Super Expensive Battery Mania is Threatening to Blight the UK Countryside

Super Expensive Battery Mania is Threatening to Blight the UK Countryside

https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/super-expensive-batter...

By Paul Homewood

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Amongst all of Ed Miliband’s crimes against the UK, surely the deliberate desecration of the countryside is up there amongst the worst.

Not content with building hundreds of miles of pylons, plastering the countryside with wind and solar farms and wanting to destroy farming, he now wants to industrialize it with ugly, toxic , flammable battery storage factories.

The Telegraph reports on how the 800-year old village of Willingham by Stow in the Lincolnshire Wolds has fought off one such giant battery park.

But many others are in the queue:.

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“The emerging battery park blitz will add to that pressure on the countryside, with Miliband planning a five-fold increase in the infrastructure, meaning industrial batteries will become a landscape feature across the UK.

Hundreds of acres of farmland will likely be turned into industrial sites, but those losses will also boost the UK’s ability to keep the lights on, heat our homes and even power our cars as electricity takes over from gas.

It’s part of a green revolution that ironically destroys our greenery. But the prize – and Miliband’s ultimate dream – is a power system that will run largely on free fuels such as wind and solar.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/02/08/battery-powered-bri...

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Sadly the Telegraph goes on to show a gross misunderstanding of what these batteries are capable of, and thus disinform its readers. The article states:

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“For Tom Vernon, founder and chief executive of Statera, one of the UK’s leading battery developers, a battery-powered Britain makes huge sense.

Given the intermittent nature of renewables such as wind and solar, batteries have the potential to play a huge part in securing the net zero energy system as Britain weans itself off gas-powered generation sources.

Vernon believes that once Britain hits the Miliband target to have at least 25 gigawatts (GW) of battery capacity, there will be times, especially on cold, windless winter evenings, when batteries provide up to two-thirds of the UK’s power…..

It was Britain’s battery parks that helped save the day when, last month, one such cold, dark and windless bout of dunkelflaute (extended no wind and no solar periods) stilled the nation’s turbines and threatened the UK with power shortages.”

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Tom Vernon, of course, would say that – his company stands to rake in huge profits on the back of intermittent renewables. But the journalist, Jonathan Leake, clearly does not understand the difference between GW and GWH!

That 25 GW will only store enough electricity to last for an hour or two at the most.

It will be absolutely useless when the wind does not blow for days and weeks on end.

Even the comment about last month is not correct, because it was our full fleet of CCGT plants which kept the lights on.

The real purpose of batteries is to fine tune the grid, offering instantaneous power should frequency dip, thus buying time for generators to fire up.

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A good example of Leake’s misunderstanding is the example he uses of Statera’s new battery park in Manchester. Leake writes:

“An even bigger project is underway at another site. Carrington battery park in Greater Manchester will hold 680 megawatts (MW) of battery power able to support up to 2.2m homes.

“These technologies can store energy at scale – not just for hours, but across days,” says Vernon. “This capability is essential for maintaining energy security, reducing the UK’s reliance on natural gas, and ensuring we are prepared for future cold snaps and dunkelflautes as and when they occur.””

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Carrington will actually store 1360 MWh, ie two hours storage. As batteries cannot be totally drained, the realistic amount of storage is less still.

The idea that plants like this will keep the grid running during dunkelflautes is dangerous nonsense.

Maybe the Telegraph should send Mr Leake on an energy training course!

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The Dysfunctional State of Maine?

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The over-taxed, over-regulated, already-impoverished Maine people are super-screwed, trying to make ends meet in a near-zero, real growth Maine economy
The Maine economy has lots of low-tech/low-pay/low-benefit, bs jobs
The Maine economy has lots of woke, leftist bureaucrats
Screwed-over Mainers also have to pay for poverty-stricken, aliens of different cultures from all over, who illegally enter the US, a federal felony
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Those illegal aliens:
– are the dregs of Third World countries, sent to Maine by their US-hating, leftist, woke governments, in cahoots with Soros-financed NGOs
– are getting free housing, free food, a never-empty credit card, free healthcare, free education and whatever other goodies they want. They mainly suck from the government tit
– have no skills, no training, no education, no modern industrial experience.
– will take low-tech/low-pay/low-benefit jobs away from screwed-over Mainers.
– are often good at crime, murder, rape, drug and human trafficking and mayhem.
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Many millions of illegal aliens have to be shipped back where they came from, before they forever ruin the US.
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Down-trodden Mainers often have to put up with the visual ugliness and noise of hundreds of windmills, that are often idle, because of too little wind year-round, and many thousands of acres of solar panels, that are often covered with snow and ice in winter; there is no solar at night.
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MAGA may lead to higher CO2 ppm to 1) increase growth of flora and fauna all over the world, and 2) increase crop yields to feed hungry people. What is not to like?

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NEW ENGLAND ELECTRICITY 100% FROM WIND AND SOLAR by 2050?
In New England, we have Net Zero nut cases. They know nothing about energy systems, but spout lots of nonsense.

“Keep it in the ground”, they say. “All electricity from wind and solar”, they say.
When presented with numbers and facts their eyes glaze over

Here is a simple analysis, if no fossil fuels, no nuclear, and minimal other sources of electricity

https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/vermont-example-of-ele...

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It is assumed, 1) all W/S output, based on historic weather data, is loaded into batteries, 2) all demand is drawn from batteries, based on historic load on the grid, as published by ISO-NE.

An annual storage balance was created, which needed to stay well above zero; the batteries are not allowed to "run dry" in bad W/S years. The balance was used to determine the wind and solar capacities needed to achieve it.

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New England would need a battery storage system with a capacity of about 10 TWh of DELIVERABLE electricity from batteries to the HV grid.

Daily W/S output would be fed to the batteries, 140 TWh/y

Daily demand would be drawn from the batteries, 115 TWh/y in 2024

Battery system roundtrip loss, HV to HV, would be 25 TWh/y, more with aging

Transmission and Distribution to users incur additional losses of about 8%, or 0.08 x 115 = 9.2 TWh 

The battery system would cover any multi-day W/S lulls throughout the year
Batteries would supplement W/S output, as needed, 24/7/365
W/S would charge excess output into the batteries, 24/7/365 
Tesla recommends not charging to more than 80% full and not discharging to less than 20% full, to achieve normal life of 15 years and normal aging at 1.5%/y.
The INSTALLED battery capacity would need to be about 10 TWh / (0.6, Tesla factor x aging factor x 0.9, outage factor) = 18.5 TWh, delivered as AC at battery outlet.
The turnkey cost would be about $600/installed kWh, delivered as AC at battery outlet, 2024 pricing, or $600/kWh x 18.5 billion kWh = $11.1 trillion, about every 15 years.

In reality, banks insist Owners have 50% of the projects and bank loans the other 50%

Owners insist on a 10%/y return on their investment in an inflationary environment

I did not mention annually increasing insurance costs of risky W/S projects.

If all money were borrowed from banks, the cost of amortizing $11.1 trillion at 6% over 15 years = 1132 billion/y, slightly less than the New England GDP.  In reality, costs are much higher 
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/battery-system-capital...

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No banks will finance W/S projects at acceptable interest rates and no insurance companies will insure them at acceptable premiums.

No matter what the woke bureaucrats in the UK are pronouncing.
The sooner the U-turn, the better for the UK, Germany and Norway.

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What is generally not known, the more weather-dependent W/S sources, the less efficient the other, traditional generators operate
They have a hell-of-a-time to counteract the ups and downs of W/S output.

https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/fuel-and-co2-reduction...

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At about 30% W/S, the entire system hits an increasingly thicker concrete wall, operationally and cost wise.

Germany and the UK are hitting that wall more and more hours each day

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Base-load nuclear, gas and coal plants are the only rational way forward, plus the additional CO2 is very beneficial for additional flora and fauna growth

https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/we-are-in-a-co2-famine

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High Costs/kWh of Wind and Solar Foisted onto a Brainwashed Public

US subsidies are:

 

1) Federal and state tax credits, up to 50%
- Community tax credit of 10 percent

- Base tax credit of 30 percent

- State tax credit and other incentives of up to 10%

2) 5-y Accelerated Depreciation write off of the entire project
3) Deduction of interest of borrowed money

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The subsidies reduce the owning and operating cost of a project by 50%, which means electricity can be sold at 50% less than it costs to produce.

Utilities pay 15 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from fixedoffshore wind systems

Utilities pay 18 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from floating offshore wind

Utilities pay 12 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from larger solar systems

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Excluded costs, at a future 30% W/S annual penetration on the grid, the current UK level: 

- Onshore grid expansion/reinforcement to connect distributed W/S systems, about 2 c/kWh

- Traditional power plants to quickly counteract W/S variable output, on a less than minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365, about 2 c/kWh

- Traditional power plants providing electricity during 1) low-wind periods, 2) high-wind periods, when rotors are locked in place, and 3) low solar periods during mornings, evenings and at night, about 2 c/kWh

- W/S electricity that could have been produced, if not curtailed, about 1 c/kWh

- Importing electricity at high prices, when W/S output is low, 1 c/kWh

- Exporting electricity at low prices, when W/S output is high, 1 c/kWh

- Disassembly on land and at sea, reprocessing and storing at hazardous waste sites, about 2 c/kWh

Some of these values exponentially increase as more wind and solar systems are added to the grid
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The economic/financial insanity and environmental damage of it all is off the charts.
No wonder Europe’s near-zero, real-growth economy is in such big do-do

That economy has been tied into knots by inane people.

YOUR tax dollars are building these projects so YOU will have much higher electric bills.

Remove YOUR tax dollars and none of these projects would be built, and YOUR electric bills would be lower

 

 

UK, Germany and Norway

Norway gets 90% from hydro reservoir plants and 10% from west coast windmills.
Because of long distances, there is little connection between the north and south grid.
Any draw by the UK during W/S underproduction affects the south grid.
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The grid is pumped by generators to a voltage with 50-cycle electromagnetic waves which travel at near the speed of light. Electrons do not travel. They just vibrate at 50 Hz
Any UK underproduction, resulting in voltage drops, is immediately sensed about 800 miles away, and compensated for, by automatically opening the water valves to hydro turbines in Norway.
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A few years ago, during a W/S lull, Norway oversupplied Germany and the UK, which resulted in much higher wholesale prices in the south grid, too low water levels in reservoirs, rationing, aka blackouts/brownouts, and lots of Norwegians with mandated EVs and heat pumps being peed off.
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This time the W/S lull happened again, and, just like that, the government fell. INSTANT DEMOCRACY.

We should have it in the US, instead of endless lying, obfuscation, grandstanding, obstruction, etc., for up to 4 years, or, God forbid, 8 years

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NOTE: I lived in Norway for 3 years. My brother-in-law, a managing director for decades, worked at Norsk Hydro, which provides almost all hydro power in Norway. We talk shop. He thinks the nutcases in Oslo should be exiled to Nova Zembla.