Clarification: Green Mountain Power is the sole owner of the Searsburg wind generation facility. Information in the Dec. 23 edition of the Vermont Guardian implied otherwise.
Obvious nonsense
Regarding your article on the East Haven wind farm and Vermonters of the Year (Dec. 23): All of the currently proposed wind power projects in Vermont (up to 312 MW) would provide only 10 percent of our current needs. They are practically irrelevant to the unlikely loss, desired or otherwise, of Hydro Quebec and/or Vermont Yankee.
Wind power does not respond to demand. It may or may not be there when needed. The Searsburg facility, for example, generates no power at all almost 40 percent of the time. With widely distributed installations on a system, as in Germany, their average infeed is reached only a third of the time. Even when the wind is blowing well, the system must be ready (i.e., burning fuel in “spinning reserve”) to provide power when the wind drops again at any time.
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