Tuesday 20 December 2016

Cooking the Christmas Turkey with Wind Energy

The following graph shows the Wind Energy profile and Demand for the past month for the island of Ireland :




1)  The black line is the maximum available wind output, i.e. wind capacity. This is about 3,000MW for the island of Ireland.

2) The two circles show periods when wind energy was increasing during periods of decreasing night time demand. This wind energy ends up being shutdown or curtailed.

The graph shows the trouble in relying too much on wind energy during the Christmas season. In short, the turkey is unlikely to get cooked. Maybe there will be a chance if families wait up all night, although chances are there won't be much wind then either. Most days, as you can see, the wind output falls far short of the potential wind energy available. 

I would like to wish all the readers a Very Happy Christmas and hope you get your turkey cooked despite the crazy energy policy !

1 comment:

  1. It must be remembered that no more than half of demand can be wind and imported energy. To day is wet and windy but the wind picked up at 17.30 hrs. Yet fossil fuel still needs to be kept running in case it dies down. Wind electricity has no electricity. Wind also gusts which causes more problems

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