Energy Numbers

Thanks to the wonderful statisticians and data managers at ENS and Energinet.DK, we have a large amount of detailed data from Danish onshore and offshore wind farms. Here’s one quick cut of it: the average capacity factors, to date of every Danish offshore wind farm, newly updated to include data to the end of Dec 2012. The relatively new wind farm Horns Rev II has the best lifetime capacity factor to date, with a striking 48.4%, and for 2012 alone a blistering 52.0%.

Danish windfarms also include the most productive wind turbines in the world, at Rønland I: the turbines have been operating for over 10 years now, with a lifetime capacity factor of 44.6%; of its eight turbines, four are rated at 2.3MW peak power, and each had by the end of December  2012 generated over 87 GWh — a world record for individual wind turbines.

All data is to the end of Dec 2012	2012 capacity factor	Life capacity factor	Age (y)	MWp	Total elec. gen. (GWh)	Rolling annual capacity factors (click to enlarge)
Total	44.9%	39.1%		871	19,457
Avedøre Holme	40.1%	38.0%	2.5	10.8	90
Frederikshavn	30.8%	29.8%	9.6	7.6	191
Horns Rev I	48.1%	41.2%	10.2	160	5877
Horns Rev II	52.0%	48.4%	3.3	209.3	2959
Middelgrunden	25.8%	25.6%	12.0	40	1078
Nysted (Rødsand) I	39.5%	36.8%	9.5	165.6	5097
Nysted (Rødsand) II	45.9%	44.5%	2.5	207	2053
Rønland I	48.5%	44.6%	10.0	17.2	671
Samsø	42.2%	39.5%	9.9	23	787
Sprogo	36.4%	35.6%	3.2	21	208
Tunø Knob	32.6%	29.9%	17.6	5	231
Vindeby	20.2%	23.5%	21.3	4.95	217

Calculation method

The capacity figures are calculated by calculating, for each turbine in a given wind farm, the number of hours since it was first connected to the grid. This is then multiplied by its capacity, to give the number of peak-MW-hours. These figures are summed across all turbines in a wind farm, and divided into the total energy generated by that wind farm, to give its capacity factor.

Sources

ENS register of Danish wind turbines: thanks to ENS and to Energinet.DK for making the turbine-specific data behind this table available.