Wind Power requires back up or the lights go out

Roger Helmer is a member of the European Parliament. He runs his own blog titled RogerHelmerMEP.

He has recently been to Vaasa, Finland, with the European Energy Forum.

Wärtsilä has made a rational commercial decision to market these machines as back-up for wind, given the commitment of European governments to renewables.  But the message I took away was that wind, as a significant contributor to power generation, absolutely requires back-up. 

Otherwise, when the wind drops, the lights go out. 

We were shown a series of graphs clearly demonstrating the need for additional conventional back-up capacity in the mix, given the typical pattern of wind speeds.  (We also saw a graph that destroyed the myth of the Greens, that intermittency can be solved with a European super-grid because “over such a big area, the wind is always blowing somewhere”.  No it isn’t. 

Roger is critical about remarks made by David Cameron

I mean no disrespect to our Prime Minister, but the level of ignorance and complacency shown by his remarks is truly frightening.

Roger then makes a statement that hits the bullseye:

Let me offer you an heretical idea: why not just build the back-up, and forget the wind?