Doesn the dirty back up power required when the wind stops blowing mean that the CO2 saving is wiped out?
This rather bizarre claim is increasingly common among anti-wind campaigners. Their argument runs like this: “Because wind power is intermittent (it varies with the weather) it needs dedicated back-up for when the wind doesn’t blow. This back up will be coal powered stations that have to be kept ‘spinning’ (ie burning) at low level so they are ready to go immediately that the wind drops. Burning like this is inefficient so the emissions they make are roughly the same as if they were actually generating electricity. Therefore wind power saves no carbon because the back-up emits the same as if there were no wind turbines in the first place.” This argument is, quite simply, wrong. The national grid has back-up capacity in it simply to handle the huge fluctuations in demand which happen during normal operations – regardless of wind power. Back-up is needed for all forms of energy generation because of unexpected increases in demand (for example, the advert break in Coronation Street) – or
