Unreliable wind farms

The article Where The Wind Blows (July 26) compares the cost of a large offshore wind farm ($2.7 billion) to that of a similar-capacity coal-fuelled power station ($2.3 billion).

Is it not misleading to put side by side the two figures as if apples were being compared to apples? Coal-fired plants can deliver 95 per cent of their capacity on demand, whereas wind farms cannot be relied upon for producing electricity when you need them.

As a consequence, if the mega wind farm is built, it will be necessary to build fossil-fuel plants as well (or renounce decommissioning existing ones) for when there is no wind in the wind farm area. And if wind is blowing in Spain, as the article suggests, its electricity won't be exported northwards unless a Spanish coal plant kicks in to prevent a corresponding blackout in Madrid. So what's the point ?

Isn't Germany, the world leader in wind power, building without fanfare 26 coal-fired power plants?

This, and the need for 24-hour active backup to cushion the wind's erratic performance, leads many experts to disregard wind farming altogether.