UK's (and Maine's) energy policy - lies and more lies.

From Electroverse.io 

Net Zero Fantasy Economics

NESO, the National Energy System Operator, is the new body replacing National Grid ESO. It is supposed to be the UK’s neutral planner. Instead, its new report presents a world where Net Zero is cheap and fossil fuels are prohibitively expensive.

The cost chart at the heart of the report puts wind and solar near the bottom, while pushing up the cost of conventional power — including gas plants, gas with carbon capture, and hydrogen turbines. NESO then adds a “carbon cost” to anything dispatchable, artificially inflating the price of the technologies that keep the grid stable...

NESO assumes offshore wind will reach a 51% load factor by 2035. But the UK government’s own data, published in October, shows the fleet averaging 43.6% — and even that figure is laughable. Many UK farms operate in the 30s or far lower, especially as blades erode and mechanical wear sets in. Ageing turbines lose performance; the trend is only ever down.

On top of this, wind farms (even when the wind is blowing) are regularly told to switch off because the grid can’t take the power. Scotland, in particular, produces far more wind than its transmission lines can carry, so turbines are regularly shut down with the companies still paid as if that electricity was being used — ‘constraint payments’ now run into the billions.

Curtailment means huge amounts of potential electricity never reach the system. A farm might technically be capable of a 40% load factor, but if the grid only accepts a fraction of its output, the real figure is far lower. Consumers still pay the bill, but the power is never used. NESO’s modelling ignores this entirely, simply removing this problem from the spreadsheet. It treats future wind output as if every turbine will always be able to send power into an unconstrained and perfectly expanded grid. But the UK hasn’t built the transmission, the storage, or the backup needed to make that fantasy real.

The same optimism runs throughout the report. Capital costs are lower than what companies are actually paying. Asset lifetimes are longer than what the industry is seeing. And the carbon charges applied to gas exist only in policy spreadsheets, not in the market. Each optimistic input pushes renewables down the cost chart and pushes firm, reliable power up it.

None of this reflects what households and businesses pay.

If wind and solar were truly the cheapest sources of electricity, bills would be falling as more of them were added to the system. Instead they’re rising, subsidies are ballooning, and the grid is becoming more and more fragile due to, mainly, a lack of inertia.

Britain’s energy policy is being guided by fictional documents — and it isn’t alone. This is a global issue. Across Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and even parts of the US, nations are basing their energy futures on fantasy economics.