UK Offshore Wind at 'Tipping Point' as Funding Crisis Threatens Industry - Slash...
source link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/23/08/07/1817213/uk-offshore-wind-at-tipping-point-as-funding-crisis-threatens-industry
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UK Offshore Wind at 'Tipping Point' as Funding Crisis Threatens Industry
UK Offshore Wind at 'Tipping Point' as Funding Crisis Threatens Industry 69
Posted by msmash
on Monday August 07, 2023 @02:16PM from the closer-look dept.Britain faces being left with no hope of meeting its crucial climate crisis goals and losing its status as a world leader in offshore wind energy without an urgent overhaul of government support, ministers are being warned. From a report: The sudden halting of one of the country's biggest offshore windfarm projects last month could signal a "tipping point" in the construction of new sites unless ministers intervene, a number of senior energy industry figures told the Observer. They warn that a swathe of new projects, which Britain is relying on to meet key climate targets, could also become economically unviable under the existing regime. While the industry has been hit by huge price inflationary pressures, it warns that the government has failed to adjust the scheme that guarantees the price it is paid for energy. "If the government doesn't do something, there's a very real risk that, come September, just before party conferences, the story won't just be about getting rid of the 'green crap' -- it'll be about failing to deliver on the projects they've already said that they wanted," said one industry insider.
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You mean people on the ISS? Meeting climate goals benefits everyone living on the planet, even if they don't get power from this wind farm.
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Power plants should be built by the power companies that will prophet from them and not subsidized by the government
I did my part by lowering my carbon footprint by not using a car for trips i could take by bike, Energy efficient Power usage. Running my Lighting needs with Colman wind generators. Beyond this i am done there is no way in hell i should ever pay for a "Legal Monopoly" to build a wind farm beyond what I still pay in utility bills.
Also by the time all this climate stuff cokes to a head i w
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Why should they? If you do that, the only interest controlling what gets built is profit, which results in what weâ(TM)ve already had - a bunch of idiocy with pumping carbon into the atmosphere.
The point of governments is to manage the countryâ(TM)s economy and major utility projects in a way that benefits everyone, not just a corporationâ(TM)s share holders.
Starting from the assertion that the only motive involved should be profit is capitalism gone mad.
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If power generation isn't profitable, it can't be used as a long-term replacement for power generation that is.
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Let's be clear in our distinction of what exactly "climate goals" means.
There are two possible,contradictory definitions here:
* reduce production of energy/cause artificial shortage for political ends
* supersede traditional production capacity with "green" technologiesThe latter is a "climate goal" which we can all, mostly, agree with. That's what's promised, and it's what people want.
What government actually implements is the former, in alignment with ESG depopulation goals of the WEF.
Wind farms are univer
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Solar becomes less and less viable the further north you go. The UK has *extremely* reliable wind, especially offshore.
For reference, solarâ(TM)s power factor in the UK is a mere 10%, and thatâ(TM)s before accounting for how much less sun the UK gets than more southern locations due to the angle to the sun. Meanwhile, windâ(TM)s power factor is 38%.
Offshore wind is a *far* more reliable source of energy in the UK than solar is.
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Oh, I'm not disputing that at all.
Wind turbines, however, are not a reliable power generation technology - regardless of how reliable the wind might be. Therein lies the problem.
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Solar that far north will never produce enough power to make up for what was burned to make the PV panel. You either need to be at a high elevation or a low latitude for solar to be of value in reducing emissions.
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Meeting climate goal is just a scheme in order to starve people out and bankrupt them in order to meet the cabal's agenda and depopulate the planet. So, no, it doesn't benefit everyone living on the planet since the plan is to get rid of them.
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>Meeting climate goals benefits everyone living on the planet
Factually false. People living in cool temperate and arctic areas almost universally benefit from warming of the climate to cite one of many examples of people being harmed by reduction in warming speed.
Keeping people like you misinformed was likely one of the reason why several studies that did harm/benefit analysis on regional global warming patterns were quickly hushed up and subject became a taboo in scientific circles with no new grants ap
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The prices set in 2012 for the project won't work any more. So what? You can't buy petrol for your car or gas to heat your home at 2012 prices either.
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How much money do we need to pour down the gullets of private industry to make these projects economically feasible? Must the subsidies continue forever, or can't the consumers of this 'free electricity from the wind' afford to pay the actual cost of generating this power?
(Have they really been working in this for 10 years?)
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It's not pouring money into private industry. It's not a subsidy it was just a fixed price contract. But the fixed price contracts pre-covid and post-covid no longer make any sense due to unexpected once-in-a-century inflation.
It was a badly designed subsidy because it was trying to avoid being a subsidy. The US solution worked out far better. In the US every year the US Dept of Energy sets a benchmark price for fossil fuel produced electricity. Then the Wind providers get paid the difference. It's ac
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The wind-farm operators put in bids for the cost per kWh/MWh they want to receive to make a profit; these are ranked in increasing order of bid, and accepted in turn until the required delivery amount is reached. The highest bid accepted becomes the 'strike price', and all the accepted operators will get paid at that rate. If the wholesale cost of energy goes below the strike price, they're subsidized for the difference; if it goes above the strike price, they refund the difference. This is the 'contract fo
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Gotta love how the lifecycle on these things work. It's been going on like this since at least the 1970s -
* government org spends gobs of money on some green initiative
* penalties are levied against non-greenwashed energy production to encourage/provide a financial basis for claiming the greenwashed producer is effective
* promises of green technology are not realized
* use additional conventional production eg. diesel generators on-site to shore up lackluster results
* energy crisis, because of many reasons,-
This is not a "green technology" problem or even one unique to the UK. The exact same thing is playing out with rural broadband subsidies in the US. Companies bailing on commitments they were already paid for and/or insisting on more money.
The actual problem is that it's somehow considered acceptable for companies to privatize profits but socialise risks.
It started with George Bush giving trillions to banks because they were "too big to fail". Then we gave businesses more money for Covid. Somehow with all t
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Funny, you left out the Covid check writing spree that sprayed thousand dollar checks to anyone the government had an address or bank account info for...
I seem to recall Obama had a hand in the 2008/2009 bailout, bush saved the corrective measures for Obama to implement.
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Can you connect those two facts to the argument?
In what way does money injected into the economy at the bottom change the fact that companies are socialising the risks and privatising the profits?
In what way does Obamaâ(TM)s involvement change that?
Are you just trying to turn this into a partisan pissing contest rather than a discussion of policy?
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I agree. The fundamental part of this which makes it a problem is governments and their infinitely deep pockets full of other peoples' money.
Faux-green tech masquerading as a solution wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't getting massive subsidies to pretend to work.
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I was told that wind, solar, and other "green" forms of generating electricity were CHEAPER than older, non-renewable sources like coal, fossil Fuel, etc - yet now the lack of ever-increasing subsidies is making green projects too expensive/non-viable?
Who could have seen that coming?
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You have no control. What *non* green project in the UK are you referring to thatâ(TM)s on time and on budget?
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I know you are being sarcastic but I'm still going to explain how this works so everyone understands. What is reported by the press when they say for instance "solar is cheaper than coal" is something called 'capacity cost'. Capacity cost is what it costs to build a powerplant. It doesn't take into account how much power is actually made nor the cost of fuel or maintenance. Think of this as the cost of hardware in IT. The actual cost we all pay (including the utility) is called 'utilization cost'. Thi
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features.
as decision makers become more aware.
feature creep occurs -
No. What happened is that the UK government has been handing out power-plant development projects licenses under a CfD regime for years. What that means in simple terms is that what amounts to a fixed price is guaranteed for the electricity produced by the project in question for 15 years. If the prices at some time during that period turn out to be low, the companies get a subsidy. If, at other times prices rise, any excess must be paid back. It's meant to protect companies and their projects from market v
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That was well known in advance. Wind requires priority sellers' rights AND massive subsidies because most of the costs are before anything is produced AND massive buildup of expensive spinning reserve. So expensive capital access needs, expensive legal framework and expensive backup.
They're currently fighting over just the construction costs. They haven't even touched the priority selling rights destroying actually viable plants because they're not allowed to produce electricity at the same time wind does a
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