SA’s Wind Power Debacle Escalates as Australian Wind Power Subsidies Hit $3 Billion a Year

Renewables’ subsidies put sting into power bills The Australian Michael Owen 26 July 2016 Renewable energy output in Australia is subsidised by almost $3 billion a year, more than 19 times the amount for generation from fossil fuels, a report by an economic consultancy says. The report by Principal Economics found renewable energy subsidies added … Continue reading SA’s Wind Power Debacle Escalates as Australian Wind Power Subsidies Hit $3 Billion a Year

South Australia’s Wind Power Disaster Kills BHP’s Plans to Expand Olympic Dam Mine

BHP started life in 1885 as the brainchild of station hands and boundary riders on Mount Gipps station in western New South Wales.  The town that sprung up around their find of one of the largest lead, silver and zinc deposits in the world, Broken Hill, shares the name with the company, ‘Broken Hill Proprietary’.  … Continue reading South Australia’s Wind Power Disaster Kills BHP’s Plans to Expand Olympic Dam Mine

South Australia’s Wind Power Disaster: No Solution in Sight

‘Panic’ is the only word capable of describing the mood among South Australia’s policymakers.  Over the last few posts, STT has detailed a wealth of media coverage on SA’s self-inflicted energy debacle. The former general manager of the Electricity Trust of South Australia (ETSA), Bruce Dinham is one of many groping around (knowing SA’s power … Continue reading South Australia’s Wind Power Disaster: No Solution in Sight

Panic Hits South Australia: Wind Power Debacle Sends Power Prices Through the Roof

*** South Australia’s witless Labor government is in a state of full blown panic. Since the closure of Alinta’s Northern and Playford power stations at Port Augusta, peaking power operators (using highly inefficient Open Cycle Gas Turbines or even diesel generators) have been gouging SA’s crippled power market, every time wind power output collapses.  The … Continue reading Panic Hits South Australia: Wind Power Debacle Sends Power Prices Through the Roof

Wind Industry Makes Absurd Claim that Wind Power Lowers Retail Power Prices

The latest wind industry wheeze is to turn black into white, by claiming that occasionally adding wind power to an electricity grid (weather permitting, of course) lowers retail power prices. Here’s Alan Moran unpacking the latest furphy. Black is white: and wind generators drive down electricity prices, too … Catallaxy Files Alan Moran 8 June … Continue reading Wind Industry Makes Absurd Claim that Wind Power Lowers Retail Power Prices

Want to Destroy Your Economy? Then Follow the World’s Wind Powered Leaders: Germany & South Australia

As any student of that dismal science will tell you: for businesses, input costs matter. While wind-cultists claim that their beloveds wouldn't hurt a fly, let alone wreck whole industries, the reality is a long way removed from eco-fascist fantasy. Jack up power prices and, all things equal, an energy hungry firm's profits must fall … Continue reading Want to Destroy Your Economy? Then Follow the World’s Wind Powered Leaders: Germany & South Australia

Wind Power Costs Crushing South Australian Businesses: Firms Hit with 90% Price Hike

**** South Australia embarked upon its wind power 'experiment' more than 15 years ago, when its Labor government climbed into bed with the boys from Babcock & Brown (aka Infigen) and a disgraced American lawyer and convicted con-man, Tim Flato (who robbed his clients of close to US$400,000, got struck-off, and scuttled off to set … Continue reading Wind Power Costs Crushing South Australian Businesses: Firms Hit with 90% Price Hike

SA’s Wind Farm Fiasco: $Millions in Subsidies Thrown at GDF Suez to Reopen Mothballed Gas-Fired Power Plant

South Australia has the dubious honour of being referred to as “Australia’s wind farm capital”. That ‘accolade’ has brought with it rocketing power prices, an unstable grid and routine blackouts. As to the latter, South Australians are learning to live with daily ‘load-shedding’, that even its premier academic institutions have to suffer, along with thousands … Continue reading SA’s Wind Farm Fiasco: $Millions in Subsidies Thrown at GDF Suez to Reopen Mothballed Gas-Fired Power Plant

Wind Power Disaster: South Australians Grapple with Rocketing Power Prices, an Unstable Grid & Rolling Blackouts

**** In Australia's wind farm capital, South Australia the terms ‘chaos’ and ‘crisis’ are used to describe the aftermath of an energy policy ‘designed’ on desktops by dimwits, who haven’t got the faintest clue about how power generation works (or much else, for that matter). Wind power collapses and blackouts are now part of South … Continue reading Wind Power Disaster: South Australians Grapple with Rocketing Power Prices, an Unstable Grid & Rolling Blackouts

SA Wind Farms Trigger South Australian Power Crisis

**** In one sad and sorry respect, South Australia resembles Germany: both went into wind power with a vengeance; and the householders and businesses of both are watching their economic prosperity wither under the combined effect of crippling (and escalating) power prices and increasingly unreliable power supplies: Wind Industry’s Armageddon: Wind Farm Output Collapse Leaves … Continue reading SA Wind Farms Trigger South Australian Power Crisis