Windfarms Efficiency Not So Good

[Lancashire Lad]

Originally Posted by wanlock dod

....The fact that the need for additional pumped storage capacity was perhaps overlooked by some does not mean that energy from wind power canot be made to work, it just needs some additional infrastructure to make it more useful....

Hi dod,

As I've tried to explain many times, Britain isn't well placed for pumped storage as a solution. If Britain had the same topography as Norway, then I would agree that pumped storage could potentially be effective. But Britain is not like Norway.

The only additional infrastructure which would make Britain effective in terms of large scale pumped storage, would be to build some mountains, and some very large lakes! Do we want to sacrifice even more of our precious highland countryside than is already being blighted by wind turbines, to lake Windermere sized reservoirs?

We are going over the same ground. The reasons why it won't work (on a large scale) against countrywide or prolonged no/low wind events in Britain are detailed at length in this thread's earlier posts.

It is not simply a case of building reservoirs or trying to connect up what lakes we do have to hydro pumping stations. The only effective back-up in our situation, other than massive reservoirs on a scale the likes of which would be totally impractical, would be intermittency plant, fired by coal or gas - which in my book, defeats the object of trying to have too much wind power in the first place.

Look at it this way - Dinorwig can sustain hydroelectric output of 1.3GW for 5 hours. To back up the wind power currently committed by government with pumped storage would require hydropower of 25 times the output capacity of Dinorwig for a duration of not just 5 hours, but for as long as any prolonged no/low wind event - possibly weeks. That is one helluva lot of water. And don't forget that wherever the water came from would require empty reservoirs to contain it so that it could be pumped back up again for next time.

My stance remains that we should implement wind power only to the extent that it won't begin to affect the stability of the grid.

Regards,
Mike.

[John D]

This article details just how crazy the 'UK energy policy' has become.

BBC News - Scots windfarms paid cash to stop producing energy

John D

http://johnswildworld.zenfolio.com/