‘Cheap’ Offshore Wind Power Claims are FALSE, Data Shows


Since 2017, renewables advocates have argued that offshore wind power is now very cheap. However, closer examination of their claims reveals a different story.

As the report’s author Andrew Montford explains:

“In fact, if you read the small print, renewables advocates are only saying that windfarms coming on stream after 2018 will be cheap. But we now know this is not true. Windfarm developers announce their budgets before they start work, so we can see that almost all the forthcoming developments are just as expensive as anything built in the last few years [2]. Even if these new windfarms perform much better than the older ones, they are only going to give us slightly cheaper power.”

 


Montford also points out that the renewables advocates’ claims are already falling apart:

“We are starting to get data for the first of these allegedly cheap windfarms. Beatrice, commissioned in the Moray Firth in 2019 is supposed to be 40 or 50% cheaper than other recent windfarms, but we now know for sure that its capital costs were higher than the average, while its operational performance is only marginally better.”

The GWPF study is the third recent review of the accounts of the UK’s offshore wind fleet to find little if any sign of cost reductions [1]. The levelised cost (LCOE) remains 3-4 times that of a gas turbine running flat out. 

Nevertheless, the public has been sold a different story, as Montford explains:

“The man in the street believes that wind power is cheap, because that’s what the media reports and it’s what the government tells him too. But hard data, from audited financial accounts, shows that it’s not true. Environment correspondents and ministers need to come clean with the public.”


Andrew Montford: Offshore wind cost predictions and the cost of outcomes (pdf) 

Notes

[1.] The others were J Aldersey-Williams et al. Better estimates of LCOE from audited accounts – A new methodology with examples from United Kingdom offshore wind and CCGT. Energy Policy 128 (2019) 25–35, and G Hughes, Wind Power Economics Rhetoric & Reality, Renewable Energy Foundation, 2020. 

[2.] The possible exceptions are the Dogger Bank windfarms. These are built in shallow waters, so will apparently be relatively cheap to install. However, at 120-200km offshore, operational and maintenance costs are likely to be high.

Contact  Global Warming Policy Foundation

Andrew Montford
e: awmontford@gmail.com 

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Comment by Jim Wiegand on February 21, 2021 at 2:13pm

Correction the fake green energy reported by Enron was 71% 

Comment by Thinklike A. Mountain on February 21, 2021 at 10:32am

Joe Biden’s Mission to Erase The United States of America

https://thelibertyloft.com/joe-bidens-mission-to-erase-the-united-s...

Comment by Jim Wiegand on February 20, 2021 at 12:26pm

Green Lies and fraudulent research come easy when there are profits to be stolen from the taxpayer.  This fraud has been gong on for decades.  

Energy production by these dirt bags is self reported. In one case Enron claimed energy production and received tax credits for an impossible 72%  of the installed capacity for their wind farm. Three  times over what others were reporting and even those numbers were false.   I have the CA document that shows this.

Comment by Thinklike A. Mountain on February 20, 2021 at 11:25am

Facebook Says It Will Fact Check Global Warming ‘Misinformation’
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2021/02/19/facebook-says-it-will-fac...

When one's lies are failing, gag people. How American of Facebook. NOT.

Comment by Art Brigades on February 20, 2021 at 10:41am

The 2020 year-end Average Wholesale Price per MWH on the ISO-New England was $23.62. If it hadn't been for a freakish December ($41.70), the year end price would have been about $22/ MWH.  The Maine PUC recently awarded Tranche 1 of 2 in its Renewable procurement RFP. Almost all the winning bids were solar and wind, and the price granted each bidder was double or higher the grid's 2020 average of $23.62. Then of course there's the added costs for transmission fortification, capacity payments for standby power, etc... Habib Dagher has said for years about his offshore gimmickry that he would like to get it down to six cents ($60.00 per MWH).  

Big Wind isn't even sneaky any more. Everyone knows the cost, but nobody cares because it's so hip.

"It's a symbol of what we need to be doing," as so many Maine legislators say. 

Comment by Long Islander on February 19, 2021 at 11:27pm

Wherever wind power is built to any significant degree, massive costs arise to build new required transmission. The media usually cover for the wind industry and often support the lie that the new huge transmission cost dropped on ratepayers has nothing to do with all the new wind turbines. So add the transmission costs to all the other costs of wind.

 

Maine as Third World Country:

CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power

 

Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.

Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT

******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********

(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/

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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law

Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future

"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."

https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/

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