The UK is facing an unprecedented energy crisis with a £100billion bailout set to blow the country’s bank balance – and all the while renewables firms are finding huge profits literally blowing in the wind.
One of the UK’s leading energy experts has explained why the UK is facing an unprecedented energy bill crisis despite having more wind farms than ever before. [Bold, links added]
Dr. Benny Peiser, the director of Net Zero Watch, said the price of electricity is determined by the price of gas on the international markets. As a result, renewables companies are making record profits selling energy that is generated by the wind.
He added that consumers effectively had to pay for both wind farms – which are subsidized to the tune of £400 per household per year – AND a backup gas-fired system for those days when the wind is not blowing.
He told the Scottish Daily Express:
“It’s a lot of hot air. The cost of wind energy hasn’t really dropped significantly despite all the PR because it is based on auction prices and contracts.
The price of electricity from wind is determined by the price of gas so wind farm companies are currently getting record high prices.
They say they will just take the highest possible price which is the gas price.”
Mr. Peiser added:
“Renewables only generate electricity for very short periods when the wind blows or the sun shines.
Most of the time Scotland and the rest of the UK is relying on conventional energy so you need a back up system for when there is no wind.
As a result, we have to pay very, very high prices. If a gas-fired power plant is only being used half the time because wind is given preferential treatment then when it is being used the owner will ask for astronomical sums.
When wind is backed up by conventional energy the prices go through the roof and that cost is added to the average energy bill.
The more wind farms we have the more expensive the costs will be. This was happening long before the gas price went up.”
Scotland is already virtually self-sufficient in terms of renewable energy due to the vast number of onshore wind turbines installed over the past 15 years, although that only applies when the wind is blowing steadily at the right times of the day.
Asked if the drive to build more and more turbines would eventually push down the cost of electricity, Dr. Peiser was adamant that it would never lead to lower bills.
“There’s no evidence that these wind turbines are getting cheaper and a lot of evidence to show the more we have the higher the costs,” he said.
“They have been saying that costs will go down for 30 years but it hasn’t happened yet. I think it’s unlikely and in my view impossible because you can’t have an energy system with renewables alone.
“What do you do on days when there is little wind or no sun? How do you power a country like Britain with wind and sun alone? You need two systems; one renewable and one whole system that powers the country when there’s no wind.”
And he said that successive SNP governments in Edinburgh have encouraged wind farm building despite the fact they were well aware it would not drive down the cost of electricity.
He said:
“They knew that at the end of the day they would not have to sort out the mess, it would be English subsidies that will save the Scottish Government from disaster.
This is a utopian dream which is not going to work. It is very expensive as we are finding out now and the next Prime Minister and the one after that will struggle to get a grip.”
However, he went on to explain that nuclear power cannot be used to back up renewables as nuclear plants can only generate a steady constant supply.
“You have to have a power plant that you can turn down and turn up, you can’t do that with nuclear so it has to be coal or gas,” he said.
Dr. Peiser said the UK is going to have to “throw the sink at the energy cost crisis and get more gas and oil out of the ground“. He added:
“The future will be nuclear but in the short to medium term we need more gas.
We are in a pickle, we are in a complete mess and the government and ministers haven’t got a clue what they are doing.
Energy companies don’t care, they are making money left, right and centre. Everywhere in Europe is the same.
In Poland and Germany they have got coal but everybody is building renewables. It is a utopian dream which is going up in smoke.”
The expert said that wind farm subsidies add “£11 billion a year to our energy bills” and if they were scrapped “it would save £400 a year off the energy bill of every single household in the UK“.
He added:
“If the next PM was going to cut subsidies for renewables, nobody would build wind farms anymore, they are just not profitable on their own.”
Read rest at Scottish Daily Express
There is no line on my Hydro bill accounting for the “free” renewables. It costs billions for the hardware needed to gather the sun’s rays and the part time breezes. A 4 megawatt-rated wind mill is expected to produce 30% of that. The devil is in the contract’s fine print. That’s where the subsidies live. Renewables are like the handicapped people who get the front row seats at concerts and the reserved parking spots closest to the store’s doors. Sounds callous, but renewables are handicapped.
The average person can learn more in 43 minutes on that imbedded interview with Dr. Peiser than you could glean from MONTHS of diligent research on the internet.Forget about any useful information from the mainstream media. As a long time “practitioner” in the oil & gas industry, I share his frustration with the lack of a coherent energy policy debate. I’m afraid Dr, Peiser is correct. Folks in the western world are going to have to do some time in the “Hurt Locker” before we can get a rational policy discussion underway and out from the throes of the green FANTASY…