THE PRESS OFFICE OF
The Lord Stoddart of Swindon 

In a written response to a question raised in the House of Lords by the independent Labour Peer, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, the Government has provided statistics which clearly show that the amount of power supplied by wind turbines during the extreme cold weather experienced in Britain in the early part of January 2010 was minimal.  During most of the period 1 - 15th January, the wind power system was providing less than 50% of its capacity and frequently lower than 30%.  On three days of the winter freeze it was providing 10% or less, with the lowest output at 5% on 7th January.  To put this in context, even with the wind system operating in normal weather conditions, it can only produce around 1% of the country's power requirement.

Lord Stoddart said:  "These figures show once again that wind power is at its most unreliable when our need for power is at its peak.  The weather trend for the last three years has been for successively colder winters and we find that the much vaunted wind turbine system lets us down every time.  How can we possibly rely on this grossly over-expensive subsidised system to replace the coal fired power stations we must start shutting down in three years time at the behest of the European Union?  Far from recognising the fundamental weakness of the wind system, the Government's answer is to build thousands more turbines.  It doesn't matter how many turbines we install, if the wind isn't blowing because of cold, still winter days, the blades won't turn.  Unless there is an urgent rethink of Government policy on power generation, we really are going into a dark and cold age." 

Ends

The full text of Lord Stoddart's question and the Government's reply is as follows:

Extract from Hansard 26 Jan 2010 : Column WA310