Cost of onshore wind has been rising for 20 years
By Paul Homewood
The analysis, based on audited financial accounts and official generation data, throws into question claims from the wind industry that wind is becoming ever more competitive.
The findings are also another major blow to the government’s Net Zero policy, which will fail without cheap and abundant renewable electricity.
GWPF deputy director, Andrew Montford, said:
“Onshore wind is 60% dearer than the figure in the Government’s plans for Net Zero, making it a nonsense of claims that it is the cheapest form of electricity generation. We are locking high costs into the economy”
The steady rise in onshore costs is thought to be due to windfarms being sited at progressively worse locations. In other words, the best sites are now all taken.
Earlier analyses have found that offshore wind remains extraordinarily expensive, with at best only a small reduction in recent years [2-4].
https://www.thegwpf.org/publications/cost-of-onshore-wind-has-been-rising-for-20-years/
Andrew Montford’s conclusion is that the levelised cost of new build onshore wind is around £80/MWh.
This is consistent with the most recent onshore wind farms commissioned via CfDs, which are attracting guaranteed prices of £90/MWh +:
No significant new onshore capacity has been added since 2019,ie unsubsidised. This implies that onshore wind farms are not viable at traditional market prices of around £50/MWh.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Everybody who has been following the wind industry over the years has known that the statements from the media (especially the BBC), the wind industry and the geenblob saying that wind power is the cheapest form of electricity knows that it is no more than propaganda and lies.
There is no need for renewables, the worst deal ever, as agree electric cars.
What stupidities and ignorance and corruption underlie the AGW scam.
And late Monday coal is generating about double wind!
Off topic, The Mail reports green groups have blocked a lithium mine in Serbia – and I was naive enough to think they wanted lithium and electric cars. but maybe we should be pleased they are waking up to the environmental damage caused by mining battery minerals.
opic,
Perhaps they were ordered to by the CCP as they don’t want any competition as they look to control the market.
Onshore is expected to make up the bulk of future wind generation to reach the EU 45% reduction goal by 2050, too—which begs the question, how to pay for all this???
How much more desecration of the landscape are people going to put up with? In Germany there is now fierce resistance to windmills near dwellings given the effects of their noise. Leaving the unspoilt landscape to be used. In overcrowded England only the National Parks and AONBs are far enough from people. I think most of us here know this is never going to happen but how much damage will be done before these people are overthrown?
“Andrew Montford’s conclusion is that the levelised cost of new build onshore wind is around £80/MWh”, note levelised cost. The true cost of wind turbines onshore or offshore, are the cost of transmission to urban centres, the number of gas turbines needed to back up the wind turbines and grid management cost. Are these figures ever quoted when claiming wind is competative?