National Grid curtails UK wind production in Katia aftermath

UK: High winds in Scotland have forced the UK grid operator National Grid to curtail electricity production from some of the country’s wind farms.

by James Quilter 14 September 2011

Scotland's 322MW Whitelee wind farm is the largest project in the UK

Around 13 of Scotland’s wind farms were curtailed over the last four days due to high wind at night. The conditions stemmed from Hurricane Katia.

Although Scotland has a high number of wind farms and good wind conditions, grid restrictions mean the surplus electricity cannot be used in southern England.  

A spokesman for National Grid said between 300MW and 750MW of capacity had been curtailed over the weekend. On Monday evening, the UK produced 3.1GW from wind. The record is 4.5GW.

The forecast for today is 2.5GW.

The National Grid said the last time it took similar balancing measures was in April.