23 Comments

A different way to looking at the comparative cost problem. The cost multipliers become enormous as "Renewable" productivity falls.

Simply use comparative costs for power generation technologies from US EIA and divide those bare costs by their measured productivity / capacity percentages to give a comparative cost of delivering a unit of power to the Grid, both in capital and long term costs.

https://edmhdotme.wpcomstaging.com/the-myth-of-cheap-renewables/

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Sadly the data won't be enough to deter many of the Catastrophisers nor many of the public. I think the public will begrudgingly carry on scraping by. I think the defining moment will be when the grid collapses. Even then it will be blamed on fossil fuels, but I think the public will wake up at that point. Until then it's just accept a decline in living standards, as energy is priced into absolutely everything. Anyone noticed how expensive ANYTHING is these days?

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Agree it needs major blackouts to really bring to the fore the challenges of a net zero grid and its consequences but unfortunately i don't see that happening anytime soon. The ESO have a several tools at their disposal to keep the grid stable the biggest one being able to throw as much money as it takes and send the bill on. They also run it pretty conservatively which is one of the reasons why constraint costs are so high particularly from Scotland to England. NG pre separation of ESO was far too slow to respond to the build out of wind in Scotland but its replacement the ESO is now proposing a transmission build out to cover every proposed project however fanciful. Neither were or are the answer.

Net Zero can be a goal but its advancement should only be made when its clear the alternative would not increase costs to the consumer. This was the tenet of the early subsidy regimes globally and you could say it worked pretty well as it did indeed seed a big explosion in companies who can manufacture and deliver renewables globally. Problem is its utterly failed to deliver and of those companies as being UK based despite our politicians parroting that we are world leaders in offshore wind. Worse though is its now evident that its failed its other test that renewables will lower the cost to the consumer the opposite is happening but no politician wants to acknowledge that and the media don't want to challenge but we are spreading the word with Davids work on here.

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Yes, blackouts are less likely to happen now as NG ESO has invested heavily in synchronous condensers and other technology to provide inertia to keep the grid frequency stable at times of high wind and solar penetration. This was after the major blackout in London and Essex on a very windy day in Aug 2018, when a power station tripped and knocked out an entire wind farm with it. It is lack of power generation which is going to do it; a few weeks of zero wind and solar during a particularly cold spell in midwinter, when (compulsory) smart meters will power down all energy hungry appliances in domestic premises (including the heating). Interconnectors won't be able to supply the back up needed because Europe will be experiencing the same weather and what's left of our gas-fired generating stations won't be able to meet demand either.

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Wont be turning me down as I refuse to have one despite veiled threats from supplier.

I also find it reprehensible that they are using Einstein to promote these devices which has cost consumers billions on the bills (yes im effectively paying for one anyway) no one knows what his views may have been.

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As Ben Pile points out in the Daily Sceptic today, it is inevitable that the government will move to make smart meters compulsory - and then all hell will break loose. I will NEVER succumb to having these devices fitted in my home. I've already had a run-in with British gas who tried to force me to get a smart gas meter. If necessary, I'm willing to go off grid in order to avoid handing over control of my energy supply to the government.

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This is a handy reminder of the actual costs which contribute to the price of 'renewables' generated electricity. I often forget about the direct subsidies - CfD, ROC, FiT - when arguing with eco-zealots online, concentrating instead on what I call the 'integration costs' of weather dependent renewables. I guess that the direct subsidies are being paid to companies as a sweetener to make their inherently expensive and inefficient operations profitable, given the rising costs of raw materials, so they're probably not going to come down anytime soon. Integration costs will also keep rising, year on year, as more infrastructure is needed to be built and the cost of materials continues to rise. CSIRO in Australia, which tries to officially perpetuate the myth that renewables are cheaper than gas, oil and coal, plays the trick of totally neglecting to add in the already existing extremely costly infrastructure required to integrate weather dependent renewables into the grid and instead focuses only on the cost of further development, even though future renewables inherently depend upon existing installations. Snake oil salesmen, the lot of them.

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What happens when the CfDs expire after 15 years? Is there a golden period of cheap electricity we can look forward to?

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I'm working on an article to explore that very question. Be about a month before publication though

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The simple way to look at it is to recognise that all the elements of the system will need to "wash their faces" - i.e. be profitable, or cross-subsidised to survive. So for example if you make wind farms sell surplus power to electrolysis and storage at zero or negative cost in order to improve the economics of electrolysis and storage, the wind farms will need a compensating subsidy or to increase (potentially very substantially) the price they charge of output when there is no renewables surplus. If the wind farms are guaranteed their LCOE on everything they produce (and everything they curtail as well - there will be a lot of that), then the electrolysis and storage is going to need very heavy subsidies.

Either way the total cost must be paid for - including lots of under used transmission capacity, extras such as CCUS, grid stabilisation kit, etc.. And you will get the bill. Otherwise you end up with financial collapse, leading to lack of maintenance and physical grid collapse: see e.g. Venezuela.

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I have no expertise but rather, like looking over the shoulder of a student struggling with a technical problem, I become a strong supported benevolent dictator:

Forget net zero. Whatever we do has little global influence.

Fracking. If you don't like it, move. Plenty of jobs with people looking for accomodation. Compensate those directly affected. (there would be people opting to move in.)

N.Sea oil and gas. Nationalise it, bring it ashore and sell it to us at just above cost. Ignore the international market unless there is a surplus to sell.

Wind power. Store the off peak by freezing CO2. The tech exists, it doesn't have to escape to atmosphere. Stored underground it is a self sustaining resource.

Small nuclear reactors. SMRs. Mounted on tanker sized ships moored adjacent to existing terminals or moved to required areas.

SMRs. A Royal Navy sub's power plant can power a small town. Submariners don't get irradiated.

Coffer dams hydro electric on tidal rivers like the Severn.

Wave power.

There would be a techno and construction boom amounting to a war build up. America was broke in the 1930s.

Comparitive costs? We use 4% of our annual rainfall. The cost is pipes, pumps, maintenance and the work force. We used to be good at it before we gave huge dividends to directors. Seems the money goes in the wrong direction.

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Thank you for another lucid exposition, though I fear there may be too much interest in suppressing this information - yet another thing I'd prefer to be wrong about. "We've been convinced to roll out lots of wind and solar energy, and you're paying", doesn't seem much of a vote winner.

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So 12bn a year subsidy, for assets that have life span of about 25 years, where new nuclear would last 40 years plus, and a coal or gas station can last 50 years.

112bn of extra hideous pylons on top of that, and of course, with more lines comes more maintenance costs and more linesmen.

And then we haven't even started on the cost of any hydrogen back up for seasonal renewables failures or the cost of grid batteries.

I did a simple sum the other day, that if we had peak demand of 135-150GW in the winter, in a blocking high where the average daily demand was 90GW per day average, and the blocking high lasted 4 weeks would require, at the cheapest price for grid batteries I could find of £120/kwh capacity, would cost 6.4 TRILLION in battery installations to supply it.

Q when is this madness of renewables going to end?

Fact is, energy is the basis of a competitive economy, this is going to completely sink our economy, fact is, you won't be able to afford to live at these prices

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It will get worse.

As more renewables are added, curtailment will increase, consumers will be paying for wind and solar companies to stop producing electricity.

This will lead to an effort to add expensive and/or inefficient storage options, that will add to costs but will not produce anything.

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Not only that, but the more renewables the more you'll have to fork out to pay gas stations to sit idle waiting as back up and that will have to be paid for.

And if gas stations aren't paid to produce nothing, they'll pack up and decommission and then when the wind doesn't blow we'll have blackouts.

And given the curtailment, all these stations will have business rates to pay, staff, maintenance, business insurance etc fixed costs so when they do generate they will have to charge a lot more when they do generate to recoup those costs.

Its a study in madness

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Excellent article. I make one suggestion - that you quote prices in an article like this p/kWh. It just relates so much more effectively to the things that we know, like the current price cap of electricity of 24 p/kWh, even for those of us who are highly numerate

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simply divide by 10 the price in MWH to get Kwh.

The two won't match anyway because he's talking wholesale price, and you are talking retail price, but as a rough rule of thumb the retail price should be about twice the wholesale price

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Oh yes, I understand the arithmetic, and the difference between retail and wholesale. But even if one does, it's much more immediate to say that, for instance, the government upped the guaranteed (strike) price for offshore wind from 11.6p/kWh to 17.6p/kWh.

Expressed like that, an able politician might think 'Cor, that's an extra 6p/kWh! That's a lot.'

Expressed in £/MWh, possibly no politician at all understood it because, to them, it's just meaningless numbers.

It's like saying that lockdown cost half a trillion pounds: that means absolutely nothing to them. Say that it cost £20,000 per family and then just a few of them start to understand the implications.

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I prefer to go the other way. Do you know what you are paying for your electricity? Over £250/MWh to maybe over £500/MWh if you are unlucky enough to run a small business like a shop. Bigger numbers are much more scary. Then add in those sharply rising standing charges. another £275 a year, or perhaps £750 for a small shop.

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Businesses do tend to pay more and have much higher variability not being protected by price caps, I think my rate is about £275/MWH or thereabouts, but the standing charges are now a complete scandal, they have doubled and my guess is that's what you are being charged for the infrastructure costs of renewables where the estimated cost is £112bn which we are now paying for.

The ABSOLUTE cost of power is NOT relevant, the RELATIVE cost is a serious cost to UK Plc competitiveness.

The USA is paying about 11c/kwh to our 44c/kwh, that is a huge competitive cost disadvantage and its similar when you look at China where the last figure I seen was 8.8c/Kwh

And you wonder why growth is stagnant.

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Agreed, cost is not absolute its relative, because you are looking for the cheapest energy you can get, but as I've posted before, that is not the only factor, price is one of many metrics that need to be considered.

For example, gas is by far the cheapest at a "clean - not artificial taxes" basis of £54/MWH compared to AT BEST the cheapest renewables are about £60/MWH, but then that's not comparing apples with apples

The gas generation has zero cost in terms of grid infrastructure, renewables needs 5 times the grid infrastructure to deliver it at huge cost.

It also needs very expensive back up which would be huge costs in terms of hydrogen infrastructure or massive arrays of batteries which would require more grid infrastructure and more costs to provide them.

The cost of renewables quoted assumes you get your electricity from a tap at the wind farm and you carry it home, which obviously you don't.

So the cost of renewables are way higher than the price quoted when you have to cost what is actually required in deciding how to power a grid, which is.

1) The cost of the fuel source

2) The cost variability of the fuel source

3) The pollution of that fuel source

4) The cost of the generating asset including decommissioning

5) The cost implications of the delivery system (i.e Grid costs)

6) The dispatchability (the ability to load vary to meet demand variability.

7) The ability to provide reactive load management - critical to grid stability

8) The ability to provide local grid voltage support

9) Fuel security of supply

10) potential for Common mode failure (all assets suffering from a single failure mode)

11) potential for common cause failure (weather, flood, lack of or to much wind, lack of sunshine, world war, loss of all external fuel supplies)

Cost is only a small portion of the considerations, wind and solar have some good advantages in that list, but it has some massive drawbacks in that list, and the biggest drawback is that is that it is not costed fairly against all those metrics.

If you were to assign an importance to all those factors and assign a cost benefit to them, wind and solar would come out pretty poorly.

You might find politicians, certainly via select committee's can be quite "topic literate", however the degree of ideology or "group think" is also staggering.

And on covid, never underestimate a politicians ability to spend your money to be popular, the play on covid was against how unpopular they would have been if they had not done lockdowns and lockdowns then cause an avalanche of consequential costs, as you can no doubt see!

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I think the really important thing that David is doing is he is quoting money in CURRENT terms for what we are buying NOW on a consistent basis. Nearly everything you read in the press or hear in the media uses CFD prices in 2012 money (multiply by over 1.4 for CPI indexation; more still for RPI indexed items like ROCs and FiTs), for projects that have yet to be built (and most won't be at the prices quoted, which are no longer profitable enough to secure lending to construct them) as if that is what we are paying NOW. The important reality is that renewables are several times more expensive than imported nuclear from France (when properly available) and hydro from Norway and gas generation here in the UK.

The other important reality is that all the other costs are escalating alarmingly: standing charges are soaring to help pay for pylons and interconnectors and synchronous condensers, and the margin between wholesale price and retail price has also been increasing to cover them and other costs of balancing including grid batteries (which devour about 20% of their throughput that they have to recover through charging for their services), curtailment etc. To add insult to the injury you now pay extra because other people can't afford their bills and default on them, or you pay extra taxes so they can be given benefits to pay the bills.

The theme of the message is that the propaganda in the media is a lie.

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GHE theory fails because of its two erroneous assumptions:

near Earth space is cold & w/o GHE would become 255 K, -18 C, ball of ice

&

radiating as a 16C BB the surface produces “extra” energy aka radiative forcing.

Without the atmosphere, water vapor or 30% albedo Earth would become much like the Moon, a barren rock, hot^3 on the lit side, cold^3 on the dark.

“TFK_bams09” GHE heat balance & its legion of clones uses bad math and badder physics. 63 W/m^2 appears twice violating both LoT 1 and GAAP. 396 W/m^2 upwelling is a BB calc for a 16 C surface filling denominator of the emissivity ratio, 16/396=0.16, “extra” & not real. 333 W/m^2 “back” radiating from cold to warm violates LoT 1 & 2.

Since both GHE & CAGW climate “science” are indefensible rubbish alarmists must resort to fear mongering lies, lawsuits, censorship and violence.

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