 Quote by mheslep
If Belgium was to plan for some dependence on this system one would target the Capacity rating of ~115MW (35%) and not the name plate rating of 300MW (=60*5MW). The wind dips below that as you say 20% of the time, and is at no power 4% of the time. Im guessing there's a trade off in wind farm design: max energy collection vs max availability, and the Belgians, already having plenty of nuclear backup  , swung for the fence. |
You have to know that this project is a pilot project in a program to phase out nuclear (of which Belgium has about 5.6 GW installed, which accounts for 56% of its production) and replace it by wind and gas: at least that was the proposition back 5 years ago when socialists and green party which were in the gov. then voted for that law. I would have preferred seeing this kind of wind farm in addition to nuclear (which is existing) to reduce coal-fired plants... I have a hard time imagining they are going to multiply this with a factor of 56. I think they will end up replacing nuclear by a lot of gas and a few windmills.
I'm not against such kind of wind farm, on the contrary. My view is that each KW hour produced in the current situation is a KW hour less produced by coal. But given the situation, I find it stupid to use that to try to phase out partially nuclear, while one is rather well placed to use it to diminish coal consumption.
I have the serious impression that it is oversold and the "300 MW" label is part of that.