Wind farm argument misapplies load factor

RICHARD S COURTNEY says ‘wind power provides negligible electricity’ (Irish Examiner letters, April 6). He provided a link to a document to back his assertion. Unfortunately, that essay is replete with elementary errors.

In particular, it repeated the incorrect ‘fact’ that wind farms only produce power a third of the time. Wind farm opponents often assert this misunderstanding.

To quote the link: ‘But the proportion of time a wind turbine operates is called its load factor. And the load factors achieved by commercial wind farms are low.’ This is a misunderstanding of the concept of ‘load factor’ or ‘capacity factor’ as it applies to wind turbines. It is not ‘availability’. Wind turbines typically are available at near 100%.