As one of the world’s biggest wind power developers halts its top UK wind project and warns about further cancellations, Net Zero Watch reminds ministers that they have been warned for years about this inevitable fiasco.
Vattenfall, an international mega-developer of wind power, has put the UK’s giant 1.4 GW offshore wind project Boreas on ice, claiming that rising costs have made the Contracts for Difference, awarded last year for £45/MWh (2023 prices), uneconomic. [emphasis, links added]
Net Zero Watch, amongst others (see publications listed below), has long warned that the low CfD bids made in the UK had no basis in economic reality.
The capital and operating costs of wind power, particularly offshore are still very high.
This technology is unattractive and imposes very high system costs when compared to gas generation even at today’s elevated prices.
It is completely uneconomic if the gas prices continue to revert to their historic levels.
Net Zero Watch notes that Vattenfall has said it will be considering the future of all its wind projects in the Norfolk zone, with a total of 4.2 GW, placing pressure on the UK government to make extra support available to ensure construction and meet the targets for offshore wind.
Professor Gordon Hughes (University of Edinburgh), the author of many of the studies exposing the reality of wind power costs, said:
“It is obvious and now increasingly widely recognized that wind industry claims about costs and performance should not be taken seriously. Very high costs have been clear in the financial data for a long time, and are not the result of recent inflation and supply chain difficulties, though these may be making a bad situation still worse.”
Dr. John Constable, NZW’s Energy Director, added:
“It is critically important that the UK government does not succumb to the tacit blackmail of Vattenfall’s announcement. The wind experiment has failed. The consumer cannot be expected to continue propping up this unfolding disaster.“
Articles and studies on unrealistic offshore wind bids for Contracts for Difference:
2. Gordon Hughes, Who’s the Patsy? Offshore wind’s high-stakes poker game (GWPF: London, 2019)
6. Andrew Montford, Offshore wind: Cost predictions and cost outcomes (GWPF: London, 2021)
7. Kathryn Porter: Addressing the high real cost of renewable generation (Watt Logic 2022)
Quebec has 62 hydroelectric plants. They’ve sold a LOT of electricity to New York, Ontario and other neighbours. Sucked up tonnes of green energy credits. In May, Quebec’s energy minister, Pierre Fitzgibbon, told the chamber of commerce that the province’s power surplus will end in 2026. New industrial customers are not welcome.
Get this piece of prose he pulled out of his butt….”Our surpluses have melted like glaciers under the sun of climate change” WoW!
Really bad analogy. All 62 of those hydroelectric plants depend on the spring melt for water.
It is very common for bids for projects favored by liberals to come in lower than necessary to complete the project. The expectation is once the project is on underway, the tax or rate payers will make the up difference to get the job done. Consider California’s bullet train. I hope the UK holds the line and doesn’t fall for this tactic on Offshore Wind.
We can’t afford their kind of free energy. It’s been emphasized that a megawatt of green energy depends on a megawatt of good old fashioned conventional electricity. Any increase in future electricity demand, in todays political climate, requires buying the capacity TWICE! If you need a new car, do you buy two new cars?
Sonnyhill, most people who read articles on this site will understand your post. I want to make sure everyone understands it. The wind doesn’t always blow. During still days we need fossil fuel power as back up to wind power. This means plants that are at idle ready to go. There is the cost of personnel on standby and the capital and maintenance of the equipment. These extra costs are always ignored by the advocates of wind power.
To answer your question regarding buying two new cars, if you buy an EV you will need an ICE car to use when you need to do more than what an EV can handle (long drive, hauling stuff, driving in winter, etc. So an EV is very much like a wind turbine or solar panel, you need a backup when the other isn’t available.