Tuesday
Aug212012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Yup, desperate
Aug 21, 2012 Climate: WG3 Energy: wind A few days ago, I noted some rampant misrepresentation of Gordon Hughes GWPF report by the Chief Executive of RenewableUK, the self-help group for subsidy junkies. It now appears that responsibility for this onerous task has been passed down to the deputy CEO, Maf Smith. In an article in the Express, Mr Smith is quoted as follows:
We want to keep electricity bills as low as possible. So we have to stop importing massive amounts of expensive fossil fuels from abroad as we have no control over how much they cost. We know exactly how much wind costs: just 2p per household per day – that’s according to independent regulator Ofgem.
I'm speechless.
Reader Comments (70)
Why is it ok to just ignore all the costs of 'renewables'?
Why is it acceptable and allowed to say wind power costs 2p per household per day, when it is orders of magnitude more if you just look at the authorities' own numbers?
Page 24 of this.
ZT
Yes, explains a lot, he has gone far in his chosen career.
and guess where he started - "Recycling & Local Agenda 21 Officer "
makes me wonder !!
Aug 21, 2012 at 3:20 PM | Jack Maloney
see http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/ for a very nice dashboard showing UK Generation by technology.
Surely the cost of all the ROC that conventional power generation has to buy is part of the cost of producing renewables ? or is that what they are on about trying to work out how much ROC for wind actually costs.
In which case the claim of 2- a day is an outright LIE. The true cost MUST include building the things; paying the landowner the bribe; building the infrastructure (pylons/underground cables) ; building the control system to join the things to the grid; MAINTENANCE - an annual cost; and last but not least the COST divided by the years of actual service being achieved of each of the windmills themselves.
That total cost can then be compared to the same costs calculated for conventional plant (note that ROCs should not show in conventional cost; they are a cost of WINDMILL/Renewable generation). ANy attempt to add ROC costs onto conventional generation cost is fraud
David: "Meanwhile, back here in the real world..."
May I add: Wind (and Sun) do not send bills, they send for the insolvency administrator.
Maf Smith, according to his LinkedIn profile, was previously employed as a consultant at Xero Energy
Xero, Zero, all the same to me.
The Whigs they do say,
"Wind - just Toupee a day"
Despite any hold on,
logic and reason
they peddle their wares
impervious to scorn
(pause and refrain)
and the political classes keep taxing our asses
while telling us just, how lucky we are!
The Tories pont-if-icate
'bout the 'Big Soci-ety' state
while fiddling their expenses,
f***ing our senses
still lying and cheating,
the same as before
(pause and refrain)
and the political classes keep taxing our asses
while telling us just, how lucky we are!
New Labour has no issues
In fact they have no policies
but they cling on to power
'cos the rest are a shower
Seems opposition is not as bad as it seems!
(pause and refrain)
and the political classes keep taxing our asses
while telling us just, how lucky we are!
We used to be proud
Yes, our nation was loud
But we had a sense of right
that's now just a crock o' sh*te
and we've all let it happen
so we're all, just to blame
(pause and refrain)
and the political classes keep taxing our asses
while telling us just, how lucky we are!
Think it's to the tune of "I predict a Riot". Anyone think of something more appropriate?
Perhaps Renewables UK should be reported to Trading Standards for misleading potential customers. .
Robin
"what about expressing the price as p per kWh"
2p/kWh sounds a lot more like it. Perhaps Ofgem didn't know what a kWh was.
The 2p being quoted is not the cost of wind but the extra cost of wind. The lie is the proportion allocated to industry/commerce being omitted from the sum.We all know,except those who deliberately wish to hide the truth, that any increased cost will be passed down to the consumer so the extra cost is actually 4p/household/day. In 2010/11 wind capacity was about 3MW but by 2020 wind energy will be 10x greater. At that point each household will pay 40p/day, or £146 pa. And that is just the ROC's payments. All other subsidies and costs(transmission lines + OCGT backup plants +backup energy costs) created by wind turbines will be extra.
Fuel poverty and dark,cold, nights anyone? Or will sanity prevail in the end?
Sorry. In my post above I should have said GW, not MW.
Petition to reduce subsidies for windfarms
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/22704/
David Porter:
I suggest that's misleading in two respects:(1) Capacity v. contribution. Today wind power contributes an average of about 3.5% to the UK's energy demand. Demand is typically 35-40GW, so wind typically contributes around 1.3GW. (It can be as much as your 3.0GW but, as happened a few days ago, it can be as little as 0.0GW.)
(2) Position by 2020. The Coalition plans that, by 2020, 30+% of our electric power is to come from "renewables". That means wind as little else is planned. (30% would be about 12GW.) But the plan is delusional: it means we would have to commission nearly 10 huge wind turbines every day for the next seven years.
But, if the plan was achievable, we wouldn't be facing just "dark, cold nights". Unless there was full back-up (and I know of no plans for it), we'd be facing disaster. As I said on another thread recently, "few people appreciate, for example, the fragility of a modern city: in periods of extreme heat or cold, it’s electricity that prevents disaster. And, throughout the UK (and this can extend to much of Europe), the wind typically doesn’t blow in periods of extreme heat or cold."
Scottish Renewables membership is at least as heavily government/local government departments, quangos and fakecharities as the actual recipients of the subsidies. I assume the same applies to RenewablesUK. They are thus actually mainly a government propaganda organisation merely masquerading as subsidy junkie lobbyists to make themselves look better.
"We already get five per cent of our electricity from wind turbines"
I looked up the statistics for UK electricity generation. 2011 figures show total renewables were about 5%, with wind about half of that.
Its just sooooo easy to be flippant with the truth.
Wind Turbines may produce for 80% of the time but even 1% of rating is counted as producing.
Never seen any figures showing how much they use but recently on a trip southbound at 6am down the M74 all the wind farms I saw had turbines facing in all directions as there was no wind to face, however a good 30% were turning no doubt to protect their gearboxes from seizing and using up Electricity.
I am not versed in your ROCs, but looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewables_Obligation it seems to me that it is a kind of bureaucratic surcharge - extra tax - on the electricity bill. Why is this called the cost of renewable energy? It seems to me to be the cost of the bureau dealing in these ROCs.
Albert
"Why is this called the cost of renewable energy?"
Because it is passed back to the windmill owners/operators. If they didn't get it, they wouldn't bother putting them up in the first place.
The figure of 2p per day comes from http://www.bwea.com/media/news/articles/pr20120315-2.html
It is based on £7.74 per household per year, divided by 365 days.
Bishop Hill
Cost of wind power: Source of Maf Smith's figure of '2p per
household per day'
See Bishop Hill thread 24 April 2012: 'Representative of what?'
A figure of 2p per household was recited by Ipsos-Mori in
one of the questions of a poll that they conducted on behalf
of Renewables UK between 13 and 17 April 2012:
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Polls/renewable-uk-wind-power-topline-april.pdf
Mailman picked up on the figure, and for anyone who is
interested, I attempted in full detail to source it.
The figure of 2p per household is RenewableUK's calculation
from Ofgem figures of the direct additional charge that is
levied upon the consumer in respect of wind power for the
financial year 2010/2011.
The figure seems to be correct on its terms.
Thus it is possible to calculate from Department of Energy
& Climate Change figures an estimated figure of the charge
similarly of 2.8p per household for 2011.
But to calculate 'exactly how much wind costs' one must also
add in the further charge that is levied indirectly upon
the consumer by way of general taxation to pay for the
subsidy by Government and EU of the development, generation,
transmission to the consumer and backup of wind power.
Maf Smith writes in the Daily Express under the title of:
'Why I don’t think wind costs the earth'.
To pass off the 'exact cost' of wind power to Express
readers, under such a title, as 'just 2p per household per
day', as Maf Smith does, is therefore wrongly to mislead his
audience, and he should publicly correct himself.
Stephen Prower
Stevenage
Thursday 23 August 2012
Bishop Hill
Cost of wind power: Maf Smith's figure of '2p per
household per day'
Further to my comment yesterday, I followed up by a web
search to find a calculation in simple terms of how globally
the incentives and sanctions that the Government and EU have
put in place to encourage a switch-over of electricity
generation from burning coal, gas or oil to harnessing the
power of the wind, sun, tides, running water (and nuclear
fusion?) have affected the price of electricity to the
consumer 'at the pump', as I may put it.
I failed to find any such calculation, let alone a
calculation that also went on disaggregate a separate figure
of the effect of wind power on its own.
But it is almost certain that the disaggregated incentives
and sanctions in favour of wind power of the Government and
EU in question do impact directly upon the consumer through
an increased price of electricity, and not just indirectly
through a reduced yield of general taxation.
And of course, as other commenters have mentioned, whereas
commercial firms can pass on the extra price that they pay
for electricity--plus the cost of the '2p per day' wind power
levy (or whatever they pay)--to the consumer, the consumer
cannot do the same in return to them!
Stephen Prower
Stevenage
Friday 24 August 2012