be a doddle to the "balancing boys" but thats a lot of generation (coal mainly) that must be cycled each day, just to follow us "creatures of habit"

Whether or not the forecasters get their forecasts right, you are never going to see wind output suddenly drop from full tilt to zero in a blink of an eye as the wind drops.  Such a scenario is very unliekly to happen nationwide.  Sure, there may be times when the wind in a local area become cyclonic and suddenly drops to next to nothing, but at the same time, there is plenty at the edge of the high / low pressure.  So lets not allow ourselves to be convinced that the "balancing boys" are suddenly running round in a panic wondering where to find 4.5 GW from that has suddenly and inexplicably dropped off their radar.

In any case, for a stable system, there must be enough spinning reserve to be able to succesfully accept load from the loss of a major generationg statiuon.  Historically, this was Drax (and probably still is) at something like 4 GW installed capacity.  The anti winds make a big fuss about the spinning reserve required for wind, but again fail to mention the spinning reserve that the system must include, not in case the wind all across the UK suddenly stops without warning, but in case Drax or the like drops off.  With the right (?) fault scenario, a whole power station can drop off in the blink off an eye, dropping GW of load onto the others, which have to accept it in the similar blink of an eye if load shedding is not to be implemented.  Wind just does not do that, particulalry as it is distributed across different parts of the network.  Aside from wind dropping from 12 m/s to <3 m/s in the blink of an eye, simultaneously across the UK, the worst that can happen with a windfarm is opening of a single circuit breaker that connects the windfarm to the grid.  So if Whitelee dropped off the grid at full tilt in one full swoop, its still only would dump 322MW onto other generators.  A mere 10% or less than Drax would if it fell off.

And no, the "balancing boys" don't always get it right.  Some of the more notable major blackouts in the world have been caused by a combination of events, including lack of foresight by network planners, and this has led to domino events that have blacked out great chunks of countries (north east USA, 2003 for example)  Whilst the odd rogue circuit breaker, or a tripping power plant have the ability to set off such a chain reaction, I think we have yet to see the wind drop from full power strength to zero, nationwide, in less than a second.  When the climate starts to do funny things like that, then I'll start to worry!

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## adi1

New nuclear power stations and everything is sorted........end of ::

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## Tubthumper

> New nuclear power stations and everything is sorted........end of


What you going to do with the leftovers though? ::

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## Rheghead

> The anti winds make a big fuss about the spinning reserve required for wind, but again fail to mention the spinning reserve that the system must include, not in case the wind all across the UK suddenly stops without warning.


As far as I am aware, there is very little if any requirement for spinning reserve in the case for backup for wind generation, back up for wind is provided by plants in 'hot standby' mode in the shorter term, <~8 hours and cold standby >~8 hours.

If anything, spinning reserve is required for big sudden outages from large conventional power plants which is provided by large conventional plants that have to run at lower capacities.  Often these lower capacities come at an efficiency penalty as these plants are run outside their optimum power to fuel consumption band.

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## ywindythesecond

*Orkneycadian.*
Responding to your post #37. I am not quoting all of it here because I am limited to a number of characters per post and quoting your post in full would take up most of them. Not a complaint, just a practicality.

*Paragraph 1.* No comment.
*Paragraph 2.* Regarding demand/ windforecasting. I beg to differ, and invite you to follow the published information on www.bmreports.com for a few days.
*Paragraph 3.* No comment.
*Paragraph 4*. You say_ __Whether or not the forecasters get their forecasts right, you are never going to see wind output suddenly drop from full tilt to zero in a blink of an eye as the wind drops. Such a scenario is very unliekly to happen nationwide._
I agree with that.

_Sure, there may be times when the wind in a local area become cyclonic and suddenly drops to next to nothing, but at the same time, there is plenty at the edge of the high / low pressure._
This may be true, but it depends on the size of the local area.Sometimes it is UK wide, sometimes it is EU wide. 

_So lets not allow ourselves to be convinced that the "balancing boys" are suddenly running round in a panic wondering where to find 4.5 GW from that has suddenly and inexplicably dropped off their radar._
I agree with that too.

*Paragraph 5.* You posted* *_In any case, for a stable system, there must be enough spinning reserve to be able to succesfully accept load from the loss of a major generationg statiuon._ 
Agreed. It is reasonable to make contingency plans for a predictable, quantifiable, catastrophic event. The largest single credible instantaneous loss of generation from the current UK system is 1320MW from Sizewell B. New proposed nuclear plant is expected to increase that to 1800MW.
Also agreed, wind resource cannot disappear instantaneously.

I recommend that you look at National Grids Consultation on how to operate the Grid in 2020.
_http://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/Electricity/Operating+in+2020/_
and that you follow through the consultation responses. 

I am now bowing out of this thread. When you have studied the NG 2020 consultation, please open another thread, and I will be happy to continue the discussion.

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## Rheghead

> I am now bowing out of this thread.


You do that a lot when you are on a loser...

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## Rheghead

Figure 10 definitely shows there isn't as much wind around as there used to be 20 years ago and it has been steadily declining since.  Climate change anybody?

http://www.nationalgrid.com/NR/rdonl...nsulation1.pdf

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## Tubthumper

> Figure 10 definitely shows there isn't as much wind around as there used to be 20 years ago and it has been steadily declining since.  Climate change anybody?


Every action has an equal and oppostite reaction... could all the world's wind turbines be sapping the wind's energy?? ::

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## Neil Howie

It's all about removing those "Balancing Boys". (sorry boys)..

Smarter grids, conversion of wind power before sending it to the grid, or other alternatives:

link





> But matching the highs and lows in demand with a steady supply is a  major challenge. Energy companies typically top up a 'base' supply of  energy with electricity from power plants that are just switched on to  cope with the peaks. However, the gas-fired generators often used to  feed these peaks are notoriously inefficient, expensive to run and sit  idle for long periods of time. In short, the system wastes both energy  and resources.
> 
> The key idea is to use excess electricity to run a unit producing  liquid nitrogen and oxygen -- or 'cryogen'. At times of peak demand, the  nitrogen would be boiled -- using heat from the environment and waste  heat from the power plant. The hot nitrogen gas would then be used to  drive a turbine or engine, generating 'top up' electricity.
> 
> 
>  Meanwhile, the oxygen would be fed to the combustor to mix with the  natural gas before it is burned. Burning natural gas in pure oxygen,  rather than air, makes the combustion process more efficient and  produces less nitrogen oxide. Instead, this 'oxy-fuel' combustion method  produces a concentrated stream of carbon dioxide that can be removed  easily in solid form as dry ice

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