> You didn't provide a cite, FWIW. But taking the numbers as given:
Ah, hell. It was meant to be 'https://energynumbers.info/germanys-offshore-wind-capacity-f...', which was Google's infobox for when I searched 'germany wind power capacity factor'.
> Find the data for any one gas plant. How often was it producing (emphasis in the original) no power? I'll bet anything that most plants are offline quite a bit more than 10%, precisely because demand itself is variable and gas is the easiest plant to bring up and down. Yet you call one a "reliability" metric and the other not, why?
I call wind's lack of production a reliability metric because I don't get to choose when the lack of production happens. My home's generator might only run for <1% of the year, but as long as it runs when I need it it's perfectly reliable.
> I'm not aware of even one instance of a "calm day blackout". Not one. Have a cite for that?
What's a 'calm day blackout'? Is it when there's no power produced by an individual wind farm, or is it when rolling blackouts happen because the wind farm didn't produce enough power, in conjunction with the rest of the power system?
The former is pretty common as shown in the link, and you could arguably say that Texas's winter blackouts from a few years back were an example of the latter. (lots and lots of both demand and generation issues in that scenario, but wind didn't come out covered in roses either, and while wind wasn't expected to produce much power in the winter there to begin with 'we don't expect this source to produce much power in the winter' is not a fantastic argument in favor of it being reliable)