Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
I keep reading about how offshore wind farms are the electricity generating method of the future, because they’re so darn inexpensive. Here’s the New York Times on the subject:
The Biden administration wants up to 2,000 turbines in the water in the next eight and a half years. Officials recently approved a project near Martha’s Vineyard that languished during the Trump administration and in May announced support for large wind farms off California’s coast. The $2 trillion infrastructure plan that Mr. Biden proposed in March would also increase incentives for renewable energy.”
The cost of offshore wind turbines has fallen about 80 percent over the last two decades, to as low as $50 a megawatt-hour. While more expensive per unit of energy than solar and wind farms on land, offshore turbines often make economic sense because of lower transmission costs.
So I thought I’d walk through the costs on one of the few US offshore wind farms, the Block Island Wind Farm.
First, where is Block Island when it’s at home? Well, it’s a small island off the coast of Rhode Island, not far from the tip of Long Island, New York.
Location of Block Island is shown by the red pin
And what are the economics of the Block Island Wind Farm? Well, it contains five 6-megawatt (MW, or 106 watts) giant wind turbines. Of course, on average they don’t put out 6 megawatts, because sometimes the wind doesn’t blow … in fact, on average they only put out about a third of that, about 2 megawatts. That works out to about 92 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year.
How much is that energy worth? Well, the nationwide average purchase cost for a kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity is around 4 cents … and it’s then resold to the customer at around 13 cents/kWh.
And how much is Rhode Island paying for this “inexpensive” wind energy? Hang on to your jaw so it doesn’t hit the floor … they’re paying 24.4 cents/kWh, six times the national average, and it’s going up by 3.5% per year … so in ten years it will be 34.4 cents/kWh.
The five wind turbines off of Block Island
But wait, there’s more. Because of Rhode Island’s insane “renewables mandate” forcing them to buy “inexpensive” renewable energy, yes, they’re paying the wind farm owners 24.4 cents/kWh to purchase the power … but the power company still needs to add another ten cents/kWh for transmission and maintenance and profit. So for this “inexpensive green wind power”, the poor schlubs in Rhode Island are paying the wind farm owners about 34 cents per kWh, and in a decade it will be 44 cents/kWh to the consumer. Oh, plus the surcharge to pay for the transmission cable as discussed below.
Why is the power cost so high? Because … well … not to put too fine a point on it, the idea that offshore wind power is inexpensive is a total myth. As a lifelong blue-water sailor I can attest to the truth of the old seadog’s maxim, which is “The wind is free … but everything else costs money”.
Plus the greed factor, of course …
Let’s start with the initial costs. The construction and installation of the wind farm cost $350 million. The transmission line from Block Island to the mainland was another $114 million, paid for separately by the mainland ratepayers.
Then you have to add in “O&M”, operation and maintenance costs, which are about 1-2 cents per kilowatt-hour generated per year for offshore wind, conservatively at least another million dollars per year at Block Island, perhaps more. At an average of 28.6 cents/kWh over the next ten years, power sales will net about $25 million per year … so the company owning the wind farm won’t even make a profit until 14 or so years down the line … and that’s not counting the “oops” factor.
What is the “oops” factor? Well, it’s unexpected maintenance, or a wind turbine that gets destroyed in a storm, or, well, something like the following:
Oops … in addition to paying $114 million for the transmission cable in the first place, the poor Rhode Island ratepayers are also on the hook for a portion of the $31 megabucks to pay to re-bury the power cable that got exposed by waves, wind, and currents. And to add insult to injury, the owners are saying it will cost more than the original estimate of $31 million to fix it … double oops.
And where does the greed factor fit in? Again from the Rhode Island “Providence Journal”:
National Grid reaps $46M in excess profits from RI wind surcharge
PROVIDENCE: More than a decade ago, when policymakers put Rhode Island on the path to hosting the first offshore wind farm in the nation, they made a bargain. They knew that power from the Block Island Wind Farm would be expensive but were willing to pay the price in the hopes that the project would spur creation of a new clean-energy industry in the state.
What they didn’t bargain for was that the wind farm would become a gold mine for an energy company that already had a dominant presence in Rhode Island: National Grid, the main electric utility in the state and the owner of the 20-mile undersea transmission cable that brings power generated by the project from a Block Island substation to the mainland power grid.
In the four years since the five wind turbines went into operation, National Grid has made $46 million in excess profits from delivering electricity through the cable, according to filings by the utility in response to questions by state regulators. That’s money coming into National Grid on top of what was estimated for operations and maintenance of the cable, taxes on it, and even how much the company calculated it needed to pay off its installation and construction costs over time while still earning a reasonable profit. And it’s money paid entirely by Rhode Islanders through a surcharge on their electric bills.
What’s more, even though a good portion of the money was designated for operations and maintenance of the cable, National Grid never set the profits aside in a reserve fund. So when the company agreed last year to rebury part of the cable after it became exposed by waves, National Grid decided to capitalize the $31 million in repairs. That pushed the total cost of the transmission project up to more than $145 million, and, as a result, the company is set to make electric customers pay even more for the cable’s use. Because the surcharge is based on the value of the cable, the rate is scheduled to increase in May, essentially rewarding National Grid with more money for fixing a problem that state coastal regulators, long before construction began, warned could arise. Meanwhile Ørsted, the Danish company that owns the wind farm and the portion of the cable that runs from the turbines to the Block Island substation, is paying out of pocket for its share of the reburial.
And I haven’t even gotten to the decommissioning costs for when the turbines die, and they have to be removed from way out in the middle of the ocean … oops.
So there you have it, folks—cheap, clean, green, inexpensive offshore wind. What’s not to like?
My best to all, even the fast-dwindling number of poor benighted folks who still believe that the sun and wind can power the planet …
w.
Da Usual: PLEASE QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS YOU ARE DISCUSSING. I can and am happy to defend what I wrote. I can’t defend what you think I meant when I wrote it.
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Once the population is reduced we won’t need cheap electricity…
More upside is that off shore windmills chop down sea birds (they’re a nusance anyway). This will awaken the Marxist in all sea life as they huddle around the bases of windmills waiting for that next free lunch to fall from the sky.
They don’t.
The Danes and UK RSPB have worked that out.
Liar.
https://stopthesethings.com/2019/12/20/killer-app-offshore-wind-turbines-wiping-out-entire-bird-species/
Hi Griffo
Yes, because media has stop reporting it, I heard from an important ‘climatier’ calling it ‘collateral damage’ for a bigger good
Any data, any proof ?
Ah, griff was writing, no data, no proof, – instead blah blah.
In griff’s “mind” a press release saying that the company is aware of a problem is the equivalent to having the problem already solved.
“In Griff’s mind” Griff doesn’t have a mind, “he” is a bank of Chinese Army spammers crowded together in a bunker who spend a ten hour shift spamming blogs and news sites that the CCP disapproves of.
Care to post some proof of your claims Barry Anthony?
Didn’t think so.
Barry claims to be in TX, Grif appears to claim residency in the British Isles.
According to the BBC, the problem is far from solved.
Maria Thaker, a professor of ecology at the Indian Institute of Science’s Center for Ecological Sciences says:
Ideas included painting the blades purple, a robot that can spot and recognise birds (WTF!), and acoustics (Bat out of Hell, Ozzy Osbourne?)
The most shocking part of this for me is the BBC even recognising there is a problem with bird and bat choppers.
UK RSPB???? These are the eco-bunny conservation/protection bunch who campaigned for years to have the Sparrow Hawk made a protected species so numbers could not be controlled & hunting them to do so was banned! After protection was granted, within a few years the UK RSPB et al started to observe that the Sparrow population, & that of many other small birds, started to decline! What was the cause? The two classic fall-back positions of habitat destruction & good old Climate Change! Then someone embarrassingly pointed out that the primary diet of Sparrow Hawks, was in fact………Sparrows & other small birds!!! The clue is in the title, join the dots somebody!!! Conservationists don’t always, if ever, fully think things through!!!
To which you can add Red Kites which are now so large in number around Oxfordshire and the Chilterns they are attacking people to steal their food, most likely because there isn’t enough of their normal food to feed what is said to be now thousands of them. The RSPB denied that Red Kites eat more of our much loved small birds but since they were involved in the release programme would you trust them? No, thought not.
”they don’t” what, idiot? Are you too busy spamming other sites for your Chinese masters to make a complete sentence today, Griffy?
So, how many endangered birds get killed yearly? It is interesting how hot questions are often not the ones you can successfully google. … or you can, but it will take much more effort.
It is like asking how many pro-Trump people were listening to Trump’s speech in DC. ‘We don’t know, it is difficult to know’. Look, you know it pretty well, and if you don’t know, it is because you are just afraid of publishing the fact.
But I digress. I don’t take griff’s no as an answer.
Fools and their money are soon parted
Unfortunately, Non-fools also get their money parted
That’s the problem with electing fools. Collateral damage.
If you live in RI then you’re probably foolish.
It’s a terrible tax on the poor. Effn robber Barrons
These are people who believe that labels can alter reality. If an athlete labels himself a woman, then, they say, he must be a woman, and should be allowed to compete in sports against women. And outrageously expensive energy is labeled “alternative energy,” and allowed to compete with real energy, even though it can’t. But what do you expect from people who call their home “Rhode Island,” even though it’s obviously very much not an island? Heck, it’s not even a peninsula wannabe.
Is $0.244/kwh materially different than what Rhode Islanders are paying now?
https://electricityrates.com/rhode-island/
And they now mostly use nat. gas, which MUST go up in price soon, or the shalers won’t be able to borrow for the CAPEX required to maintain deliverability. Those shale gas producers are already walking dead, mostly from frac hits, competitive drainage, and consuming their seed corn – oil field service capacity, at below replacement rates.
Yeah right until they have the highest electricity price in mainland USA they have nothing to complain about and have never had it so good.
So lets ask the obvious question to a true believer when the GAS is stopped do you think the rate will get better or worse?
“So lets ask the obvious question to a true believer when the GAS is stopped do you think the rate will get better or worse?”
Who is “stopping” the gas? The most anyone is inflicting on this industry are the beginnings of requirements that they pay more of their own way.
The sad truth is that most gas fracking is a hot house flower economically, and is death starring as we speak. More frac hits, more competitive drainage, an oilfield service sector that is on it’s last legs.
So, even with the undocumented, butt yanked adder for transmission maintenance and profit, Rhode Island gas costs will soon be higher than comparable wind costs. And as for the even more wistful story telling about a “return to coal”, n’gonna happen. They have communized so many of their external costs, for so long, that recovering them with the relatively tiny remaining truly economic operations would be a Trumpian YUGE $ loser. Just making good on existing (and currently shirked) medical and pension obligations would greatly overload any future production. Add in asset retirements and coal ash cleanup, DANGER, DANGER!!!
https://oilfieldbasics.com/2018/09/23/frac-hits/#:~:text=A%20frac%20hit%20is%20essentially,one%20or%20more%20nearby%20wells.&text=Wether%20or%20not%20offset%20wells,%2C%20well%20spacing%2C%20and%20more.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13202-019-0710-1
https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/industry/oil-and-gas/decoding-oil-gas-downturn/oilfield-services-segment.html
So your whole answer is speculation and dribble as decided by you … Bit like coal is doomed according to Griff … yeah not buying it.
How about stick to answering the question asked with real facts not invent-a-fact.
Mr. bob: I agree with you 100%, we must go to coal to produce electricity. Did not think you were a fan.
you are confusing wholesale and retail prices …
I doubt bob knows the difference.
Among your other flaws, we can now add lack of reading comprehension.
The rate payers are paying way more than 24cents/kwh. Which you would know had you actually read the article.
As to you beliefs regarding frakking, those have been refuted so many times that it’s becoming pathetic.
“As to you beliefs regarding frakking, those have been refuted so many times that it’s becoming pathetic.”
We call it fraCking. Hardly beliefs, as the ever increasing engineering and economic problems of oil and gas shale production are consuming lots of pages in every recent issue of the official petroleum engineering publication, the Journal of Petroleum Technology.
It’s actually frac. As in fracturing.
More facts as decided by the great prophet Bob … so do you have a name for your religion?
It is Baghdad Bob’s Church of the Wholly Propaganda.
Willis. As you and everyone who has spent time in salt water knows…. nothing mechanical lasts long in the sea. I would bet that every offshore turbine lasts less than 2/3 or even 1/2 of what the engineers who designed it thought it would.
Things next to the shore don’t last long too
Exactly. Right about the time they have recouped their investment, or even earlier, they will be into growing maintenance problems and turbine replacement. I bet that by that time they will not want to use the older structure and build all new ones, while leaving the old to degrade in place. I have yet to see any place seriously try to recycle this junk.
The first thing to go way before that are the Blades due to salt water erosion damaging their leading edges.
Chances are someone will have to scuttle the whole works after it’s been abandoned by the original “investors”. Do those blades sink or float?
I would bet the service life on a large wind turbine is a fabricated number based on what it has to be to get one sold. Not many wind turbines with a “15 year life” will get installed.
Some actual numbers. On shore wind is supposed to last at least 20 years. The older smaller ones actually had about 25 year service lives. The newer bigger wind turbines seldom make it to 20 years because of inherent acial bearing wobble. Was discussed and illustrated in Climate Etc guest post ‘True Cost of Wind’.
Wasn’t there an article in the UK a year or so ago saying that wind turbines there wouldn’t last nearly as long as expected?
Willis,
When Griff turns up saying how wonderful UK wind is. Tell him that in the UK the amount generated by the entire UK fleet of on and off shore turbines has not exceeded 5GW since 2021-06-03 03:15:36, over 5 days. For a lot of the time less than 2GW, curently 2.3GW.
Wikipedia By the end of May 2021, the UK had 10,961 wind turbines with a total installed capacity of over 24.1 gigawatts: 13.7 gigawatts of onshore capacity and 10.4 gigawatts of offshore capacity,[4] the sixth largest capacity of any country in 2019
and that comes to what % of the the UKs total power generated?
Currently, a bit less than 10%. If it were producing at nameplate, it would be around 90%. Tell me again how good wind is.
the difference between idealism and realism
No problemo, D.J.
Just add another 90,000 wind turbines and Bob’s yer uncle.
“Yeah, yeah, that’s the ticket!”
But even 90,000 turbines will produce absolutely nothing if the wind isn’t blowing!
First, let’s see if the U.K. can even get to 100,000 wind turbines, Ken.
If they can get there from here, then we can start calculating how many AA batteries they’ll need for backup when the wind doesn’t blow.
😜
It’s pretty much the same all over the continent too, there is no wind anywhere at the moment.
Gives new meaning to “Gone With The Wind.”
It’s not just an old movie anymore.
an old movie that we’re no longer allowed to watch because woke.
Ben, it has only been just over 5GW a couple of times since the 25th of May.
No, no! You don’t have the right spin on that. It should be, “And, it has been over 5 GW at least twice!”
it has been regularly over 5GW, enough power to heat umpty thousand homes with inexpensive free green power from the warm and happy sun. /s
Yes, but they have solved the problem with blades slaughtering wildlife, so bow before his Mighty Straw Man. (just downwind and no naked flames)
It’s rarely exceeded 5GW since the first week of April.
Maybe they can add large carnival-style cars to the ends of the blades and turn this into a tourist attraction? “Block Island Mills” kinds of rolls off the tongue.
I really want to see what happens after the first really big wind storm hits the wind turbines. It’s bound to happen over 20 years. Or a large ship hits one of them.
The really good news is it will attract sharks to fest upon all the dead birds floating on the surface.
the money comes from the investment and production tax credits that are guaranteed by mandate and grid priority. We The People, by our voting decisions, proclaim that the virtue signaling from unworkable wind and solar, to prevent the non-existing climate crisis from fossil fuel burning, is well worth paying twice for our electricity, Expect a lot more “virtue” during the BIden/Harris eight year reign.
I wouldn’t bet on the Biden-Harris administration being around more than four years. After the 2022 elections, the Biden-Harris administration will be a Lame Duck administration. Imo.
Tom ,you’re assuming that our votes are actually counted. I’m not betting on that. I think biden / harris / etc are in for the long haul. The Ottomans lasted for what, 800 years?
So working offshore and on elevated structures is cheap? Do they mean like easy to fool readers cheap or don’t factor in all the costs cheap?
curious but how do you install a foundation for an offshore turbine? I’ve seen videos of the contruction of the cement foundation for on shore turbines- they’re huge- the offshore foundations must be even bigger what with both water and air pushing against the turbine- I presume the foundations are made onshore and towed out, then sunk
Some blithering idiots want to make flaming wind turbines that are anchored. How could anything go wrong?
somewhere I read about a new design for offshore wind turbines that float
Pretty soon we’ll have “cold fusion”. 🙂
Maybe this is where Tesla’s dream of implementing ‘free’ energy can come true. Millions of floating windmills roaming the oceans and shooting lightning bolts into the sky.
Mr. Z,
An unspoken issue with floating turbines is the enormous draught (water depth) needed for the below-surface flotation hardware.
The Hywind turbines use spar buoys that are submerged 140 feet, IIRC, and needed to be constructed in a deep fjord in Norway.
(Virtually no US port is deeper than 50 feet).
Then there is the ‘topside clearance (freeboard).
Even looking at 300 feet clearance, there are virtually no US harbors that have bridges that high above water.
(Chesapeake, specifically built for military transport being one exception with its tunnel).
The alternative design uses a micro semi submersible (pilot off Portugal), but all this stuff is so obscenely expensive only the most delusional fools give it any credence whatsover.
Joseph – see https://revolution-green.com/floating-wind-system-using-multiple-1-mw-turbines-operates-bottom-fixed-system-prices/ for a floating design. Claims of being massively cheaper and a 50-year life that I severely doubt, but maybe some people will be convinced.
Think you might be a victim of predictive text, Think you meant floating. 🙂 flaming would be very entertaining though
Speaking of flaming wind turbines, didn’t we have a picture of one of those last year?
MarkW,
Actually, flaming turbines are not that unusual an event, especially with the older designs that were poorly engineered in regards to oil changes.
Requiring about 85 gallons of oil for the gearboxes, early designs had no drain plug and a 2 man bucket brigade was needed for its biannual fluid change.
Eliminating the chronic gearbox problems by 2015 and adopting direct drive saved this industry as it – mostly – bypassed lubrication issues.
However, there are SO many underreported operational issues – especially as these turbines have become so large – that this entire approach (offshore wind farms) will become like the SST airplane or the Wankel engine … great ideas that ultimately didn’t work.
>>>early designs had no drain plug<<< Seriously? So the same guys doing the climate models drew up the plans for the gearbox? Or perhaps they were thinking that the CAD software was smart enough to add in the drain plug by itself?
Wouldn’t the Wankel work just fine without the current CO2 emission standards?
Next thing they’ll be buzzing around like motor boats 😉
“I presume the foundations are made onshore and towed out, then sunk”
Yes, here’s an image of one being made in France. All that green concrete and steel.
There is an upside, these could be foundations for ocean settlements
The basis for future land claims Chinese style?
CB,
The adoption of GBF (Gravity Base Foundations) is being motivated as much by the problems and expenses involved in both the monopile and jacket designs used so far.
It will be interesting to see what ‘issues’ may arise in future years with this iteration.
The physical forces being exerted by the massive, massive size of these things is extraordinary.
Operating in harsh conditions 24/7/365 does not help.
Not that it can’t be done, but when one compares a 1,000 Megawatt gas plant to these monstrosities it becomes beyond insane to continue down this offshore path.
Mr. Z,
Monopiles are the most common foundation, thst is, massive piles driven into the seabed.
There are an incredible array of technical and operational problems associated with offshore wind farms that receive scant attention.
Regarding monopile foundations specifically, there is ongoing very high rate of rust and electrolysis issues.
The Transition Piece (the part that sits directly atop the monopile), has had enormous grouting problems and ‘wobbling’ which is highly detrimental to operations.
Along with cable problems, leading blade edge degradation, horrific labor expenses (rough seas do not help), etc., anyone advocating offshore wind is either an idiot or a fraudster.
Here’s an article about floating wind turbines.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/floating-offshore-wind-turbines-set-to-make-inroads-in-u-s/
“A letter sent to the Dutch parliament by the minister of economic affairs titled “Offshore Wind Energy Roadmap 2030” explained that so-called green hydrogen could prevent the price of electricity generated at sea from becoming too low to support further offshore investment.”
Ummmm, Whaaaattt???
“Anyone advocating offshore wind is either an idiot or a fraudster. ”
I think they are the latter and they think we are the former.
Also, there are reasons to question the levelized-cost estimates from sources like Lazard. https://www.ref.org.uk/ref-blog/365-wind-power-economics-rhetoric-and-reality
Mr. Born,
That is an excellent link and refers to a very important point … the Lazard LCOE presentation.
Any serious student can download the ~18 page pdf and go right to the appendix page where the ‘input’ parameters are listed.
The numbers used to determine the cost of Combined Cycle Gas Plants are blatantly skewed to the upside (more expensive).
This includes cost of fuel, cost/size of plant, 20 year life cycle to name just a few.
Decisions about anything are only as good as the information used to support them. The decades long media bias against anything perceived to be a conservative issue doesn’t improve the information many receive and only provides false confidence in the bad information they have.
As I see it, the citizens of Rhode Island, much like those in California, are getting what they deserve for allowing political bias to interfere with common sense and rational thinking. Unfortunately, like the CCP and the China Virus, the green nutjobs pushing these kinds of stupid policy want those of us who know better to suffer along with them.
The citizens of Rhode Island, much like those in California, are getting what they deserve & getting it good and hard 😉
And in an inappropriate orifice.
I blame the Rhode Island Reds for all this, they are just too chicken to complain!
They should have built them on Barred Rock foundations – ” friendly, sweet, and docile”……..
Does this mean when severe nor’easters hit wind farms and cause expensive damage that U.S. taxpayers will be hit with the tab like “superstorm” Sandy’s con job? That would make them appear cheap for the developers to offload costs like that.
Put on the climate change damage tab
Thanks for the nice article. If the installation costs were free, would wind power still be economical? It would be interesting to know how far the technology has to go to make it competitive.
Well you need the technology that makes the wind blow 24/7 because other than that you need a backup supply something fossil fuels don’t need.
just apply power TO one windmill it will push wind onto another windmill and generate power. problem solved….
I hope that was in SARC font, because I have heard people of low intelligence seriously suggest something like this.
Poe’s Law.
so have I. the ….at end was the telling point
Nuclear too has close to 100% uptime…fir 30 years.
Even if wind and solar were 100%, in both construction and operation, you would still need to build out enough fossil fuel power to support your customers for those times when neither the wind is blowing or the sun shinning.
In other words, even in the absolute best of cases, wind and solar still don’t save you anything.
“wind and solar still don’t save you anything.”
In fact we end up paying double, unreliables and fossil fuel power, that’s the
GreenScam New Deal for you.Some years ago, I posted True Cost of Wind over at Judiths. We deconstructed the 2016 EIA ‘levelized cost of electricity’ (LCOE, an annuity based calculation). EIA then said onshore wind was competitive with CCGT, both at about $90/MWh. They got a number of things just blatantly wrong. Turns out CCGT was really ~$58, and onshore wind was $146.
EIA has a new estimate out from 2/1/2021. You can google it using EIA LCOE 2021. It says onshore is now $31 (NOT—for example, the capacity factor is 1.3x high) and offshore wind is $115, about 3.6x higher. So if onshore is really $146, then offshore is $525/MWh—about NINE times higher than CCGT.
Now using WE’s Block Island grid price today of $0.344 versus $0.04, the Block Island offshore wind is 8.6x more expensive now, and will be about10x higher end of the decade. Squares with the above, and again shows how badly Biden’s EIA is still off with their ‘official’ estimates.
Renewables are ruinables.
It’s not just Biden. It’s the EU, the UK and Americans inflating the world economy to offset the size of world government debt, so they can borrow more.
Usury energy pricing does this nicely as we have already seen with the “oil crisis” inflation in the 1970’s. It’s a new generation of suckers paying the bills now, and they also are incessantly told they need to “save the earth”. So once again, its the perfect opportunity for politicians to use scare tactics, new taxes and inflation as their fiduciary friend. Does anyone actually think that the world wide push to electrify everything during an oil glut and the ever expanding grid pricing structure at exactly the same time is a coincidence?
You’d think people would have wised up to this already, but perhaps most that had are already dead. But then again, most “woke” young people I’ve met need to put out lawn signs listing their core values for everyone to read. Perhaps they forget them if they aren’t listed on a sign. Strangely, working toward an efficient economy is never among their values listed.
Is this the same team that is counting Covid cases and deaths, Rud?
I suppose the Ministry Of Fudged Numbers has it calculated close enough for Government work.
HR, Same government, not same people. EIA claimed Wind and CCGT both having 30 year lives (reality, CCGT>40, wind ~20) is in the same ‘counting’ category as CDC claiming COVID-19 deaths ‘with’ or ‘from’ (reality ‘from’ << ‘with’).
A lot of the same people.
See
Al Gore and David Blood formed Generation Investment Management in 2004.
GenerationIM web site from March 28 2009
http://web.archive.org/web/20090328131153/http://www.generationim.com/sustainability/challenges/pandemics.html
More:-
http://web.archive.org/web/20091123011347/http://www.generationim.com/media/pdf-generation-thematic-research-v13.pdf
Browse the above pages, follow some links for the full effect. Note the references to Global Warming, water and pandemics.
They run the joint.
They have no conscience.
Fortunately for RI residential rate payers, National Grid produces about 90% of their power with natural gas turbines. So the ratepayers pay about $0.21/kwh and not $0.34. Still that means that <10% of the energy that comes from offshore wind results in a substantial increase in costs to consumers.
Rick,
Today, June 8, the New England ISO showed about 70% generation came from natgas and 20% came from nuclear.
Interestingly, throughout much of the afternoon, wind and solar provided about 500 Megawatts and OIL and COAL provided a near identical amount.
New England folks are at a knife’s edge vis a vis electricity supply during the coming winters if extended (+/- 5day) cold snaps hit.
I recently saw a report that Biden has anounced a plan to invest pension funds in renewables. What could go wrong?
“Renewables are ruinables.”
Yes, they will ruin our economy and our society.
Mr. Istvan,
How did the incredible effect of salt-water corrosion factor into your calcs?
In 1981 I started my first job out of school, Special Projects engineer with the old Gulf States Utilities in Beaumont, TX. We had a small 25Kw wind turbine at Sabine Pass, supposedly one of the ideal on-shore sites in the USA, right on the Gulf Coast beach. We got a capacity factor of 25%. Poor thing did not last long either, the relentless salt spray just is hard on metals in general…
It’s been awhile, but I once read that if you discount any taxes imposed on fossil fuel power production, the cost of energy is only one cent per KW. Like wise, if you discount the subsidies that renewables receive and then add in the cost of building the infrastructure; the cost rises will significantly more inline with what this article would suggest.
Someone should have more updated numbers.
I once sailed around Long Island. What a shame …
I remember the first Block Island wind machine, which after but a few years and unending controversy ended in the town dump. May still be there? Also, one might wonder if that power cable to the mainland would not be better used to bring cheaper power to Block.
What? They didn’t recycle the machines? But that’s what TPTB have been spewing for years, that every part of the turbine mechanism can recycled and repurposed for new ones at EOL.
Or they may have been lying.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turbine-blades-can-t-be-recycled-so-they-re-piling-up-in-landfills
If one buries a glass-fiber/epoxy composite wind turbine blade underground, and dig it back up 500 years later, it will look just the same unless there has been some water cycling through, which will etch the epoxy. The glass fiber will just lay there until Kingdom come….
Yo ho ho, the wind is free,
Oh for a life on a subsidy…
Another great post, Willis.
“They polished up the RET so carefully,
That soon they were raking in a sub-si-dy.”
Apologies to G&S.
Good report, Willis. These offshore wind turbines are commonly serviced by helicopter, so add in some unusual costs to the O and A costs. The offshore wind turbines chop up our flying friends about like the land-based choppers, where’s the outcry? Previously a report said that oil companies killed and maimed dolphins and turtles in order to get cheaper disassembly of de-commissioned platforms, what about the flying friends?
In MA, NOBODY wants onshore turbines and the resistance to solar “farms” is building fast. Everyone was for both until they see them – especially if built next to THEIR home. Yet, the state of MA now has a net zero by ’50 law on the books. I’m now seeing articles in the state’s MSM by enviros bitching about solar “farms” every day- but all they can say is, “there is a need to site them better” without saying what the hell they mean by that. One type of landowner in MA that likes solar “farms” is big landowners- farmers and forest industry because the profits are far greater than they can make growing food or wood. When one of the first big solar “farms” were built next to my ‘hood in ’12- and I ranted about it to everyone that matters- state officials, enviro groups, forestry people, academics- nobody cared- now they seem to care, but none so far are saying we don’t need these monstrosities- since the AGW religion is all powerful here.
To be fair, nobody wants a nuclear plant, coal, or natural gas plant next to their house either.
The difference of course is with wind and solar, it’s not just one plant. There’s going to have to be a lot of it spread everywhere.
There’s a type of self limiting fission reactor I would have no problems with being in my back yard. It depends on laminar flows to maintain critical mass and if it gets too hot, the flows become chaotic and the fission stops. Much like what’s used on some naval vessels.
thats why they don’t build them in your backyard … but 50 wind turbines built 10 miles away can still be an eyesore …
A liberal saying “site them better”, is a lot like a liberal demanding more taxes.
In both cases the liberal wants someone else to bear the burden.
Just today I got an email from the policy honcho of MA Audubon saying Audubon is going work on the siting problem, initially on Cape Cod: https://capecodclimate.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Forests-vs.-Solar-A-False-Choice-RESOURCES-COMPENDIUM-1.pdf
They can’t get it through their thick skulls- that, on the one hand, they want the state to be net free by ’50, now in state law- but now that so many people are complaining, they think they can find a way to “site better” solar. But no less than the state’s recently fired “climate czar” said that even if the max out on wind turbines off the coast of the state (not much territory)- and if they cover every roof in the state, that we’ll still need tens of thousands of acres of “ground mounted solar”. All the easy sites are already taken with something like 7,000 acres of forest having been converted to solar along with some fields, some old land fills, a few parking lots but mostly forests. The state is fairly wealthy- the wealthy areas aren’t going to want solar farms near them. So far, the heaviest concentration seems to be in central MA, mostly forests and relatively low income with people who think a landowner should be able to do anything they like with their land. The bottom line is that there just isn’t enough land in the state for solar to get to net free nirvana- and, the public here really hates nuclear so that ain’t gonna happen. I guess we’ll all just have to get used to going back to the dark ages. Nearby Connecticut and Rhode Island follow the lead of MA so all of southern New England will be having the same problem- ideal goals with no way to get there- and of course, those ideals are false.
One supposes the state can simply find all that acreage for solar farms by leveling all the residential housing and utilizing those empty lots for PV panels.
NIMBY!
Heaven forfend an electric utility should make an “excess” profit. What the he!! is an “excess” profit? And who determines that and how? However calculated, $46M (their claimed excess profits) is ~10% of the $464M investment, if I read it right). Yeah, that’s what’s REALLY driving up the cost of energy in Rhode Island. Idiots.
When a utility becomes a regulated monopoly, the government states how much profit the utility is allowed to earn.
I’ve sailed past the turbines several times ( on the way to or from Bermuda solo ) and usually one or two appear to be out of commission . I was told they’ve had trouble with oil leakage .
Living in California, we get to see lots of turbine farms in the mountain passes leading to the desert, and every time I drive by it seems about 1/4 of the turbines are stopped.
In addition, whenever we drive to Las Vegas we pass by Ivanpah power station, the one with thousands of mirrors aimed at one of three towers, and invariably one of the towers is out of service. Once I saw two out of service on a cloudless day. What a waste.
Rhee,
Little known fact about ivanpah …
It uses a gas fired boiler to keep the water warm overnight.
So much gas needs to be burned to keep the water temperature up, in fact, that this site passes the threshold as being some type of ‘pollution source’.
But, will it save the climate?
An oldie, not permitted to be discussed any longer with respect to large scale wind farms.
Wind resistance | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology
I think things are worse in Britain.
Electric distribution companies are forced to take wind power first, shutting down coal and gas plants if there is too much energy. This means coal plants can only run 15% of the time, which is not sustainable for any private company.
Worse still, if there is too much wind power, the wind farms are paid double to NOT generate. Paid an exorbitant amount for working, and then paid twice that for not working.
Hence the deliberate scam up in Scotland. There is a bottle-neck of transmission lines running south into England, and so they are building wind farms like crazy up in Scotland, because they get paid double for not generating (due to the bottle-neck). And we pay for the scam in our electric bills.
Ralph
It’s a bit more complicated. With the Grid so keen on securing records the first thing they aim for is maximising exports as much as they can, even at negative prices. GB consumers pay to subsidise these exports because they get lumped with the bill for Renewables Obligation Certificates worth over £50/MWh each (and offshore wind gets paid anything up to 3.5 ROCs per MWh – the Hywind floating offshore project), or the applicable CFD subsidy.
After that, curtailment comes in two flavours. If there’s just too much wind, then they look for bids to compensate for the loss of income, and this can be driven by a cheapest to curtail algorithm, with the price set by the marginal curtailed wind farm. When there are grid constraints meaning that the power simply can’t be delivered to customers through lack of transmission capacity, then only specific farms have to curtail, and with less competition, the payments can work out a lot higher.
The really crazy bit is that the most heavily subsidised wind farms have no incentive to curtail at all. If is the least subsidised that will find it more profitable to curtail. The only exception to this is when there is a continuous period of six hours or more of negative prices. Only then are CFD subsidy payments halted, and those expensive wind farms have no incentive to produce. The ROC subsidies are not halted during such periods.
Thank you for another interesting post , Willis . What I don’t see in Willis’ analysis is the commonly overlooked not inconsiderable hidden cost of making wind (and solar) despatchable for the consumer . The utility has to add that in along the line (ie backup systems), making the true cost of wind and solar even greater .
There’s probably something here akin to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle that’s just begging for a Nobel prize.
I’m not sure about that