On a frigid January morning, the fruit of the U.K.’s excessive reliance on wind electricity was reaped when its contribution to the national grid plummeted to a pitiful zero.
Solar output, meanwhile, was a paltry 1% of power generation.
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This wasn’t just a fluke, but rather a stark illustration of the dangers of building an energy system around inherently unreliable sources like wind and solar.
The British government’s gamble on random wind speeds and weak winter sunlight to meet unattainable Net-Zeroby 2050 targets is leading toward an energy crisis of unprecedented proportions.
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The Volatility of Wind Energy and the Weakness of Winter Solar Energy
Wind power’s appeal has always been its promise of environmentally clean, inexhaustible energy.
But real-world experience shows, the technology to be 1) damaging to environmental ecosystems and 2) unreliable.
Although Earth will always have wind, knowing when and how much is as impossible as the foolish pursuit of controlling the climate.
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As the monthly production chart from GridWatch demonstrates, wind energy swings wildly from nearly 100% of the output to complete collapse within days or even hours.
The same happens in New England, according to minute by minute generation data published by ISO-NE
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This winter, as a very cold high-pressure system settled over the U.K.,there was no wind, and wind turbines went idle, just when demand for heating and electricity surged.
Such weather conditions have been known for decades
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January’s wind and solar failure forced the U.K. to rely heavily on gas-fired power plants and electricity imports from Norway's hydro plants and France's nuclear plants.
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The extra electricity draw from Norway caused wholesale prices in its southern grid to drastically increase, caused EV and heat pump owners have to deal with brownouts, and caused the Labor government to fall
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During these periods of low wind and low solar, the high cost of imported power inflates user energy bills that are already the highest in Europe, even higher than Germany .
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British households, on average, pay nearly double the electricity rates of their mostly nuclear-powered French counterparts.
This disparity is largely due to British policies that subsidize wind and solar, while penalizing more reliable fossil fuel-based generation.
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Paying to Stop the Wind
Adding insult to injury, the U.K.’s energy policies include a perverse mechanism: paying wind turbine Owners to switch off the windmills during periods of high wind.
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On January 24, Storm Eowyn battered Ireland and Scotland with gusts exceeding 100 miles per hour.
Such high winds require windmills to be idled to prevent self-destruction, and grid overload.
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“Consumers face a triple hit in curtailment costs at times of high winds,” says Lee Moroney of U.K.’s Renewable Energy Forum.
“Not only do they pay for electricity that wind system Owners predicted they would generate, but were instructed not to produce, because of grid congestion.
But consumers also have to pay a bonus to the windmill Owners for the trouble of reducing output.
And consumers must also pay for the costs of turning up conventional generation (such as gas-fired power stations] to make up the shortfall.”
The UK consumer was sold a massive bill of lousy goods
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The U.K.’s dwindling domestic gas production and reliance on imports means, fluctuations in wholesale gas prices hit consumers hard.
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In 2024, energy bills skyrocketed by 80% compared to 2019 levels, a trend that shows no signs of abating.
It looks like Labor and Tories will be out and Farage will be winning big time.
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These costs are made worse by government-mandated levies to fund “renewable” energy projects and carbon offset schemes.
The branding of wind energy as a green solution is false advertising in the extreme:
- Manufacturing turbines requires vast amounts of fossil fuels – from mining and processing rare earth minerals to producing the steel and concrete for their massive structures.
- The amount of land required for a turbine to produce comparable amounts of energy is many times that of nuclear and fossil fuels.
- Extraction of rare earths, essential for turbine magnets, is associated with severe environmental degradation and human rights abuses in mining regions.
- Wind turbines kill wildlife, especially birds and bats, and are suspected to contribute to whale deaths in offshore locations.
- Wind turbine blades become non-recyclable waste that often goes to landfills.
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Citizens of the U.K. have missed serious power blackouts by a whisker.
But recent events highlight the dangers of prioritizing ideology over practicality and serve as a warning to those who would allow climate dogma to guide energy policies.
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This commentary was first published at American Thinkeron January 28, 2025.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India.
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UK and Norway
Norway gets 90% from hydro reservoir plants and 10% from west coast windmills.
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Because of long distances, there is little connection between the north and south grid.
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Any draw by the UK during W/S underproduction affects the south grid.
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The grid is pumped by generators with 50-cycle electromagnetic waves which travel at near the speed of light.
Electrons do not travel. They just vibrate at 50 Hz
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Any UK underproduction, resulting in voltage drops, is immediately sensed, and compensated for, by opening the water valves to hydro turbines in Norway.
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A few years ago, Norway oversupplied Germany and the UK, which resulted in much higher wholesale prices in the south grid, low water levels in reservoirs, rationing, aka blackouts/brownouts, and lots of people with EVs and heat pumps being p..d off.
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This time it happened again, and the government fell, just like that.
INSTANT DEMOCRACY.
We should have it in the US, instead of endless lying and obfuscation 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 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.
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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
ELECTRICITY STORAGE WITH TESLA POWER MODULES
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.
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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.
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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.
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
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/battery-system-capital...
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High Costs/kWh of Wind and Solar Foisted onto a Brainwashed Public
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The three main US subsidies are:
Federal and state tax credits and cash grants,
5-y Accelerated Depreciation write off of the entire project
Deduction of interest of borrowed money
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The effect of the three items is to 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
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