Winds! Winds!

There is a scene in Francis Ford Coppola’s “Dracula” where Gary Oldman’s Count shouts “Vinds! Vinds!” when he finds out his beloved Mina has been snatched out of his hands.

Europe, it seems, has cause to do the same because, once again, wind speeds are low, and so is wind power output. Shockingly unexpected.

Denmark’s Ørsted, the global wind power giant, came out with a press release this weekend, in which it said the government in Copenhagen had ordered it to restart oil-fired and coal-fired power stations to ensure Denmark’s energy security.

We are talking about Denmark, the country that generates close to half of its energy from wind, with coal a distant third (after biomass), accounting for a measly 15.9% and oil accounting for barely 3.7% of the country’s energy mix. I wasn’t joking when I said it was shockingly unexpected.

“We still believe that we, as a society, must phase out the use of gas, oil, and coal as soon as possible, but we're in the middle of a European energy crisis, and we will, of course, contribute to ensuring the electricity supply to the best of our ability," Ørsted said in its statement.

The reasons for the government’s order to keep the fossil fuel power stations operating were not disclosed but a look at Electricity Maps might help since the website now also offers aggregate data for the past 30 days and the past 12 months.

Indeed, I did take a look at Electricity Maps and lo and behold, the data suggested wind power output is not exactly consistent.