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hohloma | 3 years ago

So you are comparing "any one gas plant", the output of which can be fully controlled, with "whole-grid measurement" for wind? As a whole grid, wind generation capacity is mostly dependent on wind, and not on demand. While gas is used usually for those cases where such power as wind does not cut it. I dont see how you can compare the two. A gasplant CAN produce 100% output if we wish, wind cannot. You can of course compensate somewhat by building out several times the capacity you need in extremely disperse geographic locations (>1000 miles distance between each farm). Could be done, but not sure how its gonna impact the climate change (those farms need to be built and require continuous maintenance).

Uk has wind capacity factor "long-term average of around 27%". https://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/publications/downloads/sinden06-win...

The reason is that wind generation is optimal during a certain wind speed, and less or no power is generated if winds are too slow or too fast. And wind power blackout occurs not only during calm days, but also during very stormy days. In total there is plenty of occurrences when a specific area has no wind at all. The correlation in weather can be seen in wind farms as far as 800 miles apart. https://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/publications/downloads/sinden06-win...

2021 was a year of very low wind speeds across whole northern europe. https://climate.copernicus.eu/esotc/2021/low-winds

Additionally, wind power may be going down in strength... due to climate change https://www.ft.com/content/d53b5843-dbe0-4724-8adf-75c66127e...

discuss

ajross|3 years ago

> So you are comparing "any one gas plant", the output of which can be fully controlled, with "whole-grid measurement" for wind?

That was absolutely what I was not doing. That was a counterfactual presented to refute the grandparent, who was.

laverya|3 years ago

The source I linked has data for a few other countries, and crucially has "whole-grid" wind measurements for the UK. And the UK never went to 0 for a whole 30 minute reporting period! 99th percentile was under 2% of rated output, though.