Wind power load factor in the United Kingdom

Journal article

The United Kingdom has ambitious plans to construct large fleets of wind generators both on- and offshore. This programme is driven by the Renewables Obligation (RO), a support mechanism that adds around £1 billion a year to consumer bills at present and is forecast, in its current incarnation, to have cost the consumer around £32 billion in total by 2027. Revisions intended as part of the Renewable Energy Strategy to meet the EU’s 2020 target of 15 percent of Final Energy Consumption must be expected to require an even greater levy on electricity users. The effectiveness of the Renewables Obligation is difficult to gauge from build rates and total installed capacity, since it is not immediately evident that the RO encourages the selection of higher rather than lower load factor sites. Load factor is also a matter of considerable interest to investors, due to its effect on Internal Rate of Return (IRR). This article aims to move towards a better understanding of these matters via a statistical examination of the distribution of load factors in 2006 and 2007. The monthly load factor for all renewable generators registered under the Obligation can be calculated from raw data issued by the regulator, the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem). These load factors are published in a convenient and where necessary corrected form by the Renewable Energy Foundation. Using this database we have extracted annual load factors for those operational wind farms for which a complete year’s generation data are available in 2006 and 2007. This amounts to 139 sites and approximately 1,600 MW of installed capacity.

Authors: Constable, J; Aoyama, H

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Oxford Institute for Energy Studies
• Journal: Oxford Energy Forum
• Issue: 78
• Pages: 17-20
• Publication date: 2009-08-17
• ISSN: 0959-7727
• Language: English
• Keywords: OIES