Doesn’t the variable nature of wind preclude it from contributing to baseload power?
Because of the variable nature of the wind, the power output from wind turbines is sometimes thought to be unreliable, and thus its potential contributions to the grid’s baseload is often ignored. In truth, wind energy has the potential to contribute to baseload power. The amount of power produced by a wind farm that can be considered as reliable baseload depends on circumstances unique to the area being considered. Among the biggest factors: increasing the area being considered (the size of the balancing area), increasing the number of turbines, increasing the geographic diversity of the turbines, and increasing the frequency with which the load is balanced all have the effect of increasing the percentage of the turbine’s output that can be considered as reliable baseload power. In short, the best strategy is diversification. While the output of a single 1.5 MW wind turbine is highly variable, the output of a 100 MW wind farm is significantly less so. If the output of one wind farm is
