Wind turbine manufacturer Evans of Loughborough to supply Scottish Water

The Leicester Mercury reports that Evance, of Loughborough, is providing three of its small wind turbines at Scottish Water's waste water treatment works at Broadford, on the Isle of Skye.
Another three turbines will be installed in the town of Portree, also on the Isle of Skye, and a further three will be sited at the water treatment works on the nearby Raasay island.
Read more at http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/Wind-turbines-maker-supply-utility-group/story-20013254-detail/story.html

Nuclear outage

Amongst all the familiar anti-wind propaganda and wind power-related ignorance, one can't help wondering what proportion of the British population is aware of the recent/current nuclear outage?

See http://nuclear.energy-business-review.com/news/dungeness-b-nuclear-power-station-shuts-down-due-to-power-loss-291013.

I wonder what exactly caused it? A plastic bag, perhaps? Or maybe a flying pig of the 'nuclear power is cheap, safe and reliable' variety?

Anyway, for a reality check on 'but the wind doesn't always blow'-type stories, see http://prowa.org.uk/variability.html.

On a lighter note, looks like pigs can fly after all - see below (no need to watch the whole clip, unless you want to - just focus on the first 20 seconds).

Michigan's new tourist attraction? Like them or not, wind turbines

Good article at http://www.freep.com/article/20131020/FEATURES/310200073/State-s-new-tourist-attraction-Like-them-not-wind-turbines.

Some quotes:

I was driving down the road when the sun was coming up one morning, and the sun hit the turbines and it was beautiful.

Some travellers see wind turbines as engineering marvels and symbols of energy independence.

Some see beauty in a sunset that makes the towers shine, or charm in a scene of a small house dwarfed by a turning blade.

Wind turbines are our new tourist attraction. We may as well make peace with them.

World’s Largest Wind Turbine

Impressive! See article here. They mention visitors. Anyone fancy a visit? :-)

67% of Brits favour local wind farms

More than two-thirds of UK citizens support building more wind farms in their immediate areas.

Read more at http://www.ewea.org/blog/2013/09/67-of-brits-favour-local-wind-farms

A green energy future

A team of University researchers have found that a large majority of the British public support moves to an efficient, clean, fair, and safe energy system but distrust remains a concern.

Transforming the UK energy system – public values, attitudes and acceptability brings together the findings from two in-depth phases of research carried out over a period of 30 months; a series of six in-depth deliberative workshops with members of the public held across England, Scotland and Wales, and a nationally representative survey of 2,441 members of the public.

Read the full article at http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/articles/a-green-energy-future-11372.html

Power system reserve - No need to build wind back-up

Excellent article at http://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1192957/power-system-reserve---no-need-build-wind-back-up

Key Points:

• Back-up is always provided for all power plants on a system, with or without wind
• There is no need to build back-up for wind; existing power plants in any system provide the required back-up for all plants
• Wind generation displaces fossil-fuel generation and some of those plants can be taken out of operation
• As the penetration of wind increases in any power system, the volume of capacity that is operated at part load, ready to ramp up or down according to peaks in demand or unexpected generation shortfalls, increases slightly to maintain a consistent probability of security of supply
• Since the volume of extra reserve when adding wind is modest so is the additional cost. Savings from wind replacing other generation are likely to more than cover that extra cost
• The emissions saved by wind displacing fossil-fuel generation are far greater than any extra emissions from increased spinning reserve.

Have added the info to the ProWA 'variability page' at http://www.prowa.org.uk/variability.html