From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
https://renews.biz/89521/uk-hikes-offshore-wind-cfd-price-cap-by-66/
Following the news that offshore wind prices will rise to over £100/MWh in the next round of CfDs, it is worthwhile recapping what we are currently paying existing wind farms.
The older wind farms, which are covered by ROCs, are currently paid a subsidy of £125/MWh, on top of the market price for the electricity they produce, which was £96/MWh in September. In September therefore we paid a total of £221/MWh. ROC account for about a half of total generation.
Newer wind farms are paid via CfDs. Theses guaranteed strike prices vary from one wind farm to another, but in September the average was £176/MWh.
There are of course a couple of offshore generators which have refused to trigger their CfDs at the low prices they originally agreed to, and these receive the market price instead.
CfD strike prices are guaranteed and index linked for 15 years, so even the oldest projects will still be subsidised well into the 2030s.
Based on current market prices, we are paying a total annual subsidy of £4.8 billion to offshore wind, on top of the wider system costs. With a government offshore target of 50GW capacity by 2030, this subsidy will rise to over £11 billion a year.
And still they say “renewables” are cheap!!!!!
Wind…the most expensive form of cheap energy
All raw resources are cheap, indeed free. It’s turning them into usable resources that is expensive.
Under the concept of ownership, of private property or government owned property, virtually no raw resources are free. Maybe a case could be made that oxygen directly from the atmosphere is free, but there essentially is always a significant cost paid to the private or government owner for the raw materials that are extracted, aside from and in addition to the equipment, energy, and labor costs of doing the extraction. Plus, in more civilized societies, there is the cost of attenuating the damage done in and by the extraction process through cleanup and landscape restoration requirements.
Well they are but it’s the taxes to make them that way that are the killer.
” Nine times cheaper” is the mantra. Repeat after me……….
Nine times cheaper…
Nine times cheaper…
Nine times cheaper…
Nine times crappier…
Nine times crappier…
Nine times crappier…
Nine times costlier…
Nine times costlier…
Nine times costlier…
Oopsie
CfD…
Completely fnucking Demented
They shoulda tried wave power…yeah, that’s the way – wave power. No, wait, tide power….harness the tides…yeah, that’s it….it’s free!
Most folks in the article say things that only partially cover the offshore situation, which caused major dips in Siemens, Oersted, etc., stock prices at the end of 2020; the smart money got out
All this well before the Ukraine events, which started in February 2022
If governments have extremist goals (disconnected from reality), such as 1) 30,000 MW of offshore by 2030, by the posse of idiots surrounding Biden, plus 2) the 36,000 MW of offshore by 2030, and 40,000 MW by 2040, by the in-disarray, totally-disconnected-from-markets UK government, then you can be sure disaster will be at hand.
It is equivalent to a demented bull in a China shop
Those goals were physically unachievable, even if there were abundant, low-cost financing, and low inflation, and low-cost energy, materials, labor, and a robust, smooth-running supply chain, to place in service about 9500 MW of offshore during each of the next 7 years, start 2024 to end 2030, which has never been done before, etc.
During that time, older offshore units will be giving up the ghost/retiring.
One commentator said “renewables are not always reliable”
That shows the types of ignorami driving the bus
WIND AND SOLAR ARE NEVER, EVER RELIABLE
The evidence shows, they will always need the following very costly items:
1) plenty of subsidies,
2) plus grid extension/reinforcement,
3) plus a fleet of quick-reacting power plants to counteract, on a less than minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365, the wind/solar, up/down output,
4) plus a fleet of power plants to provide electricity during low wind/solar periods, and during high wind/solar periods, when rotors are feathered and locked,
5) plus output curtailment to prevent overloading the grid, i.e., paying owners for not producing what they could have produced
I will not even mention large scale-battery systems at $575/installed kWh, 2023 pricing of Tesla-based systems
THE PHYSICAL AND ECONOMIC INSANITY OF IT ALL HAS BEEN CLEAR TO ENERGY SYSTEMS ENGINEERS FOR AT LEAST 20 YEARS
US/UK 66,000 MW OF OFFSHORE WIND BY 2030; AN EXPENSIVE FANTASY
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/biden-30-000-mw-of-offshore-wind-systems-by-2030-a-total-fantasy
BATTERY SYSTEM CAPITAL COSTS, OPERATING COSTS, ENERGY LOSSES, AND AGING
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/battery-system-capital-costs-losses-and-aging
To begin to become viable wind and solar nameplate capacity needs to be transferred from MW into MWh then Battery Storage needs to be included in the generation costs to cover an equivalent quantity of MWh per MW of capacity. No wonder cheap energy is either unreliable or so cost prohibitive.
Plus wind and solar could not physically be fed into the grid, without the above listed 6 items, of which the LCOE is provided for free by taxpayers, ratepayers, or added to government debts
Using 2023 pricing, 6.5% money and 10% to owner,
If the battery system throughput is 10% of installed capacity, the cost of a kWh passing through is about 90 cent, on top of the cost of the electricity fed to the batteries
If 40%, the cost is about 22.5 cent, on top
For visual of the intermittancy of UK’s grid system Dec 2021.
What are they going to do once Nat Gas electricity production ceases? Answer: freeze by candle light.
We are in more danger from the policy response rather than to the supposed “climate change crisis” itself. If the proposed solution to a problem is idiotic, you can bet the problem’s framing is idiotic as well.
An alternative, greatly “zoomed in”, view of last week (Monday 13th to Sunday 19th November 2023) for selected elements of the GB electricity grid is attached to the end of this post.
The “current” (pun intended …) nominal / nameplate capacity for all CCGT plant on the island of Great Britain is approximately 30 GW.
Replacing that with “36 GW of (offshore) wind by 2030″ (see post by “wilpost” just above), even with the “industry standard LCOE calculation” addition of 4-hour battery backup systems, would indeed result in blackouts.
This is only one reason why I think the hysterical shouting by (C)AGW activists that “We have to completely eliminate fossil-fuels by 2030 [ / 2025 / 2035 / 2050 : delete as required ] ! ! !” will end up being quietly ignored.
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