Bad news for Britain’s clean energies: a “wind drought” is slowing or halted wind power’s production around the country. The energy produced in July this year is down 40 per cent if compared to the same period last year.
«We’ve been typically doing between 2 to 3 gigawatts of wind generation – says Rob Gross of Imperial College London, which complied the data – At a windier time of the year we might be doing 9 or 10». According to Grahame Madge, a spokesman for the UK Met Office, this problem is due to an unusually prolonged period of high pressure. «It’s like a lid, it keeps everything still – Madge explains – from the forecast looking out over the next couple of weeks, there doesn’t seem to be any significant change on the way».
Also the National Grid shows concerns about this situation, although the problem is still under control. It said, in a statement, that «between 4th June and 15th July wind generation was around 30% lower compared to the same period last year» but «electricity demand is low and we’re comfortable with the level of spare generation we have available».
«As we continue to transition to a low carbon energy system, managing the intermittency of renewable power is an important role in balancing supply and demand – they explain from the National Grid – However we have planned for these changes and ready to play our part».
The price of natural gas has ticked up slightly, of course. Indeed, the lack of wind makes essential to burn more gas. UK is not alone in this situation: also Ireland has similar problems, with the addition of a more energy’s lack due to a drought in water levels that is slowing the hydroelectric power generation during the last month.
Climate change will make this problem more frequent in next decades. A report published in Nature Geoscience explains how wind power would decrease in the northern hemisphere but increase in the southern hemisphere. A problem – as the researchers said – that could lead to a loss of around 18 per cent of wind over the central US by 2100.