European Wind Power Data

By Paul Homewood

Joe Public/Dave Ward

https://windeurope.org/about-wind/daily-wind/

Wind Europe is an organisation set up to blow the trumpet for wind power. Their website has quite a lot of useful data. Unfortunately, some of it rather undermines their case!

For instance, they show a chart of how much wind power was produced “yesterday”. (In this case, it is Thursday, as they have not updated yet).

https://windeurope.org/about-wind/daily-wind/

I would hardly regard 5.9% as particularly impressive, particularly in mid winter.

Take away Spain and Portugal, which generated 347 GWh, and the rest of Europe is hardly worth even counting.

In Germany, for instance, wind only supplied 2.3% of the nation’s electricity. In France, it was 2.2%, while here it was 2.4%.

Capacity loading was particularly poor in Germany, where onshore wind ran at just 2% of capacity for the day as a whole.

https://windeurope.org/about-wind/daily-wind/

There were also big variations during the day, with wind power dipping as low as 0.6% of demand in the afternoon in the UK.

http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

But the most damning chart is this one.

It is frequently claimed that when one part of Europe has little wind, another part will compensate. In this way, wind power will be provided in an even and stable fashion.

But Wind Europe’s own graphic for the first half of 2017 gives the lie to this:

https://windeurope.org/about-wind/daily-wind/

Just home in on the graph, and see how much wind power fluctuates from below 20 GW to above 70 GW.

The idea that wind power can ever be a significant part of Europe’s energy mix is a dangerous delusion.

Footnote

At least Wind Europe are honest about themselves! This is how they describe themselves:

WindEurope is the voice of the wind industry, actively promoting wind power in Europe and worldwide. We have over 450 members, active in over 40 countries. In addition to wind turbine manufacturers with a leading share of the world wind power market, our membership encompasses component suppliers, research institutes, national wind and renewables associations, developers, contractors, electricity providers, finance and insurance companies, and consultants.