Largest Offshore Wind Farm Generates First Power in U.K.

Many of the figures quoted are not helpful to the general public.

How much power is delivered to the national grid as a % of total power.

How many MWH are delivered to the national grid (average daily per month/year)

Cost to DELIVER 1 MWH to the national grid

Mitcc8951 As a rough guide, average output of wind turbines is about 1/3 of peak power, possibly a bit higher for well sited offshore wind assuming there is no serious downtime; therefore 1GW will provide ~1/3GW average power.
UK average annual power demand is about 40GW.

So when the London array is finished it will supply about (1/3)/40 = ~0.8% of the UK's electricity consumption. However on a windy summers night when the UK is asleep output will be about 1GW and demand probably less than 30GW so it will now supply about 3%+ of demand. Compare this with a cold, still winter period, when output is below 5% for extended periods (as occurred across the UK in December 2012) and demand is about 60GW, contribution is now well below 0.1%.

This highlights the real problem with large scale wind, the need for low duty cycle backing reserve or long term storage either of which have to be added to the real cost of wind, and many other RE, power generation technologies. Whilst wind and other RE generation only makes up a few percent of total generation we can absorb the variations with the existing infrastructure but when this climbs into the 10's of percent, as envisioned, we are likely to start getting problems, particularly if our current fossil generation capacity (esp. coal) is being decommissioned.

PS.

I'm not suggesting that we (the UK) should retain our coal capacity, just highlighting that there is a potential problem looming which needs consideration sooner rather than later.

Government subsidies and mandates for renewable energy are based on the assumption that technologies like wind and solar actually avoid large amounts of greenhouse gasses. This is not true. These links explain:

http://www.thalesresearchinc.com/SvsE.pdf

http://energy.aol.com/2012/03/13/renewable-energy-will-cost-grid-more-mit/

A forced path to renewable energy will more than double the cost of electricity for nothing in return, and keep us in a recession forever.

Renewable energy may never reach a level of development that can serve as an alternative to carbon energy. At this stage, laws that force its use are premature and economically destructive.

Do any wind farms have kinetic energy transfer systems? I mean farms have silos to store food for tomorrow.

ChrisKapsambelis -

The wind farm described is in the UK not the USA. The USA specific studies often do not work for other countries. Most of the European countries have signed the Kyoto agreement and have made it a priority to reduce CO2 - for lots of reasons including that much of their shoreline is at risk of flooding. Even if you believe that CO2 produced by human activities doesn't result in global warming and raising sea levels, there still remains that fact that nearly 100 years ago the CO2 level was around 290ppm, now it is at 380+ ppm and by best estimates (and consensus of many scientists) the estimates for CO2 maybe above 650ppm by 2050 or later if serious intervention doesn't occur. Try to stay awake in meetings with CO2 that high!

Old reports and studies from 2009 are just that -- they are old. If you carefully read the studies by the Denmark government, they know quite well that their use of coal would not drop off immediately in 2009. The Germans and other Europe countries also understand that AND have the continued use of coal in their plans -- for a while. They recognize that the wind, solar and storage of significant size must be in place before they can start chopping of large portions of coal production. Germany has been shutting down the nuclear plants FIRST then is planning on shutting down the fossil fuel plants.

In the USA we have entirely different economics and reasons for deploying the renewables at a different pace. For most of Europe the choice is to import oil from abroad, import natural gas from Russia, continue nuclear (and German nuclear plants have had accidents as well) or level entire villages so they can strip mine coal. Sounds harsh but that is their energy environment.

Renewables in Europe provide energy independence from Russia, the middle east and the USA. Unfortunately the world no longer views the USA as necessarily the nicest people without hidden agendas.