The Economics of Wind
Posted on 24/05/2024 by Dougal Quixote
First under Ed Davey and the Lib-Dem coalition we had Rocs, or Renewable Obligation Certificates. This was a method of subsidy to wind farms which would otherwise be unviable to build. In due time phalanxes of wind factories were pushed through by the Scottish Government via their Energy Consents unit. The name says it all. Politics in the South were very different and eventually the will of the people (and the back benchers) prevailed and wind farms moved offshore. In time Rocs lost popularity and were canned to be replaced by Contracts for Difference (Cfds) which was subsidy by another name. Whilst Rocs loaded the cost on the consumer and the consumer woke up to the inequities of that, Cfds grave a guaranteed minimum price to offshore with the cost hidden from the consumer. We still carried on paying it. As the Wind Farm band wagon reasserts itself on the back of the new 400Kv OHLs we do question their viability. If they could not originally be built without subsidy why do we see dozens of new applications now. Move forward to 2024 and we have a new kid in town. The new OHLs transiting the country and relieving the bottleneck that has for so long limited transmission of power from the distant north and offshore to the rest of the UK. Well that is what we have been told but truth is the rest of the UK could not use all the proposed wind power and the real ambition is to sell the power into the rest of Europe. Power has become the latest financial market with traders sitting in front of their screens trading billion by the minute. Or will be if and when the new OHLs get built and the new wind farms get approved. Sitting in this mess is the proposal for a large development of pumped hydro and the BESS (Battery Energy Storage Systems). Now that raises issues on two fronts. Pumped Hydro relied on free or at least cheap as chips coal fired overnight energy to pump the water back up to the holding reservoirs as coal fired power stations cannot just turn off like gas or nuclear or wind. Some fed by nuclear in the day as surplus ‘free’ power was available. Now the economics of today are questionable as wind has a guaranteed price either through Rocs for old wind or Cfds for new. Without cheap power to refill the reservoirs the system relies on extreme traded prices to balance the books. Now we move to BESS. Storage or Scam? In reality the cost of building these systems let alone to dangers of fire and toxic release questions the whole ethos of storage. It just does not stack up. But herein lies the truth. These are not for storage of power but for trading electricity hour by hour, minute by minute. Buy in power when renewables are producing a surplus at a fixed figure and as soon as the wind dies and the sun goes in sell at a margin. Problem is for the Grid that when you need back up or balancing power there is no guarantee that there will be anything in the tank. This is why BESS has attracted the worst type of carpetbagger and energy traders and should be dropped right now. If this was about energy storage SSEN, Scottish Power and National Grid would have built these in their new substations from day one. Instead we get some dubious players showing their hands and our Councillors and MSPs/MPs fawn like love sick youngsters before them. Where is the critical thinking? Where is knowledge and common sense. List in the cloud of multi billionaires wining and dining our political masters no doubt. Greed is the new Green and we, the PBI, are to be it’s casualties. The collateral damage that trashes landscapes, devalues homes and destroys our ‘mental well being’. That phrase so loved by woke Westminster and the Biased Broadcasting Corporation. I have not even touched on solar or anaerobic digesters and that we will leave to another post.
Will an election change things. Only for the worse I fear. The left has always seen Rural UK as expendable. I see little change there. One final nail in the coffin of energy ambition. The electricity web was built with war fresh in minds and any leg was expendable. Energy was secure. Now we have single OHL or undersea connectors down one line or two at most and war moving to drones and missiles. How easy to disable our whole energy network with one simple drone and looking to the unrest in Sweden the concerns should be internal as much as external. We saw in local elections the growth of the Islamic Party masquerading as Greens. Of note that the regulatory body refused the Islamic Party political status so they seem to have taken over the Greens in many areas. Is this a concern for the General Election and how will that effect the stability of the Country. It is noticeable that the latest player in BESS, Field, is funded and controlled by Asian finance. Not suggesting a political element but we, as a country, may be sleep walking into a minefield.
ajmarciniak 