The Brits and Germans Bet the Farm on Wind Power and They Are Losing Big Time

Guest Post from Rafe Champion at Rafe’s Substack.

Lately, Britain has been freezing while power prices spiral upwards during a long spell of low wind, a Dunkelflaute, as they call wind droughts in that part of the world..

Wind droughts came as a surprise in June 2021 when the British wind fleet generated next to no wind for weeks and the price of gas went through the roof. The Ukraine conflict started later and aggravated the situation but it was not the immediate problem.

Unfortunately, the meteorologists of the world never bothered to issue wind drought warnings although they would have been experienced by mariners at sea and millers on land for centuries.

No Wind — No Power

This is very unfortunate for the British and the Germans because they bet the farm on wind power and they are losing.

They are still trying to dig themselves out of the hole by building more windmills but when there is little or no wind, three or four or even ten times the amount of capacity still generates very little power.

Everyone needs to know that wind and solar can displace coal power but they can’t replace it, as the Energy Realists of Australia explained playing in briefing note 21.7.

The rate of exit from coal is not accelerated by increasing penetration on good days, it is limited by the lowest level of output on nights with little or no wind, as a convoy travels at the speed of the slowest vessel, the water penetrates the levee at the lowest point, a chain is only as strong as the weakest link and stock get out of the yard through gaps even if the rest of the fence is built to the sky.

As long as periods with effectively zero solar and wind power persist, 100% backup from conventional power will still be required, assuming that we want security of supply. This means that we will have to keep burning coal until nuclear power is on deck.

#RafeChampion #Wind #Dunkelflaute #WindDrought #Nuclear #Coal #Britain #Germany