"whistle for the wind?"
I was intrigued to read Chris Goodall's piece on Carbon Commentary last week that wind farms in the south-east may be facing defaults on their bank loans due to a lack of wind.
It seems that when negotiating with the banks over funding for wind farms, the anticipated generation factor is taken into account - a kind of security against the loan I suppose.
However, 2009's and it's looking like 2010's figures as well, generation figures were much lower than had been forecast due to a lack of wind.
Whilst experts ponder over the wind speed figures and try to re-evaluate their models for predicting wind patterns, based on previous 'cycles', it's leaving some wind farm developers close to defaulting on loans.
Worse still, according to Chris, is the fact that the re-calculation of anticipated energy production figures may put off future investment and make wind farms a not so sure bet.
Chris argues that solar power is much easier to predict than it's green wind 'cousin' however, he concludes that more data is probably required before financial investment will be an attraction.
It's a very in-depth report and if your interest is purely financial, scientific or you're just interested in weather patterns and causes, then there's definitely something for you in Chris's piece.
Read his full report here.
photo credit: ell brown
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