In terms of Kyoto, we have a rather unique problem there: too many cows. And we already generate close to 70% of our power from renewable sources (mostly hydro, with a dash of geothermal), so there's not much scope for emission reductions through replacing generation capacity. Instead, we have to focus on transport and agricultural emissions - both of which are more difficult to solve.
Given our large amount of hydro, there's obviously a lot of potential for synergy with wind. And strangely, it seems to be the companies who own dams who are building wind turbines...
Idiot/Savant No Right Turn - New Zealand's liberal blog
Regarding Kyoto and NZ transport, I heard ocassionally of the continuing voes of Tranzrail and its reincarnations, maybe some government programme here would make sense. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
I looked up - Horn Rev, the best, was slated to deliver 0.6 TWh per year with 160 MW, that would have been 42.8%. However, calculating from this gigantic Excel table, I see it didn't yet realise that: 0.46 TWh in 2003 (i.e. 32.8%) and 0.367 TWh in 2004 (i.e. 26.2%). Tough, bad wind years and the replacement of faulty generators might have played a role - this year, it already produced 0.291 TWh in the first five months.
(both images: Horns Rev offshore park, Denmark)
*Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
While Nysted, the other large farm (72 turbines, 165.6 MW) achieved 39.7%, the small Samsø park (10 turbines, 23 MW) managed 40.2%, and the even smaller Thyborøn-Harboøre park (8 turbines, 18.4 MW) holds the record with 42.76%. (Older off-shore parks are all much lower.) As all of them were finished in 2003, all the above records were achieved in their first and so far only full year, 2004 - which was a rather weak year, so I'd expect new records this year. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
The Horns Rev windfarm has been beset by a number of problems and Vestas indeed ended up changing the whole gearboxes for the full wind farm. It cost them in the order of 40m$ (some ot if was paid by ABB, which provided some flawed subsystem).
They've had much better number since the changes, but I'm not sure it's been a full year yet. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
