How many wind turbines would need to generate the same power as a nuclear power station?

Answer 1

This question is dependent on a number of factors including, which power units are in question because the generating capacity of nuclear power stations and the power generating capacity of wind turbines differs significantly among models, how windy it is where the wind generating site is located and how efficiently maintenance is managed for both types of power units. Wind turbines produce from a less than 1 MW to around 5 MW per unit in commercial models. Nuclear reactors used for power production range from around 600 MW to around 1300 MW. However, in order to provide some idea of the differing scales of single units consider that Exelon's Quad Cities Power Plant Unit 1 is capable of producing 866 MW of power. If you were to compare Quad Cities Unit 1 to a fairly average 2 MW commercial wind turbine it would take about 433 wind turbines to equal the nuclear plant's capacity if the wind was to blow all the time 24 hours a day 7 days a week. However because the wind will only blow to its full capacity 25% of the time for a good wind location, even if you had 4 times the number of wind turbines, 1700 wind turbines, it would still not constitute a reliable industrial power source for a developed country without up to another 866 MW of peaking power backup from either hydroelectricity, which is unlikely because of scarcity, or gas turbines which can be quite expensive depending on current natural gas prices.