Last night's Channel 4 'Grand Designs' was about the building of yet another eco house, this time near Ipswich. The house was to be built in a south facing curve with walls designed to capture heat and store it in summer for release later in the year; I am not sure that is logical but let that pass. There were to be solar panels on the roof and a wind turbine in the garden so as to make them all but self-sufficient for power. I looked at Mrs NotaSheep and said I bet you £20 they are not self-sufficient and are relying on the grid electricity, what about when there's no wind? Mrs NotaSheep rolled her eyes, reduced the stake to £10 and we watched on. This wind turbine was going to wonderful as a new gearbox meant it was even more efficient at converting wind into power...
The solar panels were dropped from the spec as the couple ran out of money. When Kevin McCloud returned to the finished house he noted that the wind turbine was not running and the owner/designer/builder admitted that It had produced almost no power since it had been up and that the super-duper gearbox actually consumed more power than the turbine produced. Mrs NotaSheep conveniently forgot about the bet, but then it wasn't really fair as it was a dead cert that this wind turbine would fail. Why do people not realise that they cannot produce power when there is no wind and that in most of the UK that is a common state of affairs. It seems that too many people just believe that wind power works because that is the received 'wisdom'. After all Ed Miliband and Chris Huhne seem willing to bet not £10 but the future of UK power generation on wind power working. Whose the fool them or me?
Incidenatlly what happened to the foutrth daughter last night. At the neginning of the show both Jonathan and Lindsay were shhown with two daughters but the project only called for three children's bedrooms and the potential guest bedroom turned into a study. Did the fourth daughter decide that she did not want a bedroom that so closely resembled a prison cell?
Absolutely right, I keep an eye on the Neta Electricity summary page, in the last 24 Hours wind turbines delivered just 0.4% of our power because we have high pressure over Britain, a common occurrence when it is cold in the winter (ie. when you need it most)
ReplyDeleteThe whole thing is a giant scam to make money for the companies that own the turbines.
I wouldn't knock wind that much. It is variable, but only slowly over time and not as variable as demand, so there is always a need for excess supply / backup.
ReplyDeleteBut domestic windpower makes little sense. Would you really want to live on a site suitable for wind power? Probably not, hence most domestic windpower is worse than useless.