Wind Turbines

I don't quite understand why new houses aren't required to be fitted with solar energy panels for water heating and electricity.

This is a requirement in Scotland.

Coastpath

From our town you can see the new Hinckley C Nuclear Power Station being built and I'd rather see wind turbines than that looming monstrosity.

I agree!

Wind can provide a lot of power when the wind blows but there were plenty of weeks in the autumn when it provided less than 10%. Other sources mainly gas and nuclear made up the rest, nuclear is here to stay if we want to eliminate fossil fuels. Scientists believe they have achieved Nuclear Fusion so maybe the future is not so uncertain - not in my lifetime.

The problem is that wind power is not reliable. It is providing about 25% of our power as I write, with a further 15% from other renewable or carbon neutral fuels, but if instead of wind and gales we were having a couple of weeks of very cold bright sunny windless weeks, which are not uncommon this time of year, wind power could be producing less than 10% of our power.
M0nica . Wind turbines do not just exist on land. I'd like to see investment in off shore wind power which is currently providing more power than the on shore ones. 13% of the 25% you quoted comes from off shore turbines.

Wind power is up to 80% more reliable off shore than on land as well. Offshore wind speeds also tend to be faster than on land which in turn generate more energy. A turbine in a 15-mph wind can generate twice as much energy as a turbine in a 12-mph wind. So the further out to sea they are the better, where winds are typically stronger and blow throughout the year.

Yes they sit there busily doing their own thing when the wind blows leaving the atmosphere exactly as they found it.

Compare their “ugliness” with the scars of open coal mining or indeed the infrastructure of coal mines, or gas power stations or gas storage. Or the oil fields, or nuclear power stations, No comparison in my opinion.

Although turbines are more expensive offshore they produce more power, so are more economic. Battery storage is beginning to be installed to level out demand but early days at present..

From where I live we look out to the channel and can see loads of turbines off shore. All the cables are underground so it is a good system.

Maybe they should paint them in bright colours just like children’s windmills ?

I think of them as sculptural modern working architecture- a statement in the landscape.

I would rather see a group of them than standing alone.

Pylons are far uglier IMO. It would be good to be rid of them and I find wind turbines intrusive in large groups. Surprising that we haven’t cracked the problems around tidal barriers when you think about it.

muse my DH has spent the last 15 years installing windfarms offshore and he has doubts about whether the turbines we are now installing will have the longevity predicted, which of course affects the cost of wind power and while they can and do produce far more power than land turbines, if you look at Gridwatch, link given in my previous post, you will see that despite all that the amount of power that wind farms can generated and feed into the grid the facts of the matter are that, while at times they can produce 40% of the power we use at other times it is under 10%.

it is not a question of how big the turbines are or how much power they can produce, it is how much power the wind supplies to turn them and no matter how big the turbine and how big the potential output, if the wind isn't blowing then power production is minimal and there are times when windpower onshore and offshore all round the UK is in the doldrums.

As I have said before Gridwatch shows our actual power consumption hour by hour. Yes, over the last week wind generated power has produce as much as 40 % of our power (it is currently 33%) that is at a time when we have had ferocious storms weeping over the country that have done an immense amount of damage to homes and infrastructure.

If you look at the amount of energy that will be consumed repairing all the damage from roofs, fencing, tree destruction. I understand 18 million trees have been destroyed in this winter's storms.

Think how much carbon these trees will not be absorbing from the atmosphere and the extra energy consumed repairing all the damage, a cost/benefit analysis might suggest that a week when wind provides us with a third of our energy is actually a lot less wonderful than it appears, when balanced against the carbon consuming capacity of the trees that have been flattened and the extra energy used repairing the damage it leaves behind it.

JaneJudge

house building is just about profit for the developers and town councils

I realise that. But I still think it should be a requirement for new housing. Reading all the posts about wind turbines since I last posted it is obvious that the large turbines have their problems. Every form of electricity generation has its problems.

Katie59 talks of battery storage being introduced for the turbines. Why could batteries not be used to store the excess power from domestic PV panels? Another strategy to accommodate demand when the wind isn't blowing and the light levels are poor?

Countering climate change is going to cost money. It will become more expensive the longer we leave it. If micro solutions, even if costly now, can contribute in the long term it must be money well spent.

Currently extra power from PV panels is fed back into the grid and the householder is paid for it, so the power does not go to waste and leads to a reduction of power manufacture from fossil fuels, so storage on site in batteries is not really necessary.

Battery power has its problems. Firstly, the rare metals used to make batteries are mainly in countries where there are human rights issues about child labour and safety. Many of these metals are themselves poisonous to the environment - and then there is what you do with them when they are exhausted.

The energy used to manufacture large batteries often mean it takes many years of battery storage just to recoup the energy used manufacturing them. It has been estimated that the manufacture of an electric battery produces as many emissions as driving a petrol car for over 60,000 miles and a diesel car even further.

Then there is the safety issue, Samsung had a problem a few years ago when the really high power storage batteries in one of its phones, had an unfortunate habit of exploding, not such a good idea when the phone is in someone's pocket on a plane. Scale this up and saving power into huge batteries near windfarms presents similar problems on a bigger scale.

Sorry to be deaths head at the feast on subjects like this, but with the need to reduce carbon use so many people keep bringing upbright ideas to solve problems without really understanding the huge technical and safety problems these present to the environment and individuals.

We are much better starting by using proven technologies to produce carbon neutral power. First and foremost on the list, would to exploit the existing but rejected (by government) plan to build tidal barrages along the South Wales coast. This is proven technology and a similar power station in France has been producing power now, for almost 60 years and then, of course, there is nuclear, though probably not the monstrous installations like those currently being built but using technology developed in nuclear powered submarines, again over a long period of time, and manufactured, installed and running at much less expense and on a shorter time scale than the monsters we currently build at vast expense and with Chinese finance.

I like them

You can buy batteries to store your own solar power but they are expensive and while your panels are connected to the grid on the FIT scheme there is no incentive to install batteries.
We have a large solar farm locally and they are installing a large battery scheme to balance output to the grid.
There is no FIT now although many new build houses do have them, but I don’t think they are mandatory, maybe in some areas.

Thanks M0nica lots of good info. I can never understand the desire to use batteries so much. The only solution is for everyone to use less, but then there would be no big profits. As usual the little people pay the biggest price.

Wind turbines are beautiful and are certainly more attractive that the large, pollution-spewing power stations that are necessary for burning fossil fuels.

There is no sense in complaining about the negatives regarding batteries and then advocating nuclear power; the dangerous by-products of nuclear power will be with us for thousands of years and I don't believe its acceptable to rely on something that future generations will have to devise a solution for. Nuclear fusion is a long way off, we are still stuck with fission and whatever the vested interests tell you, its not something we should be relying on.

We need everything renewable; tidal barrages, wind, solar PV, biomass...other things we haven't even thought of yet. But not coal and gas in the amounts we are currently using them and certainly not more fission. "Batteries" don't have to be of the technology we currently associate with them. The Ben Cruachan pumped storage station is nothing but a big "battery". There are other technologies we need to invest in to have truly renewable and sustainable energy sources, not nuclear. We haven't even scratched the surface of how we are going to generate power in the future and we need a bit of vision, not just thinking that our current technologies are all we've got.

the dangerous by-products of nuclear power will be with us for thousands of years

That's such a relevant point. Hinckley C which is currently being built at a cost of £24 billion is designed to produce power for just 60 years creating dangerous by products that will be around for thousands of years

we need a bit of vision, not just thinking that our current technologies are all we've got.

Thank you, volver. You've put it more clearly than I did...

The 'feed in tariffs' scheme for PV electricity was closed to new installations from 2020. So there is less of an incentive for installing PV panels. A domestic installation is estimated to cost about £4,000, not something that everyone can find, despite the prospect of 'free' electricity, and the closure of the feed in tariff scheme makes it a less attractive proposition.

I am aware of the problems of existing battery technology, which is why I suggest that there should be more state investment in research to improve it and for developing possible alternative methods of storage.

In view of the seriousness of climate change I don't think that this is an area which should be left solely to business or individuals to act. Government should be looking to the future of the country as a whole and acting now to mitigate it. I won't refrain from making a political point here. I think that recent government actions speak for themselves.

Bit of useless information.

My home village Delabole in Cornwall was the first site to have a wind farm in the U.K.. They have sat there now for decades quietly doing their job with sheep grazing at their feet, supplying the village with electricity.

The dangerous products of burning fossil fuels, especially coal will also be with us for thousands of years and is the main reason we have this climate problem. This problem has been with us for centuries. It has killed many millions of people and continuing in its killing spree for centuries to come. It has destroyed landscapes and eco sytems, done infinite damage to mankind.

Compared with that, the problems of dealing with nuclear waste, and I do realise it is a problem, looks relatively trivial.

I don’t think that disposing of nuclear waste can be ever described as “relatively trivial” M0nica, given that it usually entails burying it in a deep hole forever, literally forever, and keeping our fingers crossed. Instead of adding to our environmental woes occasioned by fossil fuels, I would think it would be far preferable to avoid any further large scale environmental damage and focus our attention on developing energy production that does as little long-term damage to the environment as possible.

better than staying above ground and killing the millions of people coal has killed and continues to kill.

But I don't think those are the options M0nica. That's a false dichotomy. Let's not have any more nuclear waste at all then we don't need to worry about how to try to minimise its impact.

Tizliz

I don't quite understand why new houses aren't required to be fitted with solar energy panels for water heating and electricity.

This is a requirement in Scotland.

I asked this question of my nieces partner. He’s an architect and they have just moved into their new build first home.
Builders have to put in the equivalent of 10 eco friendly points.
I they can up to 10 without putting in solar panels then they do.
I don’t know the exact breakdown but double glazing, wall and loft insulation will all have a value