OT: Wind is main source of UK electricity for first time

They also ran this one, which raises a problem with the grid that people have been predicting for a while:

From the above:

"The government and private investors have spent £198bn on renewable power infrastructure since 2010."

That would buy at least 8 nukes, which could have reliably produced around

QUOTE

Wind turbines have generated more electricity than gas for the first time in the UK.

In the first three months of this year a third of the country's electricity came from wind farms, research from Imperial College London have shown.

ENDQUOTE

Looking at TNP’s Gridwatch site, although it’s a bit difficult on the scale of the Yearly graph, it would be very difficult to justify either of the claims in the above quoted statement, although the author is not looking at fundamental data but relying on whatever is claimed in the Imperial College report.

Note however that the two sentences quoted above refer to different aspects of generation (“a third of generation” and “Wind more than gas”).

Perhaps they should look at an AP300:

If the figure of $1Billion for each AP300 is correct, and that would produce around 0.3GW, then 60 would give 20GW for less than £50B. However, seeing that the AP600 was not developed in favour of the AP1000 due to economies of scale, will we ever see an AP300?

Well since most of the winds seems to come out of politicians backsides, maybe the percentage will get even higher soon. Brian

ISTM that requiring that a new renewable project guarantees a 80%+ load factor before even being allowed to join the queue for a grid connection might solve the problem.

So the new supplier has to provide their own solution to the intermittency of the delivery rather than sweeping it under the rug provided by someone else's CCGT plant!

The problem with such statements is even if true, there is a big lie in what they are leaving out - like all the gas plant running on inefficiently on hot standby just to fill in the gaps in their generation.

and I wonder if they include the gas being wasted *while* they are generating from wind?

and the fact that wind can only produce its max now & then, trad sources can do it any time it's needed.