When discussing renewable energy, it is a cliché (but a necessary cliché) to talk about intermittency: The sun doesn’t always shine, the wind doesn’t always blow, you know how it goes.
Almost exactly three years ago, I noted that the wind might be “not blowing” a bit more, quoting, among others, Frank Jacobs in The Big Think:
Unfortunately for Europe, it doesn’t seem that last year’s “wind drought” was a one-off. In its latest report, the IPCC predicts a drop of 6% to 8% in average wind speeds across Europe by 2050. As wind speeds become increasingly inconstant, the cost of wind energy will become more unpredictable and its provision more unreliable. . . .
I commented that the central planners who run so much of climate policy might not have thought this all through.
Move on from November 2022 to November 2025, and this report by the Daily Telegraph’s Jonathan Leake:
After decades of building and billions of pounds in investment, Britain’s wind power industry faces an unusual challenge: a lack of wind.
Orsted — Britain’s leading offshore windfarm operator — recently reported a 10pc decline in wind speed this year, cutting earnings by £236m.
Similar warnings have followed from SSE, owner of the giant Dogger Bank development, and Scottish Power, which has 40 operational UK wind farms.
SSE switched on dozens of new turbines this year but output remained the same because they were all spinning more slowly than intended.
Investing yet more money in inferior technology to get an even more inferior result is quite something even in the wretched annals of climatism and those who feed off it. Wind companies are telling the markets this is a blip. Maybe, maybe not. There is a reason that one of the markers of humanity’s advance has been a reduction in its unhealthy dependence on “mother” nature.
Leake, meanwhile, cites the view that rising global temperatures are slowing average wind speeds, a phenomenon known as “wind stilling” (or “global stilling”):
Extra heat appears to be ironing out the global temperature differences that drive the winds. Such “global stilling” could see a 10pc decline in average wind speeds by 2100, some estimates suggest. The impact on profits would be far greater given the way turbines work.
Obviously this possibility (?) was already understood in 2022, but it was not some new thing even then. The Daily Telegraph’s report is illustrated by a chart showing that British wind speeds fell sharply in the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s. The pace of decline has eased noticeably since then, although the fall has continued, at least in the U.K. (there may have been some reversal in this trend more generally of late, although less than once thought).
So stilling has been recognized for some time, but when was it first identified for what it probably was?
2010, it seems.
Physics Today (October 21, 2010):
Despite global warming, the rate of water evaporation over land surfaces has steadily declined in the past few decades. That unexpected trend, observed by farmers and climate-change scientists alike, has been linked to a decline in surface wind speeds over the same period. The challenge of quantifying the stilling-winds phenomenon on a global scale was recently taken up by Robert Vautard and his colleagues at the Climate Science and Environment Laboratory in France and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts in the UK. By analyzing data from more than 800 weather stations, the researchers found that 73% reported that wind speeds measured 10 meters above the ground had declined by up to 15% from 1979 to 2008.
In 2012, the Journal of Hydrology published an extensive report on slower wind speeds, using the term “stilling.”
Substantial investments in wind power had already been made by this point, but there was much, much more to come.
It would be interesting to know to what extent, after say 2012, this was factored into governments’ calculations on the value and cost of wind power.
We do know that the British Energy Secretary’s department cut its forecasts last month by a quarter, citing “updated modeling.” I wrote about that here:
The government had (reportedly) stuck with their estimates until now despite being told by developers, the people who actually know how wind turbines work, that its numbers were “statistically absurd.” Central planners always know best.
And central planners are also infamous for suppressing inconvenient data.
If I were an opposition MP, I might be asking a few questions about this. And this is not merely a British matter: It would be interesting to know what assumptions have been made about stilling in other countries, too.
After all, as the Daily Telegraph’s Leake writes:
UN scientists have separately warned that climate change is set to reduce winds globally and permanently. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that average global wind speeds could slow by 10pc by 2100 as the world warms up.
Their models suggest that winds are driven largely by the temperature difference between the poles and the equator. But global warming is heating the poles faster than the equator and so reducing the temperature gradients that fuel the wind.
Even small-sounding falls in wind speed can have a significant effect on wind companies’ profitability.
Leake:
Jean-Paul Harreman, of energy analyst Montel, says: “Energy from the wind rises with the cube of wind speed: double the wind, and you get eight times the power.
“But it means even a small drop in average wind speed makes a big dent in generation. For example, a 5pc fall in wind speed can mean roughly 15pc less electricity. This ‘cube law’ is why calm years hit wind farm profits so hard.”
Ørsted has not been the only wind company to be hit by stilling. Leake reports that Citigroup analysts are warning that declining wind speeds mean that investors should take a new look at output forecasts and the implications on a project’s profitability. Corporate managements should do the same.
One of the many misleading ways in which ESG was sold to investors was that it was an investment discipline that took a much broader view of risk (including climate risk). I wonder if ESG “analysis” took account of problems posed by global stilling, and whether this risk was disclosed. A question for securities lawyers, perhaps.
Oh yes, looking specifically at the North Sea, the Citigroup team also, Leake reported, found “that the number and size of wind farms around the UK is now so great that it is slowing down wind across thousands of square miles of ocean.”
I wrote about this “wake effect” in May:
Apparently, there is only so much seabed that can accommodate this “unlimited” resource [wind]. And the larger the turbines and the wind farms grow, the greater the wake effect, which can be felt over miles.
Say it ain’t so. Surely the central planners had thought this all through. Surely.
The U.K. has already installed 2,800 wind turbines offshore. Its climate commissar, Ed Miliband, set on seeing even more good money thrown after bad, wants this number to be tripled, meaning that this problem is not going away.
Nope.