Did anyone see the news yesterday? The windmills at Robin Rigg made the national news because... apparently, it has been too windy for them to turn. What's the point of these things, if they cannot work in the wind?

News and Star:

Quote:

Bad weather has delayed the switch on of Robin Rigg windfarm, off the Cumbrian coast, for more than a month. But power company E.on hopes that, with a settled weather forecast later this week, the £330m windfarm will be producing electricity shortly. Work on the 60-turbine windfarm began in 2007. E.on has been ready to start power generation since the beginning of August but high winds and poor visibility have prevented the switch on. Spokeswoman Rebecca Mara said: “Once it is operational the wind can blow as much as it wants. “But we need a good three days of calm weather for our guys to do the final checks. “The forecast for this week is pretty good, so it’s looking promising – we’re hopeful.” Robin Rigg will provide enough electricity to power 120,000 homes. The windfarm is seven miles off Maryport and Silloth in Scottish waters. Each turbine is 410ft high, 100ft taller than the clock tower that houses London’s Big Ben. They can be seen from both sides of the Solway Firth. The turbines are connected to an offshore substation, which in turn will be linked by two under-water cables to feed into the National Grid at Seaton near Workington. One of these cables is already in place, allowing production to start. The Met Office is predicting rain and wind today but sunny and relatively calm conditions on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The project has been hit by delays before. In September 2007 a jack-up barge working on the foundations punctured the sea bed and began to capsize. Then in January this year, 42 workers were evacuated from a cable-laying barge after four of its five anchors broke free in bad weather.

I know they are not popular with a lot of folk for various reasons. And no I wouldn't want one in my backyard or too close. But it does seem like a good clean way to produce electricity. So I have no problems with them being out at sea.

But I would like to see more done to turn off the unnecessary 24/7 advertising on the sides of buildings in big cities like London. What a waste of power imho. Cut the waste and we might not need as many power stations.