UK Wind Record

[Stinsy]

Right when Putin really needs it to be cold and calm we have windy and mild!

[Ken]

Just popped onto the Crown Agents Offshore Wind map. Pretty much everything on there is going almost full chat - for example:

East England
Hornsea 1 is at 95% of nameplate (1.1GW vs 1.2GWp)
The new Hornsea 2 is at 93% (1.2GW vs 1.3GWp)

West England
West of Duddon Sands 96% of capacity (374MW vs 389MWp)

South England
Rampion at 98% (392MW vs 400MWp)

Scotland
Beatrice at 99% 584MW vs 588MWp)

But i suspect nameplate is not max. We have not seen strong, gale force winds yet.

[Oldgreybeard]

Yep - new record

Interesting to see from those data that the "max zero carbon" record was way back in August 2019. There's been a lot of growth in renewable generation since then, especially wind, so it's a bit surprising that we've not beaten that record for such a long time.

[nowty]

ESO says UK did manage a record yesterday of 19.936GW.

Just pipped it, I think the previous one in May was 19.916GW.

[nowty]

Yep - new record

Interesting to see from those data that the "max zero carbon" record was way back in August 2019. There's been a lot of growth in renewable generation since then, especially wind, so it's a bit surprising that we've not beaten that record for such a long time.

Maybe because the UK has lost a few GW of Nuke fleet since 2019. And this year looks to me like higher gas usage because of the net leccy exports to Europe instead of net imports. Yesterday we were still burning 8 GW of gas at record wind time.

[dan_b]

That would make sense.

[nowty]

Tomorrow looks windy but Wednesday 2nd Nov looks nuts and at peak time too. Potential to smash the recent 19.936 GW record.
Only caveat, will Europe want our export as it will be windy over the Dutch, Danish and German offshore wind farms too. But clocks have gone back so it will be dark.

For reference, and from my observations, the colour of green might give a wind turbine 50%, yellow 75%, pinky brown 95%, orange 100%.

[dan_b]

I think all our European linked interconnectors will still export, as those countries will then re-export back to France, which is lagging behind on its nuclear restart (strike action mainly!).

[Oldgreybeard]

Easy to understand from those wind direction arrows why the weather seems so mild! Looks like lots of relatively warm air blowing our way.

[Mart]

Yep, France will want the energy, plus anything that reduces demand on gas at the moment will be bought as it helps overall costs. I assume Norway will be buying some 'cheap' export as they get to use their enormous hydro as a form of storage (even though it's not PHS) by dialling down the hydro gen.

If we do get to around 17GW of interconnectors by mid decade(?), then watching the interaction with mainland Europe will be fascinating. I'm still amazed how much fun I find all of this, and the REvolution.