Wrong wind sums

David Simmons is at least an order of magnitude out. Probably nearer than the politicians though

I agree with the sentiments expressed by David Simmons, but he has got his sums wrong regarding the number of windmills needed to replace a nuclear station. 

As Professor Ian Fells once explained, the nominal output of an AGR was 1200MW. Records from 10 years of operation of on shore windmills at Blyth gave a 25% load factor. If we take 2MW as being a reasonable sized machine this means we need 600 x 4=2400 windmills to give the equivalent average power. Therefore to replace all the AGRs we are talking about over 15,000 windmills. 

This is a very simplistic calculation, but I think we can say that Mr Simmons is at least an order of magnitude out. Probably nearer than the politicians though! 

Colin Warburton, Stockton-on-Tees

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