Offshore Wind Subsidies On Course To Hit £5bn This Year
By Paul Homewood
Latest data shows that offshore wind is once again being paid massive amounts in subsidies, as the market price of electricity gradually sinks back nearer to historic rates.
According to the Low Carbon Contracts Company, subsidies to offshore wind farms under CfDs amounted to £419 million between April and July this year, equivalent to £96/MWh. The market price averaged £81/MWh during the same period.
Older offshore wind farms, which are subsidised via ROCs, are paid a subsidy of £125/MWh at current rates.
Last year offshore wind generated 45 TWh, split 22.1 TWh for ROC generators and 22.9 TWh for CfD ones. On this basis and at current levels of subsidies, the total subsidy for offshore wind will amount to over £4.9 billion in this year as a whole. That works out at about £200 per household.
Remember that next time when people tell you how cheap wind power is!
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
‘when people tell you how cheap wind power is’ …ask what the bill is for the new undersea cables from way out in the North Sea and elsewhere, and the new transmission lines over land.
then there is the balancing costs with a run rate of 4B/yr where they receive payments for switching off as well let alone the 10’s billions that needs to be spent on the transmission system to shift all the wind generation from where its not needed.
Without very generous, continuous, increasing taxpayer subsidies, levies, CfDs and constraint payments, wind & solar farms have no business case – their suppliers and owners are simply farming consumers for an endless supply of cash
If they are truly cheaper than fossil fuels or nuclear, stop the subsidies and green cononlogy payments and let’s see
I see these figures but haven’t really taken a lot of notice, much to my dismay, but I don’t really understand it all….why do offshore wind companies need a subsidy and why such a huge subsidy?
If wind power is so fantastic why don’t the companies fund it themselves or get financial backers who believe in their vision? Why should the man on the street have to be burdened with the cost of something that clearly doesn’t work very well. Do I pay huge amounts for nuclear?It seems that someone is getting incredibly wealthy on the back of this…but like I said I don’t understand it all, so could someone please explain to e so I can explain to my children when they panic about their energy bills.
Thank you 🙏
Has anyone been able to complete a comprehensive table of components required for the delivery of cheap power and their costs? So far the details come to us in bite size pieces. Paul already has his work cut out confronting the publishers, casual media scribes and the BBC.
Is here a single source overview of the level or rate of obligatory consumer support that is required from the taxpayer and user? Energywise above touches on several of the types of cost.
This column needs a single recital of the details and the rate of charges to make any case about the frailties of renewables and free power compelling. Today’s statement about the trend in costs by the Prime Minister was opaque. Boosterism was supposed to be a monopoly held by Boris.
What I’d like to see is total system costs set out as they are now versus a system without renewables and taxes. At the bottom you get a cost per MWh for both. This is the key figure as it is what we have to pay. I’m sure such a comparison would show we could have electricity that is 25-40% cheaper.
The wheels are already coming off the wind turbine bus as the real costs become apparent as evidenced by Vattenfall pulling out having spent £millions and the industry asking the Government for a massive increase in CfD prices:
A Renewables UK press release dated 04/07/2023 says that they and two other renewable energy associations have written a joint letter to DESNZ/the Government urging them to make changes to their next annual CfD clean power auction.
Among other requests is that “the budget for fixed-foundation offshore wind alone would need to be at least two and a half times higher than its current level to maximise the capacity which could now be secured in this year’s auction.”
https://www.renewableuk.com/news/645089/Energy-industry-urges-Government-to-reform-clean-power-auctions-to-maximise-benefits-for-consumers.htm
[Note : If this link fails then go to renewablesuk, select press releases and go to 04/07/2023]
Wind power is being mis-sold by the Government and the industry by confusing the MSM and hence the public on the difference between energy and power. Whilst any renewable project may, over a year, supply sufficient energy for the millions of homes always quoted, they are totally incapable of POWERING these homes as claimed because of intermittency.
So wind power is never as cheap as claimed because it always requires a parallel system of fossil fuel generation for backup when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine.
As an exercise in the energy, power and costs of renewables, I have calculated the energy and power for the Labour Party’s proposal to decarbonise our electricity by 2030 by quadrupling offshore wind, doubling onshore wind and trebling solar, plus some of the costings necessary to increase the installed power further to enable dispatchable power using either hydrogen or batteries for storage.
For anyone interested to see the calculations, please email me at jbxcagwnz@gmail.com
Don’t know where to post this but this is about an inadvertent effect of onshore windmills on localised rainfall and drying out the soil https://stopthesethings.com/2023/06/09/climate-changing-germanys-30000-wind-turbines-causing-local-rainfall-droughts/