The command of Britain’s electricity supply has fallen into dangerous hands
Anyone impressed by the efficient way in which Britain has organised the Olympic Games might consider the stark contrast provided by the shambles of our national energy policy – wholly focused as it is on the belief that we can somehow keep our lights on by building tens of thousands more wind turbines within eight years. At one point last week, Britain’s 3,500 turbines were contributing 12 megawatts (MW) to the 38,000MW of electricity we were using. (The Neta website, which carries official electricity statistics, registered this as “0.0 per cent”).
It is 10 years since I first pointed out here how crazy it is to centre our energy policy on wind. It was pure wishful thinking then and is even more obviously so now, when the Government in its latest energy statement talks of providing, on average, 12,300MW of power from “renewables” by 2020.
Everything about this is delusional. There is no way we could hope to build more than a fraction of the 30,000 turbines required. As the windless days last week showed, we would have to build dozens of gas-fired power stations just to provide back-up for all the times when the wind is not blowing at the right speed. But, as more and more informed observers have been pointing out, the ministers and officials of the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) seem to live in a bubble of unreality, without any practical grasp of how electricity is made, impervious to rational argument and driven by an obsession that can only end in our computer-dependent economy grinding to a halt.
As always, Christopher Booker nails it perfectly!
Who’s going to provide the rare Earth magnets for all the wind turbines wanted? It’s my understanding that China’s cutting its production due to the massive pollution created by the production of the needed magnets.
This is old news (ie., that wind requires backup and may result not just in redundant capital costs but no real reduction in GHG). But I am relieved to hear that the people behind this silliness are lining their own pockets and aren’t really stupid, merely human (venal).
In the U.S., wind energy gets priority dispatching but is not required to pay a penalty when they don’t deliver the promised power. Consequently, generators powered by natural gas act as back up to wind. This is a disincentive to the construction of much-needed new RELIABLE generation. Nobody is going to build an expensive new plant to act as a backup to an unreliable intermittant power source like wind and solar. Wind companies need to pay for their backup power.
The “backup power” comes from peaking units anywhere in the grid. The grid control authority dispatches peakers based on need, their production cost and, probably, small animal sacrifice and reading tea leaves. The spot price of electricity tracks demand. I’ve seen it at -$1,000/MWh to $1,000/MWh. Using wind and solar for base load is stupid because they are variable. Peak periods of electrical demand are 5-7 AM and 5-7 PM (longer on hot summer days). Guess when wind and solar aren’t that productive.
They need to pay for a lot of things including funding decommission, demolition and renovation. Cessation of subsidies. Repayment of subsidies already received. It’s the only way to ensure that wind is economically viable and on a level playing field.
I absolutely agree, Coach. But I think a great start would be making them play by the same rules as other power generators. The proliferation of these tax-payer funded, unreliable power sources is suppressing the development of legitimate energy sources. According to the Texas PUC, the federal subsidies are so generous that wind generators in West Texas are paying ERCOT to take their electricity about 10% of the time. How can a true base-load generator compete? Or more importantly, how can they get the financing to build their plant? These plants need to be operated as much as possible to make them profitable. Operating these plants as backup to wind and solar is like driving in the city — less efficiency, higher fuel cost, greater emissions, and higher maintenance costs are among the other problems. These wind generators need to pay these plants, like every other generator who doesn’t meet his power obligation would. And then, like Coach says, they have a lot of other costs to cover as well.
Agreed. Renewables should have to pay the fixed cost of idle backup generation facilities.