Of course I don't bother in higher winds as invariably they are switched off.
Yeah, that is a bit of a weakness with wind (and solar, come to that). They have to design wind farms and solar plants based on annual averages, as it's impossible to predict daily amounts.
As a result, wind farms have to be big enough to produce a useful amount most of the time, so on days when there's plenty of wind they produce more than we can use so many of the turbine feather their blades as the power isn't needed. At the moment we're getting very nearly half the nation's electricity from wind, and there's no point spinning turbines to make power we can't use. Because of the sourcing strategy to keep renewables, fossil, and nuclear balanced we can't turn the nukes down and we have to keep a couple of CCGTs ticking over just in case the wind drops unexpectedly.
It's not generally that the turbines can't cope with high wind speeds, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) requires most of today’s wind turbines must be built to withstand sustained winds of 112 mph and peak 3-second gusts of 156 mph (known as standard IEC 61400-01). Wind speed today in Morecambe Bay is around 40 to 50mph, so no concerns in that regard.
