Tuesday 13 September 2011

High winds lead UK to halt turbines for third night

Britain's energy network operator National Grid stopped a number of wind turbines in Scotland for a third consecutive night on Monday, the operator said, as high winds threatened to cause an overload in power output and block the grid.

"There was some curtailment again last night due to high wind generation and low demand - 650 MW (megawatts), about 13 wind farms," a spokesman for National Grid said.

On Saturday and Sunday night, 750 MW and 300 MW of wind capacity was shut down as remnants of hurricane Katia hit the British mainland, creating wind speeds of 75-80 miles per hour.

When high power output from wind farms, mainly located in Scotland, coincides with low electricity demand periods at night, the local transmission network overloads. In these scenarios National Grid cuts off a number of wind farms to ease congestion.

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