Last year, wind farms contributed about 8% of the UK’s electricity. But as we well know, there are times when the wind does not blow.

A while back, I asked DECC for an analysis of the number of days when output was below a certain figure. Surprisingly, they said they did not have such information. I say surprising, as I would have thought this sort of data would be important for their planning.

 

Still never mind. Dave Ward has managed to download the 5-minute electricity generation data, from the Gridwatch system. From this he has managed to analyse the data for June, which does not make encouraging reading for supporters of wind power.

For instance, for 56% of the month, wind was supplying less than 3% of the UK’s power, and this during a summer month when demand is low. Worse still, it was generating less than 1% of the country’s needs for 11% of the time.

In terms of capacity, wind was working at less than 5% of its capacity for 28% of the month, and only got above 10% for 27% of the time, the equivalent of 8 days.

The graph below shows just how low capacity utilisation has been for most of the month. ( Based on DECC statistics showing wind capacity of 11461MW in Q1, which will certainly be higher now).

The lowest actual measurement was recorded on the 30th at 82MW, just 0.7% of capacity.

 

 

It is little wonder the government need to procure 53GW of standby capacity, to call upon when the wind does not blow.