For years the wind industry have told the public and politicians, incessantly, that wind power is now the cheapest form of generation. In recent weeks, they and their supporters have changed tack, arguing that material price rises and inflation mean that they can no longer make a profit without further subsidies and tax breaks, and that Contract for Difference (CfD) Round 4 developments, such as Hornsea 3, will not come on line unless ministers assent. Industry bodies that have insisted for the last six years that offshore wind can deliver power at less than £50/MWh now expect us to believe that they cannot make a profit. This doesn’t so much strain belief as blow it to smithereens. Market prices have averaged over £130/MWh this year, so even if input prices had doubled, windfarms should still have operating margins of 25%, an extraordinary level of profitability.
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The proper comparison is the cost of the ethically responsible energy source is natural gas with carbon capture. That would be in the same source in the table for Europe LCOE (life time cost of energy). Capturing the carbon and burying it, is expensive and costs energy to do so. NG plus CCGT costs just a little more than offshore wind in the LCOE figures.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#Britain[d]
As of 2022 gas is the largest source of electricity at 40%:[107] its cost varies and being high carbon it causes climate change.[108] So to reduce the share of gas the government annually auctions contracts for difference to build low carbon generation capacity, mainly offshore wind.[109] Before 2022 these generators had always received payments from electricity suppliers, but that year they started making payments.[110] In other words renewables became subsidy free,[111] partly due to the fall in cost of offshore wind.[112] Instead of gas still dark weeks can be supplied by Norwegian hydropower[113] or by nuclear. As many of Britain's existing nuclear reactors are due to retire soon the government hopes that cost effective small modular reactors can be developed.[107]
So, if we have to capture and store the CO2 we will have to pay a lot more for our electricity is what you are saying, but the government are pretending that wind turbines are cheaper than gas NOW, which is clearly not true. If they told the truth most of the public would not support it. Deception lies at the heart of the whole climate change business.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#Europe
ReplyDeleteCost of carbon is not put into the cost of the energy. Both off shore wind and onshore wind are well worth the cost once you understand carbon damage from our emissions in the atmosphere.