Pembrokeshire floating wind farm gets Welsh government backing
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
Sky News faithfully regurgitate the glowing press release from the developers. (Apparently this is now called “journalism”!)
Backing has been given to the first floating wind farm off the Welsh coastline.
The Welsh government has given consent for the project, which will be located 40km off the Pembrokeshire coast in West Wales, to proceed.
Project Erebus is expected to provide enough low carbon energy to power 93,000 homes.
It will include seven 14-megawatt turbines, and is part of the first phase of a renewable energy development in the Celtic Sea which is set to generate four gigawatts of energy – enough to power four million homes and businesses.
The current expectation is that Blue Gem Wind, a joint venture between TotalEnergies and Simply Blue Group, will begin operating the Erebus project in 2026 – but it now hopes to secure UK government funding.
Mark Drakeford, Wales’ First Minister, said: "The Erebus project has the potential to show the world that Wales and the Celtic Sea can deliver renewable energy alongside the sustainable management of our marine resources.
"In determining the marine license and the planning consents, the Welsh government and our partners in Natural Resources Wales have enabled this project to move forward to apply for subsidy support from the UK government.
"I urge the UK government to do its part through the Contracts for Difference process to drive the industry forward by working with the Erebus team to secure the first floating offshore wind project in Welsh waters, bringing jobs and green energy to our communities."
There is nothing revolutionary about floating wind farms; they are simply wind turbines placed on top of a rig. The logic is that they can be sited in deeper water further from shore, where in theory wind speeds are higher.
The claim that this one will power 93,000 homes is the usual legerdemain, as it ignores non-domestic consumption which accounts for two thirds of the total electricity used. When these are all taken into account, the real figure is just 35,000 homes.
And, as ever, it all boils down to cost. Hywind off the Scottish coast is the only commercial floating wind farm in the UK at the moment. Built in 2017, it is slightly smaller than Erebus, and receives about £190/MWh in ROC subsidies. It seems likely that Erebus will need a similar level of subsidy.
The project is estimated to cost $478 million, about £400 million, equivalent to £11,000 for each of those lucky 35,000 homes! The capital cost works out at £2805/KW, compared to £1630/KW for the new Hornsea wind farm being planned. In other words, Erebus looks like being highly uncompetitive, and will rely on big subsidies.
As with Hywind, the claim is that costs will fall rapidly once the technology is established. But that has not happened in the years since Hywind became operational, and developers are not queuing up to build more of them.
As with the Swansea tidal lagoon, the Welsh government would love to see the project go ahead, just as long as somebody else pays the cost!
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
I see the cheapest form of power known to man is Still begging for government subsidies.
Floating wind farms are urine larceny – a specialty of Welsh gubbermint.
I thought our Government was in serious debt-is there accountant on board or would he/She cost tò much?
“I thought our Government was in serious debt …”
I have some bad news for you.
I don’t think it’s the Government exactly that is in serious debt … 🙂
If you meant that it’s we taxpayers who have been cast into penjury by our politicos then, by natural justice, we should call the shots.
One of mine would be to cancel all decarbonisation forthwith as totally futile and destructive of the nation, OUR nation.
Wild Isles, what DA missed.
https://images.wsj.net/im-741466/?width=860&size=1.5&pixel_ratio=1.5
Seems like the Jonah conventional gas field has a stubbly new growth.
I prefer the original. Would be even better with modern lateral drilling techniques.
Not in the UK is it.
But if you did calculate the land area of wind/solar required to provide the same energy as that gas, there wouldn’t be much land left would there!
“The Erebus project has the potential …” but it won’t, will it?! Like all these projects, they always cost a lot more than projected, cost the earth to maintain, never deliver what was promised, then are quietly shut down, leaving them there, inoperative, to rust away and pollute the environment.
‘provide enough low carbon energy to power 93,000 homes’ . . . 84% of the time.
Each home should be given battery alarm clocks.
According to the article it will generate 4GW of …..energy! I despair at times.
The Adminustrative Strike Prices for AR5 (the maximum bid price in 2012 money for CFDs) is £116/MWh for floating wind compared with £44/MWh for ordinary offshore wind. In today’s money that’s roughly £160/MWh and £60/MWh. We know the wind industry regards those ceilings as inadequate.
It’s only 100MW of nominal capacity. It is intended to be tied back to the grid at Pembroke CCGT power station with argument about landing point and traverse of the peninsula likely to feature in the planning. The location is a busy area for shipping, much used by vessels awaiting discharge at Milford Haven. You may typically find LNG, crude oil, and oil product tankers lurking just out of sight of land. At least they are likely to be aware of puffins from Lundy and Skomer and other marine birds that are at risk from turbines.
Massive construction going on on the other side of the Haven, above Freshwater West beach, lots of big pipework being buried. I’m told it is for electricity import, I assumed another interconnector, maybe, or likely, it’s this.
Sounds like the Greenlink interconnector?
https://www.greenlink.ie/wales
Could someone – any of the sheep-for-brains wallies working for Drakeford – define the SI Unit that is a ‘home’?
And when they do, would they mind very much associating its definition with expected electricity output and not name-plate output (which is NEVER, EVER delivered).
Another top climate scientist prediction failure: https://archive.is/0aCaC
This time round the now adult Greta (or her social media manager) deletes the tweet.
Greta Thunberg deletes a 2018 tweet that said humanity is going to be extinct by 2023 because of climate change
https://www.opindia.com/2023/03/greta-thunberg-tweet-delete-climate-change-wipe-out-humanity-fossil-fuel/amp/
Ice on the Arctic Ocean and the Ozone-Hole over the Antarctic Ice are the subjects of her (GT) quoted experts. Neither seem to be going away any time soon.
What does she, or her or social media manager, think and do when their experts are spectacularly wrong? In American football, and as a widely used idiom, the call is to punt.
They just punted.
4th and long………..
Requirement for drug testing indicated ?
Floating wind turbines still need sea-bed cables to bring the pitifully small amount of electricity to shore. That is an area where considerable environmental damage occurs.
Philip
there’s been quite a few engineering fails on the cabling end of things – the repair men have to sign ferocious Non Disclosure Agreements.
The American east coast wind farms are setting themselves up for some pain with their choices for cable routes….
Maybe the whales will attack them in revenge.
This gives some insight into the Erebus project:
Click to access SC1905-EIA-Scoping-Report-Project-Erebus-v1-3.pdf
and the follow-on 300MW being mooted to the SW, which will take the wind out of its sails quite literally:
Click to access EIA-Scoping-Report-Project-Valorous.pdf
So, an Irish company is selling Swedish technology to Wales using UK funding: true case of the UK leading the way with wind-technology!
There’s bent, there’s very bent, then there’s Westminster and way in the distance there’s the WG. With the WG, it’s not about your proposal, it’s all about who’s backing your proposal. It’s not that they are deliberately corrupt, it’s just that the whole philosophy of how to run a govt. is completely corrupt.
Should a miracle happen and the Tories get in, I doubt it would be any different. The philosophy is deeply embedded.
What’s a WG.?
Welsh government?
Welsh Government – the article is about Wales. It used to called the WAG, but even Welsh Labour realized it was beyond a joke.
Welsh Gormlessness?
93,000 homes? Will that be with, or without, battery cars and heat pumps?
Whatever the load it will only be occasional power for 93,oo0 homes.
No chance!
How do seven 14 megawatt generators produce four gigawatts of power?
Magic.
The text actually reads “which is set to generate four gigawatts of energy” which is of course complete gibberish.
I wish people would stop repeating the same nonsense about windfarms/homes powered claims.
It IS done taking into account a reasonable capacity factor (say 35%), not based on the nameplate capacity, and the figures for the current (supposed) electricity (and gas) use in an average home are easily found.
“Ofgem estimates the typical household in Britain uses 2,900 kWh of electricity (and 12,000 kWh of gas in a year).”
There are many reasons why it is a stupid metric, it doesn’t need made up nonsense on top.
And to see how pitiful it will be in the future we need to add the gas to the electricity for when we have heat pumps and battery cars. No more than a piss in the Irish Sea.
They want to have a £1.3 billion lagoon in Swansea as well.
http://www.tidallagoonpower.com/projects/swansea-bay/