how many wind turbines would it take...
 light-bulbs, power-station, wind
is wind power helping to close down power stations?
Last week an energy consultant said that if every household in the UK changed one lightbulb to being an energy-saving one, that would be enough to shut down Didcot power station, and he went through the maths which apparently proved it. If his maths is correct, then it is a simple and persuasive argument.
So I wondered if someone had worked out a similar bit of maths for wind turbines. How many turbines, of what size, would be needed to shut down Didcot?
And is the lightbulb maths correct? Comments
thanks, donal! so that's nearly 9,000 x 1.5mw turbines... phew, a lot more than i expected. 
I have made a quick calculation for you below. didcot uses 3360mw max. (from what I can find on wiki) that is 3360000kw the average power is probably far less. There are probably 24 million households aprox in the UK. Each lightbulb changed would save about 0.080kw during lighting hours. That leaves us at about 1920mw. Strictly speaking lights are only powered on during darkness so it is unlikely the effort would totally shut it down however peak usage is usually during those hours, so in effect he would not be that far out.
2240 wind turbines of 1.5mw would provide that much electricity at peak, however one would need 4 times that number as they only produce 25% of the time on average.
Strictly speaking you have difficulty then when the wind is not blowing. however if someone followed a practical approach the power station could be shut down most of the time and then run when the weather was calm. |
Loading ...
no i don't think so