The Daily Post reports the formal opening of the misleadingly-named Rhyl Flats wind farm by Peter Hain. It is, we are told, currently the largest offshore wind farm in Wales, until the huge 180-turbine Gwynt y Môr farm is constructed.
The Post asserts (presumably on the basis of promotional material supplied by its developers) that, with an output of 90MW, Rhyl Flats will serve the electricity needs of 60,000 households. However, as my friend Brian Christley observes, you don’t have to be a senior wrangler to work out that that equates to only 1,500 watts per household – insufficient to boil a kettle. And that’s only when the wind is blowing.
The PR men, it would seem, are doing more spinning than the turbines.
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David,
I think you have got this wrong about 90MW not servicing 60,000 households. The point is that not all the 60,000 will have the kettle on at the same time. My house has electric storage heating so uses more than most, our consumption averages 1000 watts over the year. On that basis Rhyl Flats would meet the needs of 90,000 houses like mine, when it is at full output!
Should we assume that you are a climate change sceptic?
Regards, Geoff Siddell
Geoffrey, I think you need to check your electricity bills and work out your annual usage correctly, 1000 watts consumption in a year? British Gas state the average consumption for an average household is 3300kWh per annum. A 1 kilowatt rated heater uses 1000Watts of electric per hour. Your use storage heaters would indicate that you probably don’t use gas or oil to heat your home so I’d guess that your annual usage is a lot more than the 1000W you claim. Especially when you add in the usage for cooking, heating water, TV, computer, etc, etc.
Should we assume that you are a “climate change alarmist”?
Hello MrC
My yearly usage is approx, 9000 Kilowatt/hrs (ie 9,000,000 watt/hrs) 9,000,000/24×365=1027 watts.
I think you need to read up on your schoolboy physics!
Regards, Geoffrey Siddell
The public seem to be held to ransom by the Government in the name of climate change.
Everyone trying to outdo the other in the bid to save the world and nobody stopping to think, is this really going to make a difference? Taxes will going up, we will have to pay more for power because of all this wonderful investment. One wonders into whose pocket the money will go.
Before I personally buy something expensive, I make sure it ticks all the boxes that I need. The Government however just picks the brains of think tanks and or civil servants whether it is on climate change or useless helicopters for our troops. If things go wrong it is never the Government’s fault and we write the cheque and have no say.
We are subsidising these turbines to a huge extent and they are only a flag to show the world that we are leading the way on climate change ; what a joke!
There has to be someone out there who can link all the dots without Government and industry spin coming into the equation.
It is as if putting up turbines was the easiest “climate change” measure that the Government could think of that quickly demonstrated their decisive ability on the issue.
Then as you quite rightly point out, Ministers such as Peter Hain jump on board and start pompously saying how well they are doing.
The lack of public input on planning issues in the future will allow industry to write their own cheques to fill huge expanses of coast and land with monumental masses of metal moneyspinners.
Who can you trust?
Hello Geoffrey,
Thank You for the clarification of your DAILY usage. No revision necessary, thanks all the same.
MrC
Hello MrC
So Rhyl Flats wind farm at maximum out put will meet the needs of about 90,000 houses like mine (which is a house using about 2.5 times the norm) A pretty useful contribution wouldn’t you say?
Regards, Geoffrey Siddell
I wonder if we are really serious about methods of energy use and production and the health of the planet ? This morning’s news covered the great and wonderful in Copenhagen (travelling by train because the press will be there) , followed by the announcement that we will have to reduce plane flights. All very good. Then came the latest invention, Richard Branson’s super plane, taking joy riders into space for a few minutes at £130,000 per ticket.
Is there really hope for our children and the millions without the bare essentials of life ?
Ouch David. I cannot let you get away with this. Brian Christley knows nothing about Physics. The figures quoted by the PR men is actually perfectly reasonable. A typical house might use 4Gw of electricity in a year which equates to about 500watts on average. It’s not “only when the wind is blowing”! Wind farms generate around 30% of the time and 30% of 1500watts really is around 500watts which is the average power usage!
Please, please, post a correction and concede you are wrong.
Do not use Brian Christley as a reference as he uses his own version of physics to explain electricity generation denying Lenz’s law and conversation of energy.
Quick correction. I mean 4Gwh and not 4Gw. Thanks
Dear David
Brian Christley may be a good friend, but he’s a shockingly bad scientific advisor.
Science and engineering are difficult subjects.
It takes effort to understand what we think the laws of nature are, what evidence underpins this, and how we can make use of this knowledge to produce technological devices.
Self delusion is easy.
Disregarding the debate over the figures (the skeptical in me suspects them to be peak/inflated values but with no proof) and taking them as ‘true’ for now.
The UK had 22m homes in 2001 and rough linear projections make that about 23m now. Each turbine in the Rhyl Flats provides electricity for 334 houses. If we use turbines for all of our electricity generation that is 68,862 turbines across the UK.
Of course, household usage isn’t even half of the consumption in this country (some figures peg it at 35% but up that if you are pro-green and don’t want nightmares).
Long story short: wind turbines are nowhere near efficient enough to be a viable alternative to coal, gas, or nuclear power, and worse; having the government spending all its money on grants for these useless pylons means research into efficient solar, tidal, and hydroelectric generators is underfunded.
The right thing to do for the earth (if you believe in the core premise) would be invest in research.
As it is, the govt. knows research takes time to pay dividends and they prefer to buy their votes quickly.