Battered U.K. Turbines Switch On After Halting in 165 Miles per Hour Winds

[jpak]

http://webfarm.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-09/battered-u-k-turbines-switch-on-after-halting-in-165-mph-winds.html

he U.K.’s wind farms returned to normal after halting yesterday to protect them from the strongest gales in 25 years.

Almost two-thirds of Britain’s 5.25 billion pounds ($8.2 billion) of wind power capacity may have automatically stopped generating yesterday as gusts triggered protection mechanisms, National Grid Plc said. Gusts on the summit of Cairngorm, Scotland’s sixth-highest mountain, peaked at 165 miles per hour (265 kilometers per hour), the most since 1986, according to data on the U.K.’s Met Office website.

“It’s incredibly unusual wind speeds that we experienced, public transport’s been disrupted and there’s been huge amounts of structural damage,” said Niall Stuart, chief executive officer in Glasgow at Scottish Renewables, a lobby group that promotes cleaner energy.

Britain has about 4,000 megawatts of wind turbines linked to the nation’s electricity network, enough to supply 8 million European homes. Infinis Plc, the renewables company owned by Guy Hands, is investigating after one of its turbines caught fire yesterday in an incident involving a machine made by Vestas Wind Systems A/S, the world’s largest turbine maker.

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[Bob Wallace]

1. Yep...

Turbines shut down in the heaviest of wind conditions.

But turbines somewhat removed from the heaviest wind are going to be spinning close to nameplate capacity and pumping out the power. Tie everything together and the grid smiles.

The wind does not blow like stink everywhere at once. Systems move across the landscape.

[jberryhill]

3. Yes, but if the turbines shut down

Then they leave vast streams of unprocessed raw wind in their wake. This uncontrolled emission of wind into the atmosphere may have devastating consequences.

[DCKit]

4. Yes, unprocessed wind is certainly far worse than processed wind. nt

[jwirr]

2. This sounds like success to me. They shut down when they had

to and they seen to have escaped a lot of damage.