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30 thoughts on “Lunchtime Photo”

  1. golack

    ...or a picture of a windmill, cropped, and photoshopped onto a blue background...'cause everything is a conspiracy!!!!

    Wait--why are there only 28 stars in that flag's blue background???

    😉

    Did you use a hood to prevent glare?--presumably shot from an enclosed airplane.

    1. J. Frank Parnell

      If my math is correct, over a year the wind farm produces about 40% of what it would produce if it was running flat out 24-7.

      1. rick_jones

        Thanks. So it “on average” it takes the place of a small sized conventional plant.

        I really hope someone tackles either the storage problem or those opposing nuclear.

        1. J. Frank Parnell

          Offshore wind turbines have increased dramatically in size over the years. The Rampion wind farm has 116 turbines, each on have a max output of 3.45 MW. The latest turbines are as large as 17 MW, which means a new windfarm would only need 24 turbines to achieve the same output.

          1. rick_jones

            Which is all well and good, and represents great strides since the 1970s, but the matters of intermittency and storage remain.

        2. valuethinker

          Except the UK is already pressing ahead with new nuclear. Hinckley Point C on the Bristol Channel (2.7 GW capacity).

          There may be an announcement on Sizewell C (in Suffolk ie E Coast) in the near future. Would be similar size.

          The obstacles are time to complete (10+ years, so far) and cost (HPC is around £25bn). The govt is funding a scheme from Rolls Royce for a smaller, factory built, reactor. However AFAIK there's no commercial site proposed, as yet.

          Overall govt plans are to build as many as 10 reactors accounting for c 25% UK electricity consumption.

          Battery storage is certainly becoming a thing on the UK power grid. However for long term storage there will need to be another solution - hydrogen is a likely one.

        3. Austin

          I don't oppose nuclear, but as the invasion of Ukraine has shown, unless a country has a near-zero chance of being directly attacked, nuclear isn't going to be a safe option for most countries. Basically, outside of North America, Western Europe, Australia and China, nuclear reactors run the risk of damage during any wars that erupt.

        1. valuethinker

          Thank you for digging that out.

          35-40% Capacity Factors are what you reckon in, but some farms seem to be doing 50-60%.

          European onshore CFs are often around 25% whereas onshore in US you see 35-40%. We are getting much better at micro-data on specific locations.

      3. valuethinker

        See below my comments on Capacity Factor.

        40% is probably a good baseline for offshore wind farm but there are some at 50%.

        All power plants have a CF. Nuclear plants in the 70s & 80s had CFs of around 50%. The technology matured and we learned more about operations and they now tend to run 80%+ or c 90%.

        However c 1/4 of the French fleet is shut down right now due to maintenance and corrosion problems. When nukes go down, either for scheduled or unscheduled maintenance, it can be for many months. Even if your long run CF is good.

        The big thing with wind is it is not dispatchable. Although you can predict day ahead (and 7 day ahead) wind output pretty well in the UK, you can't have absolute certainty at the gate. That's where storage and demand flexibility come in - a gap which right now is filled by gas turbines (and also diesel engines at periods when supply is really tight).

        1. J. Frank Parnell

          Compared to conventional fossil fuel plants, nuclear plants have a very high capital cost but a relatively low fuel cost. This means power systems try to run their nuclear plants flat out as much as possible and then use their fossil fuel plants to meet peek loads.

    2. valuethinker

      The windfarm pays a seabed rental fee to the Crown Estate.

      Oddly enough the Crown Estate is not owned by the British Crown. Rather it is an agreement to pay revenues to the Royal Family, (George III, who was short of money), in return for ownership by the British state. The surplus revenues (it is quite profitable) go to the Treasury ie to the UK government.

      The Crown Estate owns several valuable properties including Regent St, the prime shopping street in London these days.

      Seabed rights were including in the original sale (in the early 1800s I think).

  5. Jasper_in_Boston

    I'm kinda surprised there's a big wind farm in the English Channel. I thought that body of water was characterized by a very high volume of shipping.

    1. valuethinker

      After the Straits of Malacca (Singapore) I think it is the busiest shipping channel in the world.

      Nonetheless it appears to work for traffic control. If you look at where Sussex is, it's well to the west of the narrowest point (Dover, in Kent).

      400 MW is not a large offshore windfarm as these things go, these days.

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