{"id":488,"date":"2020-10-15T16:16:04","date_gmt":"2020-10-15T16:16:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.uk\/?p=488"},"modified":"2021-03-05T13:49:35","modified_gmt":"2021-03-05T13:49:35","slug":"wind-power-breezes-past-nuclear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/?p=488","title":{"rendered":"Wind power breezes past nuclear"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>by Dr Iain Staffell &#8211; Imperial College London&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Britain\u2019s wind farms have enjoyed another record-breaking three months. Peak output surpassed 14 GW for the first time, and wind produced more electricity than nuclear over the quarter.<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Last quarter,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/environment\/wind-solar-overtake-nuclear-electricity-source-uk-first-time-renewable-energy-a8281656.html\">wind and solar overtook nuclear generation in Britain<\/a>, but now wind by itself has beaten nuclear for the first time. In the first quarter of 2018, wind produced 15,560 GWh of electricity \u2013 30 GWh more than nuclear.&nbsp;<br><br><em>Quarterly energy production from wind farms, solar and nuclear reactors<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"752\" height=\"749\" src=\"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/fig-6@4x-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-475\" srcset=\"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/fig-6@4x-1.png 752w, https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/fig-6@4x-1-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/fig-6@4x-1-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/fig-6@4x-1-90x90.png 90w, https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/fig-6@4x-1-75x75.png 75w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 752px) 100vw, 752px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>After surpassing 11 GW and 12 GW of peak output last quarter, this quarter wind broke through 13 GW on January 17th and then 14 GW on March 17th (see chart below).&nbsp;<br><br><em>Half-hourly power output from wind and nuclear during the quarter<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/fig-7@4x-1024x375.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-476\" srcset=\"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/fig-7@4x-1024x375.png 1024w, https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/fig-7@4x-300x110.png 300w, https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/fig-7@4x-768x282.png 768w, https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/fig-7@4x-1536x563.png 1536w, https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/fig-7@4x-2048x751.png 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Britain\u2019s wind farms produced 18.8% of electricity over the quarter, and at their peak they supplied 47.3% of the country\u2019s demand (another new record). This happened overnight on March 17th, when temperatures once again dipped below freezing. There has been&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/earth\/energy\/windpower\/8234616\/Wind-farms-becalmed-just-when-needed-the-most.html\">much<\/a>&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/finance\/newsbysector\/energy\/9508765\/UK-wind-power-predictable-enough-to-keep-lights-on-says-think-tank-IPPR.html\">debate<\/a>&nbsp;on whether wind can be relied upon during a cold, calm spell. During the six sub-zero days this quarter, wind provided between 12% and 43% of electricity demand, operating at a minimum of 4.4 GW.&nbsp;<br><br><em>Authors:<\/em>&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imperial.ac.uk\/people\/i.staffell\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Dr Iain Staffell<\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imperial.ac.uk\/people\/r.green\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Professor Richard Green<\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imperial.ac.uk\/people\/robert.gross\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Dr Rob Gross<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imperial.ac.uk\/people\/t.green\">Professor Tim Green<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Britain\u2019s wind farms have enjoyed another record-breaking three months. Peak output surpassed 14 GW for the first time, and wind produced more electricity than nuclear over the quarter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":963,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-q1-2018"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=488"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1585,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions\/1585"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}