Want to pay a fortune for power delivered in chaotic fits and spurts? Why not try offshore wind power?
The true cost of chaotically intermittent wind power is staggering; the cost of offshore wind power is astronomical.
The capital cost of spearing these things offshore is multiples greater than doing so in some dimwitted farmer’s back paddock. Recouping that capital cost means that offshore wind power is 25 times more expensive than coal, gas or nuclear.
Banned from the land, UK’s wind industry has been all at sea, for years. Continuing the rort, means convincing a gullible public that offshore wind power is practically free, and getting cheaper all the time.
Paul Homewood explains the difference between costly fact and propaganda-edged fiction, below.
BBC Brags About Hornsea Wind Farm–But Forgets To Mention The Cost
Not a Lot of People Know That
Paul Homewood
9 June 2020
In his puff piece for renewable energy today, the BBC’s Justin Rowlatt noted that:
Now the UK has the biggest offshore wind industry in the world, as well as the largest single wind farm, completed off the coast of Yorkshire last year.
Nothing could sum up the moronic obsession with renewable energy better than this statement. There is in fact a good reason why we have the biggest offshore wind industry – we are the only country daft enough to pay the exorbitant bill for it.
The largest wind farm, of course, is Hornsea, a 1200MW project. It may be the biggest, but it also happens to be one of the most expensive sources of electricity in the world.
The contract price for Hornsea is £162.47/MWh, which under CfD is a guaranteed price, which will be index linked for 15 years. In short, a licence to print money.
The current market price for electricity is below £20/MWh, so Hornsea is getting eight times what it would get if it had to trade in the market.
At current prices, Hornsea will receive an annual subsidy of about £600 million. OK, if prices recover to more normal levels of around £40/MWh, once economic activity recovers, the subsidy will be slightly less.
But here’s the rub. Whether prices are high or low, Hornsea’s owners will receive their guaranteed price anyway. The system even allows them to sell every single unit of electricity they generate, and if there is a surplus of power in the market, they will get paid NOT to produce.
In other words, there is no commercial risk for Hornsea at all. A licence to print money, all at the expense of bill payers.
Hornsea, by the way, is joint owned by Oersted (formerly DONG) and Global Infrastructure Partners LLP, a global wealth fund. I find it hard to understand how sending hundreds of millions of pounds every year to either of those companies can possibly benefit the UK economy.
Maybe Justin Rowlatt might be able to explain?
Not a Lot of People Know That
STOP THESE THINGS 
In the absence of storage, wind power has a negative value. The amount of storage needed, to match the performance of fossil fuel power, approaches infinity.
They’re so used to talking in billions (trillions and squillions) these days they’ve stopped counting the 0s. Hadn’t occurred to me to add up the latest constraints total for offshore windfarms so just did it – only over £35.5m. What other industry gets paid so much to do nothing? Offshore get about twice as much per MWh as onshore – never understood why. They’re planning a whole lot more round the Scottish coast but who cares?
Reblogged this on ajmarciniak.
RE zealots & so-called scientists of all people, believe water displacement is only a theory, otherwise they wouldn’t be adding to sea level rise.
Well that’s my theory anyway.
Once only pubs were a licence to print money.
Reblogged this on uwerolandgross.