Friday
Jun032011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Milking it
Jun 3, 2011 Energy H/T Decaux for this story from the Scotsman:
SCOTLAND'S oldest university is hoping to become the first higher education institution in the country to generate all its power through its own wind farm.After a three-year investigation and scientific study of wind levels in Fife, St Andrews University yesterday submitted an application for planning permission for the farm, which would be built on farmland six miles from the town.
...The university sees the proposal as a key part of its strategy to offset what it described as the "punitive" national costs of energy.
Still more feed-in-tariffs you and I have to pay for.
Reader Comments (37)
Wind farms were a topic of conversation on Question Time last night. Simon Jenkins very effectively made points against.
"to generate all its power through its own wind farm"
So presumably they won't be needing any of ours? I can live with that, although their IT and site services departments might not like it... (no central heating pumps, lighting, security, refrigeration, etc, etc)
>the "punitive" national costs of energy.
And why's that then? To pay for more bloody wind farms!
And why's that then? To pay for more bloody wind farms!
Exactly, the law of intended consequences !!!!!!
"...to offset what it described as the "punitive" national costs of energy."
Caused in part by 'alternative energy' windmills. Are they really going it alone as suggested by their wording or jumping on the FIT bandwagon?
Time and time again, I have stated, "Global Warming would cease to be a problem if Universities were removed from electric grids and mandated to produce their own green energy".
6 medium sized windmills to provide £5.4 million worth of lekky in a year?
That's about £15K per day in total ...or on average £2.5K per day per windmill.
In round terms each windmill must produce £100 of lekky each and every hour of the 8760 available in a year.
At say, 14p per KWh, that is an average output of 700 KW per windmill. Each hour, every hour. Even when the wind isn't blowing.
Somebody wiser than me can tell me if this is a truly achievable target. But it doesn't look likely to me.
There is 'something else' in play here and I hear the word 'subsidy' being breathed all over the place...........
As someone once noted regarding the feed-in tariff: the more the wind blows, the poorer we become. It is an apercu that belongs on the base of every such windmill, and in every visitor centre created to promote or view them.
No mention of how it is being funded. I would be surprised if the University has that many millions of pounds in an unused bank account. In which case it is being funded by somebody else with the University providing a front organisation which can get planning permission more easily.
The claim it will "generate all its power through its own wind farm" is clearly a lie - unless the Universoty plans to close down when it isn't windy it will contiunue drawing conventional (probably nuclear since Torness is nearby) at 6p a unit and sell its excess back at 40p. One can see why investors like this option.
Brickbats to the Scotsman for not asking these elementary questions and merely reprinting what is clearly a press release. Unfortunately that is how the British media work.
This will give students at one of the UK's better universities real experience, of real life in the real world of alternative energy.
Unless their teachers doctor the results of course.
I anticipate some teething problems with achieving projected energy yields
Ok - lets hold them to it. No wind; no leccy.
I assume they will remove the grid line to the university. No point having a grid if they are going to generate all their own power.
Searching for "Wind turbine" on my local councils planning website come up with 21 hits. Heres a couple of samples:
About a third of them have been refused, but it looks to me like many people are tagging on a wind turbine to their developments.
Don't miss the point that they haven't claimed that they will generate all their own electricity. They say that thew will generate all their power.
So no gas, oil, diesel, petrol or even barbecue charcoal for them!
Excellent, I wish them well with that.
But I note that they also say:-
"St Andrews claims that, despite reducing energy consumption in recent years, rising national and international costs of energy have seen its bills triple since 2005 to £5.4 million a year."
Surely not!
After all Lord Turner's merry Committee on Climate Change only the other week said that the cost of "decarbonising" the economy would be a paltry £1 per week "on top of their annual energy bills in 2020"
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/05/09/uk-britain-renewables-idUKLNE74800720110509
Even assuming that Reuters screwed this up and the CCC actually meant an extra £1 per week per year until 2020 as the Beeb reported
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13417997
"The Committee on Climate Change has forecast that to meet emissions targets the average household fuel bill will go up by £1 a week until 2020 when it will plateau out with no major rises after that."
Or, as the Mail put it:-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1388168/Green-taxes-Climate-change-targets-cost-household-500-year.html
"The new era of green taxes: Climate change targets to cost every household £500 a year"
But, in fact, perhaps the CCC meant that the average household will have to pay an additional £1 per week every week until 2020
That would be an extra £1378 just in the first year (looking more like recent experience) rising to an extra £135,460 total after ten years. The good news, of course is that we are told that it will then plateau. And that does also include all your car fuel and gas bills.
But neither the media seems to be suggesting this kind of rise. But I bet its a lot closer to the University's "trebling since 2005" than it is to the Daily Mail's "extra £500".
@ Philip Bratby
Don't be silly. If they didn't have a connection to the grid, how could they sell the excess these wind turbines will produce?
About a third of them have been refused, but it looks to me like many people are tagging on a wind turbine to their developments.
Jun 3, 2011 at 1:12 PM | TerryS
Terry, please do your civic duty, and point out to the planning dept any instances of developers forgetting to build the turbine.........
@ Philip Bratby
Don't be silly. If they didn't have a connection to the grid, how could they sell the excess these wind turbines will produce?
Jun 3, 2011 at 1:33 PM | cosmic
Don't be silly. All they need is an imaginary connection, for the imaginary excess.
That six miles away part means they won't have to see or hear these turbines . . . . they just make it someone else's problem.
So posh of them.
@TerryS
I hope they don't pass the application for wind turbines on the flats- there are apparently a lot of problems with them on residential units. For example:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/ask-our-experts/wind-turbine-on-roof.aspx
Beware the hidden subsidies as well.
http://news.scotsman.com/wind-power/Taxpayers39-cash-used-to-build.6767943.jp
I notice that they aren't talking about how much these windmills will cost to install, maintain. etc.
I am all in favor of them doing it if 1) they do it without public subsidies and 2) as Phillip suggested, they remove their connection to the national grid so they have to live with their decision.
In other words, Let them freeze in the dark.
You can't blame organisations or individuals for taking advantage of subsidies if they're available.
The Mafia loves them, for a start -- it's not often somebody makes them an offer they can't refuse.
Or as Elizabeth Taylor said: "If someone's dumb enough to offer me a million dollars to make a picture, I'm certainly not dumb enough to turn it down."
Political vanity projects always cost the taxpayer money -- some, more than others.
pablo-chen
Can all be said of UK defense as well or the other US tax haven industries that thrive in the semi legal pirate island that is the UK.
If a majorty of the people finds energy infrastructure and its entrails to be of a national concern, then so it is.
Not a club of 60+ reactionaries that will change that.
Certainly not when they just delete posts (or jockey for it) of people who opinion slightly differently.
> generate all its power through its own wind farm
What they actually meant to say was:
"generate all its subsidies through its own wind farm - which it will then use to buy all its power."
Guess it comes to the same thing?
I notice that they don't offer any courses in engineering but do have one in sustainability.
So who's bright idea was it?
Please let me know if you actually catch anybody really building a wind turbine.
The erections that blight our countryside are windmills.
Do not be foolod by the name change designed to make you think that the technology is fundamentally different from that of the 13th Century.
It isn't.
Q: How do you tell that a wind farm promoter is trying to mislead, bamboozle or otherwise pull a fast one on you?
A: If they have ceased breathing for some hours, they may not be. Otherwise they definitely are.
@seekeraftertruth
Whose bright idea was it? They created a sustainability department at the University, and appointed an energy-and-sustainability officer and two other sustainability officers, and the sustainability department has to do things so that they can be seen to be earning their sustainable salaries...
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/environment/
Neil Craig @12:11pm
You are almost certain to be right about it being a front for an investor-backed FIT harvesting scam. That's how it usually works. The VCs clean up for the next 25 years and the front organisation covers itself in greenwash.
Socialism. The contamination that just keeps on ... taking?
Latimer Alder calculated that each of the 6 windmills would have to generate an average of roughly 700 kW of that sparky stuff that comes out of your sockets.
Taking his analysis a step further, assuming a generous 20% capacity factor (I'm feeling generous today--it's payday!), that would imply a rated capacity of roughly 3.5 MW.
I'm clueless as to what a 3 MW unit looks like, if there is such a thing. Anybody?
"what a 3 MW unit looks like"
Big! I tend to think in terms of motor sizes (i.e. the other way round), so it would be about 4000 horsepower, ignoring conversion losses (even bigger if you don't). We were going to have some 2 MW windmills here until a pressure group got rid of them (the PG wanted to build a wood-fired power station, it later transpired) and they were 125m high...
Nice example of 'spin' by the academics. ' Generate all it's own power' = generate a total number of Gwatt-hours per annum of electricity equivalent to the sum used by the university, and flog it into the transmission system at the feed- in tariff.
Tony Blair would be proud of them!
I'm a graduate. The place was bloody freezing even when it was connected to the national grid. But that was in the 60's, before the late-century warming (sarcastic smirk).
A report from Australia of a state government looking into cancelling the generous tariffs offered for solar power by its predecessor:
'The freshly minted O’Farrell government in NSW is planning to tear up contracts entered into by its predecessor, which had promised to pay participants in the solar energy scheme a very generous 60 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity generated (the ‘feed-in tariff’). It plans retrospective legislation to invalidate the old contracts, cut the price paid, and deny participants in the scheme any legal recourse against the government. '
I daresay they would also be interested in doing the same for windfarms. In due course, I suppose this dilemma will face every country in which these foolish and short-sighted subsidies have been introduced
Source: http://www.cis.org.au/publications/ideasthecentre/article/3038
Hat tip: Greeniewatch, http://antigreen.blogspot.com/
@John Shade
Yes, it isn't altogether wise to trust governments, even if you think the fix is in. They can change and the public mood can change as well. It is by no means off the cards that installers of green energy scams will find the subsidies dry up and they'll be left attempting to run them on their commercial merits (i.e. none).
There's also more than one way to skin a cat, e.g massive property and other taxes for windmill and PV operators.
25 years is a very long time for a government promise. I'm amazed anyone entering such a contract now believes it will stay the course.
0.25 years is a very long time for a government promise.