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Jon Excell
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Are wind subsidies a price worth paying?
The anti-wind lobby gained a bizarrely-coiffed ally last week in the shape of US business tycoon Donald Trump.
Angered by plans to build an offshore wind farm near his £1bn Aberdeenshire golf resort, the entrepreneur used his appearance before the Scottish Parliament’s energy committee to attack an industry that he claimed is inefficient, unable to operate without subsidies, and responsible for killing “massive amounts of wildlife”
Stirring stuff. And despite vocal criticisms over the environmental impact of Trump’s own development, questions about the economic sustainability of the sector will always provoke debate amongst readers of The Engineer.
It’s certainly true that the UK wind energy industry is heavily subsidised - to the tune of around £1bn per year according to some reports. Although it’s also true that the extent to which other more mature areas of the energy sector are propped up is often overlooked.
What’s more, with a recent RenwableUK poll suggesting that 67 per cent of people in the UK are in favour of wind energy it seems we think it’s a price worth paying.
There’s a good argument that one of the problems faced by wind energy is the perception that it’s a mature industry. But while it’s certainly true that the core technology has been around formany years, the sector’s still in the process of finding its feet as a mass-manufacturer. And as our latest feature shows, technical breakthroughs on the production side could have a major impact. Compared to many other forms of energy generation the construction, installation and maintenance of offshore wind capacity presents some significant technical hurdles. Most existing methods rely on some element of construction at sea, a demanding and costly process in one of the most unforgiving environments.
Our feature looks at how Strabag, one of Europe’s largest construction firms, is developing an innovative process that could bring much of this work back onto dry land and potentially usher in a new era of highly efficient serial turbine assembly.
Meanwhile our interview looks at wave power, a renewables fledgling compared to wind, but an industry which, according to Ross Henderson, technology Director at UK leader Pelamis Wave power, is finally poised to make the transition from demonstration to commercialisation.
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Readers' comments (30)
Ralf | 2 May 2012 12:41 pm
I'd rather see more dedicated cycle paths, especially in the smaller cities that have no proper public transport.
Building those paths creates also jobs, and it gives families more money into the pocket when they cycle to work instead of using the car, and it gives them more time for themselves instead of waiting for hours for the bus each day.
And it could reduce health costs as well.
Wind turbines can be paid for by electricity prices.
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allyn Boyes | 2 May 2012 12:49 pm
I agree with Donald Trump. Wind is inefficient (availability to demand) and I do believe if the same subsidies had been provided for tidal or wave we would have much more efficient and available to demand systems nearer maturity. The Engineering challenges and costs of siting wind farms must at least be on a par those of the other renewables I mention but I suspect they are in fact greater further weakening their case.
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David | 2 May 2012 12:54 pm
Subsidies are necessary to allow a technology or market to develop to a point where subsidies are no longer necessary. Those who say offshore wind cannot be economical ignore the lessons of history; onshore wind was claimed to be too expensive, now it is on a par with traditional carbon-based power generation. I’m old enough to remember the same being said about offshore oil and gas, now it is the cornerstone of our production.
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ssam | 2 May 2012 12:55 pm
We should be subsidising all forms of low carbon energy (or massively taxing carbon emissions). While I support wind, we are also going to need a large increase in nuclear power.
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Brian | 2 May 2012 1:04 pm
Speaking as someone who lives quite close to several turbines already. I think we have to realize that any energy is no longer cheap energy, the cost of wind energy is currently high compared with some other forms, but we are in a development stage with wind energy and in some point in the future I have no doubt it will be more cost competitive. what wind energy and other renewables give us is energy security. we must get away from reliance on imported energy. What was missing from the Donald Trump evidence was the fact that people playing golf on his new course would have very limited opportunity to actually see the offshore wind turbine development, as the course is based among sand dunes and the turbines at least a mile offshore. I speak as someone who drives past it every day.
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Harold Birtwistle | 2 May 2012 1:09 pm
The capital cost of windfarms isn't limited to the turbines, there's also the switchgear, transformers, etc plus the installation and cabling.
Factor in running and maintenance to get a whole of life cost.
Then you can take account of how much energy is generated, bearing in mind how often the wind blows, its direction and the times power is available but not required (middle of Saturday night is an extreme example)
Divide total KWHs by total life cost and you get a silly number that nobody can afford.
Until there's a method of large scale energy storage developed windpower is a financial disaster (except for the equipment mfrs and energy companies of course)
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Anonymous | 2 May 2012 1:31 pm
We demand more & more energy today.
As an island nation we need to exploit all sources of energy, cut reliance on imports
and treat new developments as futuristic not monsters. Taxpayers money needs to be spent wisely, wind turbines are todays technology not pie in the sky ideas.
We can work with the energy providers
to beautify and create future features for our countryside.
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Richard Annett | 2 May 2012 1:41 pm
With global warming gathering apace, weather systems changing and movement of species because of habitat changes any renewable energy system is welcome over some toff's golf club.
Just as an aside, we are subsidising Nuclear industry heavily; its costing 72Bn£ to decommision our old stations; divide that over the number of years generating, say 36 years for ease of division and you have 2bn£ subsidy per generating year. So Wind Energy seems a bargain. Plus it comes with insurance, rather than nuclear which has non.
So please say to Mr Trump, should you get a chance, that he's an idiot and should stay out of our renewable energy industry.
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Adrian Montagu | 2 May 2012 2:03 pm
I investigated the sample used for the poll recently taken. It was from a set group of people and undertaken over the internet.
Here in Wales where we are to have 800 turbines and hundreds of Pylons desecrating the landscape, we don't have a high poulation density and those that do live there do not enjoy good internet access.
The sample is very skewed in favour of cities with no turbines in their back gardens! hmmmm!
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Anonymous | 2 May 2012 2:27 pm
Ralf says cycle top work, UNFORTUNATELY not everyone can work in their own town or indeed anywhere near home. So it is transport in some form, public transport is limited, so the car comes in again as an essential, whatever it costs.
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Malcolm | 2 May 2012 3:00 pm
Anonymous: Ralf didn't say EVERYONE has to cycle to work. There are many solutions to reaching our 80% reduction target.
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Anonymous | 2 May 2012 3:52 pm
It completely mystifies me that tidal power doesn't receive the priority it deserves as a source of reliable energy. The old adage 'time and tide wait for no man' declares the truth. Tides are predictable, reliable, and the energy available is easily determined.
Tidal turbines are much smaller for a given power output and fluid velocity, since water density is over 800x that of air. The wind energy industries keep reaching for larger and larger turbines, requiring huge amounts of resources to build and maintain. Doubling the size of a turbine requires 8X as much in material, and 8X the expenditure of energy (and CO2 generation) as a baseline size. I'd love to see some real comparisons between the overall energy bill required to build and maintain a tidal turbine vs a wind turbine of the same power output.
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Robert Freer | 2 May 2012 3:56 pm
No.
Windfarms are built only because of the massive subsidies we have to pay
And they need back up for the 78% of the time they are not generating full capacity
(which negates any alleged environmental benefit)
Remove the subsidies and no-one would build them
Any form of electrical generation which has to rely entirely on subsidy is bad engineering and bad economics
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brian M | 2 May 2012 5:03 pm
If you need reliable, repeatable power, wind doesn't hack it. We need tidal, hydro, thermal, carbon capture and more conventional (nuclear...). Give subsides for things that will really make a difference.
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offshorewind | 2 May 2012 5:39 pm
Yes Brian makes a good point - the golfers will be keeping their eye on the ball not looking out to sea!
What may not be well advertised is that this wind farm is being setup by AREG and Vattenfall to demonstrate new technology to reduce the cost of offshore wind. So all the comments about high cost of offshore wind are also missing the point. It does seem yet another sad case of NIMBY!
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GLynn Davies | 2 May 2012 6:22 pm
Wind Turbines are completely useless says Prince Philip and he is right. After FOI questions the Govermnment were ready to admit to £1285m in subsidies for WT which are:
incapable of providing a base load for the Grid
swing between plus 18% and minus 18% in unpredicatability
need fast acting fossil fired generators to compensate for them 85% of the time
weaken small businesses in driving up the cost of electricity
call for extra taxes on efficient power generators
and as a bi product will close important power stations such as Didcot ( now sheduled closure for 2013.
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DAVID RAMSBOTHAM | 2 May 2012 6:36 pm
The dash for cash and politics, not saving the planet, are the driving forces behind wind energy.
Are you disillusioned by rising electricity prices, over dependence on the “green” dream [especially uneconomical and inefficient wind farms] and the destruction of our countryside then please object to the Government at
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/22958
or by GOOGLING “E-PETITION 22958″ and following the link.
Please note that the main purpose of the petition is to get a meaningful debate in Parliament on this matter. Parliament is able to call on all the necessary experts to make it a worthwhile discussion and to reach the right conclusions. At the moment most of our MPs are burying their heads in the sand and do not seem to have the ability to convince the British public that wind power, with all its associated problems, is part of the answer to our energy problems.
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Colin Megson | 2 May 2012 9:23 pm
Every 6th day, the electricity delivered to the National Grid by UK wind farms, dropped below 1¼% of average capacity for a period of 5 hours. So the 200 MW averaged sized offshore wind farm would power about 1000 average households. The occupants of the remaining 99,000 might as well take the chance of another few hours in bed. Google - "stuart young" + "wind power"
In reallity, either or both expensive gas burning 'non-spinning reserve' plant or expensive and tragically inefficient 'spinning reserve' plant will be brought online, ensuring that 99,000 household make their full contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.
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Bryan Leyland | 2 May 2012 9:54 pm
Subsidies for renewable energy only exist because of a mistaken belief that man-made carbon dioxide causes dangerous global warming.
The fact that the world has not warmed significantly in the last 10 to 15 years proves that this assumption is wrong.
The fact that even if Man-made global warming was real and dangerous wind power would make only a tiny difference to global warming, is totally ignored.
There is no justification for subsidies for a source of energy that is expensive, unreliable and has very low capacity factor. On top of the direct subsidies the consumer–not the wind farm owner– pays for backup generation transmission and the extra cost of system operation.
http://www.adamsmith.org/research/reports/renewable-energy-vision-or-mirage
The money being squandered on huge subsidies for expensive and useless renewable energy would better be spent on nuclear power, cleaning coal using hydrogen fluoride and shale gas.
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Roger Bryant | 3 May 2012 9:46 am
In response to Richard Annett:
Let’s have a look at what £2bn (£ 2 x 10exp9) per year would buy you. Taking round numbers if you consider 10 nuclear power stations with a total output of 10GWe generating for 7000 hours per year that is a total of 70 x 10exp9 kw hours per year. The subsidy per kw hour for decommissioning is then 200/70 pence ~2.86 pence per kw hour. This quite a conservative figure as it does not consider the electricity generated by the already closed plants that are included in these decommissioning costs or that the service live are in excess of 40 years.
What are the subsidies for wind power and other renewables? 10-20 pence per kw hour seem to be typical figures. Is wind energy really a bargin?
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