The Telegraph article referenced for this piece was written by:
Dr Capell Aris PhD who has spent his career in the electricity generation sector. He is a former Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology
As the United States sets its sights on a significant expansion of offshore wind capacity, it would do well to examine the cautionary tale unfolding in Britain. With the UK already grappling with the consequences of an aggressive pursuit of green energy, American policymakers and citizens must carefully assess the feasibility and potential risks of such a rapid energy transition. In this article, we explore the concerns that Britain’s experience should serve as an awful warning to Americans.
The True Cost of Offshore Wind
“The UK already has 15 GW of offshore wind, more than 300 times as much as the USA: and our experience should be a terrible warning to Americans.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/11/green-energy-disaster-uk-awful-warning-america/
The exorbitant costs associated with offshore wind power in the UK provide a significant cause for concern. Offshore wind farms, such as Hornsea Two and Moray East, were built at a capital cost of £2.77 billion and £2.75 billion per GW, respectively, which is more than four times the cost of gas-burning Combined Cycle Gas Turbines (CCGTs). The maintenance expenses for offshore wind farms are also substantial, estimated to be as high as £200 million per GW installed, per annum.
The intermittent nature of wind power presents a fundamental challenge.
“Wind power is unpredictably intermittent and highly variable,”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/11/green-energy-disaster-uk-awful-warning-america/
leading to fluctuations in energy output. Unlike conventional generators, wind turbines cannot be relied upon to deliver energy on demand. Furthermore, the capacity factor of wind farms in the UK has been far from optimal, operating at 33 percent in 2022 and a mere 29 percent in 2021. These factors not only impact the reliability of the electricity supply but also increase the overall cost to consumers.
Strain on the Grid
“As our generation sites move further away from load centres, our grid transmission system has to be expanded to connect the new renewable generators.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/11/green-energy-disaster-uk-awful-warning-america/
The strain on the transmission grid system becomes significant when renewable generators are located in remote or offshore locations. The National Grid estimates that connecting these new renewable generators will cost £46 billion, or £1,533 per household, by 2030. Additionally, wind power’s inability to provide grid inertia, coupled with the growing proportion of renewables, raises concerns about system instability and the increased risk of blackouts.
Rising Costs for Consumers
“Extra services like very rapid response gas generators, required in order to make it possible to connect renewables to the grid, add between £30/MWh and £50/MWh to renewables’ cost.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/11/green-energy-disaster-uk-awful-warning-america/
These additional costs, combined with the high capital and maintenance expenses of offshore wind farms, significantly impact the price of electricity. The true cost to consumers for offshore wind generation ranges from £200/MWh to £220/MWh, much higher than the cost of CCGTs.
Even if one wanted to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, for example, to preserve petroleum as a resource for future generations, an overly ambitious and rapid energy transition is not the most prudent path. Urgent attention should be given to the construction of new nuclear plants as a reliable, affordable, and practical means of achieving and energy mix while ensuring secure energy supplies.
The cautionary tale of Britain’s green energy disaster serves as a sobering reminder that an overly ambitious and hastily executed energy transition can have profound consequences. The high costs, intermittency issues, strain on the grid, and limited storage capabilities associated with offshore wind power demand careful consideration. Instead of rushing headlong into an untested energy landscape, policymakers must weigh the potential risks and costs against the desired benefits. A balanced and pragmatic approach that embraces a mix of energy sources may prove to be a more reliable and cost-effective solution in the pursuit of a sane and reliable energy future.
The Telegraph article referenced for this piece was written by:
Dr Capell Aris PhD who has spent his career in the electricity generation sector. He is a former Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology
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The cost seldom attributed to wind is the need for total conventional backup.
Have you not noticed that the true backup is dumping consumers off the grid at the convenience of the system?
“Virtual capacity”, which is straight out of Orwell.
Which is the real reason electricity supply companies are so keen on “smart” meters.
Yes, the world leaders are all drinking the same Kool-Aid!
The problem with renewables is that they don’t work most of the time!
“The nameplate farce”:
There should be financial penalties for wind and solar power plants inability to deliver at least 90% of their permitted nameplate ratings on an ANNUAL basis, like their backup competitors of coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants that provide continuous uninterruptable electricity.
Subsidies for wind and solar power plants are based on “nameplate ratings”, thus they should be penalized when they cannot deliver what they have been permitted for.
Practically every windmill or solar panel requires a backup from coal, natural gas, or nuclear, thus understanding electricity generation’s true cost is paramount to choosing and prioritizing our future electricity generating systems.
The “nameplate rating” for PV (at 25°C cell temperature) was never intended as a metric for how much energy a PV module might be able to generate, but somehow it is so used.
If you think this is bad look at their latest “Pie in the Sky” idea – https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/13/the-governments-new-net-zero-plan-might-be-its-most-idiotic/
Never underestimate government stupidity. That’s why they are in government – otherwise they’d have to do some WORK!
if you can’t do it- teach it- if you can’t teach it- regulate it
Actually, government workers are pretty smart.
Steady jobs, with good benefits, decent pay, with COL adjustments, that are almost lay-off proof.
All they have to do is to not stick out, not to volunteer, let the years go by and retire at 55 or 60, with a good pension and good retirement healthcare.
K-12 Teachers wised up to that, and they get the same deal, via their unions
Us hard-working suckers have to pay for them, via taxes, and ourselves. We are sooooo screwed!
we should fight back – give them reasonable benefits- enough to keep most on the job- and if they don’t like it they can quit, I bet most positions can be filled quick enough by people just as competent who’ll take those jobs
You are dreaming
Dr Capell Aris is very optimistic since the cost of off-shore turbines he mentions (in pounds/GW) is not actually a cost of electricity. The cost of electricity associated with that investment is the levelized cost of energy (in pounds/MWh) and not directly the cost of that installed power capacity. Thus, if an average capacity factor is estimated for these “green wonders” of 0.3 and a cost fout times the cost of a CCGT power plant, then the levelized capital cost is 5.7 times higher than that of the CCGT facility. Some 43% worse only in this item,.
You have to subtract generation that has zero value because it is in surplus before you do the calculation. The proportion that is surplus increases rapidly with rising total capacity once total capacity reaches the point where curtailment begins to be necessary.
.After further investment, the proportion of output that is actually economically useful from an extra wind farm may drop as low as 20% or even 10%. That means its real cost is 5 or 10 times the LCOE number you first thought of.
I have the 20-year spreadsheets of several wind turbine projects, as leftovers from my consulting days.
Each has about 125 rows.
You need an engineering degree and MBA to put them together, and present them to others, so they understand them.
Such spreadsheets provide the internal rate of return, IRR, and levelized cost of electricity, LCOE, c/kWh, provided by the project over its lifetime
Every wind and solar project has such spreadsheets.
Banks would not loan money without them.
Banks usually have engineering and financial consultants review such spreadsheets, to determine their veracity
Past spreadsheets were based on low inflation and low interest rates, but those days are a goner for many years.
As a result, many spreadsheets are no longer “viable”, need to be redone, will have much higher IRRs and much higher LCOEs
That sums most of the Tsunami of cost increases of future increases of household electricity bills
“Offshore wind farms, such as Hornsea Two and Moray East, were built at a capital cost of £2.77 billion and £2.75 billion per GW, respectively, which is more than four times the cost of gas-burning Combined Cycle Gas Turbines (CCGTs).”
Huh? Is this based on nameplate capacity or operational capacity? CCGTs can work at nameplate capacity nearly all the time. Wind farms cannot as the article states. So which is it?
That’s based on nameplate. Moray East has been making a thing of earning from constraint payments, which makes its real economics look rather different if you load that cost onto their useful output.
Useful output? You must be kidding!
Wind turbine systems, never call them farms, have no useful output, because that output CANNOT be fed into the grid without the presence of a fleet of CCGTs to counteract the ups and downs of wind, on a minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365, year after year. See my below comment.
They are farms. You plant the windmills and watch the subsidies grow.
In addition to useful output there is useless inability to output and useless surplus output.
That is true for thousands of multi-millionaires with lucrative tax shelters, but all the rest of us struggling, hard-working folks are being screwed big time paying for all these ideological follies.
CO2 is a life gas.
It would be better for all life, flora and fauna, to have more of it in the atmosphere
Definitely nameplate. GW, not GWh.
Didn’t we see Spain do a similar failed “experiment” with green energy 20 years ago? This is nothing new. The blind refuse to see.
But they get the warm, fuzzy feeling from telling the world how virtuous they are.
We have our own special interest-driven troubles as it is.
story tip
New Midwest battles brew over CO2 pipelines – Stateline
Why should we look at UK only? How about Denmark and Germany?
You will find very well informed comment on the Danish situation here
http://pfbach.dk/firma_pfb/references/pfb_personal_views_on_present_danish_electricity_policy_2023_02_28.pdf
Also worth a read in the wider European context
http://pfbach.dk/firma_pfb/references/pfb_is_the_energy_crisis_a_thing_of_the_past_2023_05_27.pdf
The greatest worry I have is the gap between sound energy policy and the direction of travel our political class have chosen to take.
Here in the UK we can safely claim to have some of the world’s finest brains. Some of the world’s finest research centres, yet despite our good fortune in intellectual reserves, we have a nation heading fast towards energy crisis.
Our position is not dissimilar to where Texas found itself, being reliant on weather affected energy sources which simply could not cope in times of stress.
We sit on more gas reserves than any other European nation. We could be self sufficient and exporting energy, yet our politicians say, no. They have said we must keep our energy in the ground and import energy at great cost and risk in times of crisis? If anyone can find logic in that please advise..
I do not understand how our politicians sleep at night. I don’t understand how our technical experts i.e. those who advise politicians sleep at night, but most of all, I do not understand how we are expected to sleep at night when all our reliable energy options have been closed down and it is minus 10 deg. C in the middle of a cold winter!
Texas is addressing its grid reliability issues rather than blaming climate change in order to forge full speed ahead into greater unreliability risk for the benefit of special interests and advocacy groups.
Those steps include winterization of gas plants and regulations on wind and solar additions.
Texas power plants are now required to winterize. Is that enough? | wfaa.com
Texas Senate approves tight permit restrictions on solar and wind – pv magazine USA (pv-magazine-usa.com)
Texas Sunset Bill softens the blow from anti-renewables changes – pv magazine USA (pv-magazine-usa.com)
I do not understand how our politicians sleep at night
alcohol and sleeping pills?
Are you kidding?
They are laughing all the way to the bank
Career politicians want to be seen to deliver something, within their term of office, so that they can get re-elected. That’s one of the main reasons that Blairs government refused to expand the nuclear capacity – it would take too long to build and somebody else would claim the credit. Wind turbines are faster to deliver, even if they are a disaster, and politicians can point to them as providing more energy. Spineless career politicians more concerned with keeping themselves in the manner to which they have become accustomed – if Starmer gets in we can expect far, far more of this arrant stupidity and shortsightedness.
Yes great article. Some of us have been experimenting with alternative energy since the 70s at small scale. I have pieces laying around for boat solar/ wind turbine controllers etc. There is a huge difference between off grid utility and powering a 24/7 modern society.
Rational people discovered this many years ago. The woke treasonous delusional wack jobs won’t realize this till society is in ruins. We’re in big trouble guys – and gals
Perhaps they aren’t delusional. Perhaps the ruination of (western, liberal-democratic) society is the real objective.
Unfortunately sane people are pointing out that the very thing driving renewables is exactly what the Marxist want to achieve …. the collapse of Capitalism. The root of the problem must be addressed to solve it. The German auto industry, their backbone of manufacturing, already announced continued energy shortages will doom their industry. Time to start turning the tables and attack with the doom and gloom of economic collapse.
I never took the Marxist theory seriously until this week, having been relying on the quote, “Don’t credit conspiracy for what can be explained by stupidity alone”. Going back and forth with a BEV enthusiast changed my perspective this week while debating my position on the unsustainability of 1.4 billion 1000-pound vehicle batteries every 15 years. His response was, only 10% as many vehicles will be required, most commuting can be “”shared” (no individual ownership). Restricting personal freedom really is part of their vision.
having been relying on the quote, “Don’t credit conspiracy for what can be explained by stupidity alone”
I believe “malice” was the original, but either applies.
I have long maintained that there comes a point where stupidity no longer explains things – stupidity is right occasionally, even if by accident.
Because of the intermittent nature of renewable power sources, the savings in fossil fuel usage is small to non-existent.
The fossil fuel plants have to be kept in warm to hot standby, ready to take over with just minutes to seconds of notice.
Why write such things. Those factors are obviously of no interest to the zealots who are in control.
Build new fossil fuel and nuclear generators and remove all wind and solar from the grid.
First, THERE IS NO “TRANSITION,” nor will there ever be. Wind and solar CANNOT provide the energy needed without fossil fuel generation to smooth the erratic generation of wind and solar and to back up wind and solar due to intermittency.
You also can’t procure the materials for, refine the materials for, manufacture, install, maintain, demolish, or dispose of wind and solar generation equipment, nor provide all of the transport needs at every step, without fossil fuels.
Wind and solar are worse-than-useless and have NO place in a “balanced and pragmatic” electric generation system. They cannot provide baseload and they cannot provide peak and trough ramp up and ramp down. They are nothing more than a parasitic wealth transfer scheme.
Transition cannot occur in the absence of something to which to transition.
IRELAND FUEL AND CO2 REDUCTIONS DUE TO WIND ENERGY LESS THAN CLAIMED
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/fuel-and-co2-reductions-due-to-wind-energy-less-than-claimed
EXCERPT
Wind proponents often claim one kWh of clean wind generation displaces one kWh of dirty fossil fuel generation, which is true.
However, the inefficiencies introduced into the electrical system by variable, intermittent wind, results in wind being less effective at reducing CO2 than claimed. The more wind percent on the grid, the more the inefficiencies.
Ireland’s Power System
Eirgrid, the operator of the grid, publishes ¼-hour data regarding CO2 emissions, wind electricity production, fuel consumption and total electricity generation. Drs. Udo and Wheatley made several analyses, based on the operating data of the Irish grid in 2012 and earlier, that show the effectiveness of CO2 emission reduction is decreasing with increasing annual wind electricity percentages on the grid.
The Wheatley Study of the Irish Grid
Wind energy CO2 reduction effectiveness = (CO2 intensity, metric ton/MWh, with 17% wind)/(CO2 intensity, with no wind) = (0.279, with 17% wind)/(0.530, with no wind) = 0.526, based on ¼-hour, operating data of each generator connected to the Irish grid, as collected by SEMO. More and more wind percent on the grid leads to less and less CO2 reduction effectiveness
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/the-potential-pitfalls-of-offshore-wind-lessons-from-the-uk
Interesting.
The correct response is A DEVASTATING VERDICT AGAINST WIND.
The EU “solution” was to give Ireland money to put in connections to the much larger UK and French grids.
The puny Irish variations, while big on the Ireland grid, disappear in the noise of the much larger UK and French grids.
See? Problem solved by making it disappear, somewhat like smoke and mirrors.
Just having fun in Lalaland
“Overly Ambitious”
Are you implying, that if they were slightly less ambitious, there would be no problems?
In one sense, yes. Their stated ambition is to prevent a supposed world-wide catastrophe from happening. Whilst they are doing that unwanted, unasked for and unnecessary overly ambitious task, everything else is being ignored. The economy, jobs, crime, immigration and the basic things that we want from our government are not being addressed whilst those preening career politicians prance about on the world stage, all fake smiles and competing to see who can be the first to drive his or her country over a cliff.
The “Best Energy Mix” is one with zero wind and solar. Let’s quit kidding ourselves and beating around the bush. It’s not complicated.
Agreed. Politicians will never invest in the needed amount of Nuclear while wind and solar can be built – they prefer the quick-fix approach, even if it doesn’t work, rather than something that’ll take 2+ terms in office to accomplish.
What’s missing from this and most articles like it are comments on the global average surface temperature.
Gee, so many real knowledgeable folk are coming out in droves to clarion the failure of societies caused by an unworkable grid. Maybe the totality folk have an entirely different objective that’s working perfectly.
USA has landlocked states like Nebraska, Idaho, Colorado, …
The coastal states like Massachusetts, New York and California are full of people who will sue to stop noise and industrial-looking towers at their beach houses.
How the f*&^$^ did someone get waterfront building permits off the UK?
The waters around the UK are the responsibility of the Crown – it doesn’t go through the usual planning process like onshore wind would.
Imagine what would happen in the US if the Office of the President was the only permission necessary for all offshore wind?
To see the idiocy of the UK energy policy in graphical terms, just look at the bottom right chart here
https://gridwatch.co.uk/demand/percent
or this one, which shows the same thing in MW
https://gridwatch.co.uk/demand.
Or take a look at the next one, bottom left chart, which shows wind generation last month
https://gridwatch.co.uk/Wind
and reflect that this represents the output of 28GW of faceplate capacity.
Whatever the fantasies promoted by the Guardian and BBC, the fact is that the UK is running its power generation on gas, supplemented by wind and solar. Wind and solar have absolutely no realistic prospects of being the sole generators of power in the UK. It doesn’t matter how much wind you install, it is not going to work.
“It doesn’t matter how much wind you install, it is not going to work”
True of course. But another problem is now rearing its head here in the UK. There are now so many ‘unreliables’ projects in the pipeline that National Grid is saying it can take 10 – 15 years to connect them to the grid. Half of 220 projects originally due to connect by 2026 (total 40GW) still have no planning permission and Ofgem has warned that there are probably a lot of “zombie” projects in the pipeline that will never be built. But the subsidies keep attracting new projects.
None the less Labour is sticking with it’s policy of total unreliable electricity by 2030 – facts don’t matter to politicians.
(For our non UK readers, Ofgem is the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets)
Is the photograph of the 2 men inspecting the turbine blade real?
Looks like it to me.
That’s how it’s done – although it should be mentioned that drones are usually used for an overall first inspection. The harnesses and ropes are only dug out when a fine detail inspection is required.