A new report by the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University shows that the UK has the best wind resource in Europe. The report, commissioned by the Department of Trade and Industry, analysed hourly wind speeds collected by the Met Office at 66 locations across the UK since the 1970, making it the most extensive research of the UK's wind resource to date.
Among the findings of this independent analysis, the first methodical investigation of Britain's wind resource, are that there has never been a time over the past 35 years when the entire country has been without wind, and that the wind always blows strongly enough to generate electricity somewhere in Britain. The study also showed that wind tends to blow more strongly when demand is highest, during the day and winter months. Furthermore, the chance of low wind speeds affecting 90% of the country only occur for one hour every five years, whilst the chance of wind turbines shutting down due to very high wind speeds only occurs in around one hour every 10 years. Other findings concluded that the wind conditions in the UK are very different from those experienced in Denmark and Germany, making wind power a very real option and opportunity for the UK, as the country has 'the right kind of wind'. The full report of Wind Power and the UK Wind Resource can be found online at www.eci.ox.ac.uk/renewables/ukwind