December wind generation
Posted: Sun Dec 27, 2020 6:05 pm
Before anyone gets on at me by saying that I do not live in Paphos, what I am about to say applies to the whole country.
It is not sufficient that the wind turbines are turning. They do not generate any electricity at wind speeds of less than 4 m/s. Depending on the design, they require a sustained wind speed of 12 to 15 m/s, to obtain their full output. Gusting generally reduces the output by anything from 30 to 80%.
During the month of December, at my location, the highest sustained wind speed was on the 11th at 1.0 m/s and the highest gust was 11.8 m/s on the 14th but the average on the same day was 0.5 m/s. My location is fairly sheltered, so that the wind in winter averages about one quarter of the official wind speeds, so that you can safely multiply these figures (except the 11.8 m/s) by between 3 and 4 to obtain the average, countrywide.
In other words, December was pretty catastrophic for electricity generation in our windfarms.
Another measure which gives an idea of what is going on is the wind run. Put simply, this is the distance a tiny light feather would fly. Again, in my location, multiply the figures by three to four. In effect, the wind run approximates an unknown proportion of the electricity that would be generated. Over the month so far, the lowest wind run was a mere 1 km on the 19th December – you could puff that! The highest wind run was on the 11th, which correlates with the earlier paragraph and was only 86.1 km, which is still very low. The average for the month was about 10 km per day.
It is not sufficient that the wind turbines are turning. They do not generate any electricity at wind speeds of less than 4 m/s. Depending on the design, they require a sustained wind speed of 12 to 15 m/s, to obtain their full output. Gusting generally reduces the output by anything from 30 to 80%.
During the month of December, at my location, the highest sustained wind speed was on the 11th at 1.0 m/s and the highest gust was 11.8 m/s on the 14th but the average on the same day was 0.5 m/s. My location is fairly sheltered, so that the wind in winter averages about one quarter of the official wind speeds, so that you can safely multiply these figures (except the 11.8 m/s) by between 3 and 4 to obtain the average, countrywide.
In other words, December was pretty catastrophic for electricity generation in our windfarms.
Another measure which gives an idea of what is going on is the wind run. Put simply, this is the distance a tiny light feather would fly. Again, in my location, multiply the figures by three to four. In effect, the wind run approximates an unknown proportion of the electricity that would be generated. Over the month so far, the lowest wind run was a mere 1 km on the 19th December – you could puff that! The highest wind run was on the 11th, which correlates with the earlier paragraph and was only 86.1 km, which is still very low. The average for the month was about 10 km per day.
