The myth of cheap offshore wind has been exposed
By Paul Homewood
London, 10 November – Net Zero Watch is calling for an investigation after it was reported that ministers are considering doubling the guaranteed prices on offer for offshore windfarms next year to between £70 and £75/MWh.
The news comes after this year’s auction failed to attract any bids from offshore wind developers.
Net Zero Watch director Andrew Montford said:
"Just a few months ago, Whitehall was telling us that the cost of offshore wind was just £44/MWh. If this story is true, they will be effectively admitting that they have been lying. We must get to the bottom of why civil servants have consistently been underplaying offshore wind costs, despite repeatedly being warned that the underlying financial accounts of windfarms told a different story."
Dr John Constable, Net Zero Watch director of energy, said:
"Consumers will continue to be forced to foot the bill for offshore wind farms that are expensive, unproductive, and destroy the economics of the grid."
Note for editors
In 2022, the offshore wind auction cleared at £35/MWh. However, these contracts were effectively options, allowing the holders to refuse to activate their contracts, and earn high windfall profits during the energy crisis.
In 2023, this loophole was closed, forcing developers to bid prices that reflected their underlying costs. As a result, no bids where received despite the price cap being raised to £44/MWh.
Since 2017, Whitehall has claimed that offshore wind costs have fallen dramatically. Windfarm accounts show that this is not true.
These figures are in 2012 prices, so are considerably higher in today’s money.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
How I wish someone would state live on ANY mainstream news or politics show that offshore wind is a main contributor to the UK’s ruinous electricity consumer charges.
They won’t – MSM journalists are as dull as dishwater, they’ve been conned too
Yes, sadly even GB News don’t challenge the lies from the global warming troughers that they have on, probably under threat of action from Ofcom if they don’t have balance.
Well option do they have?
Can anyone see a politician of any stripe putting their hand up and saying well we made a big mistake and we are now going to spend another enormous load of your cash putting it right.
“We must get to the bottom of why civil servants have consistently been underplaying offshore wind costs, despite repeatedly being warned that the underlying financial accounts of windfarms told a different story.”
Can anyone find footage of the blond bozo while he was still PM telling us that offshore wind was cheap and getting cheaper, even repeating the 9 times cheaper lie?
Will anyone face consequences – NO it will be Putin who is to blame.
A totally destructive economic, ecological and social policy requires DOUBLING the bribe for continuance?
The exoplanet that our representatives (on either side of the Atlantic Basin) inhabit must have some very strong psychedelic substance in the atmosphere.
So more money for the crappy wind farms, they are probably the most stupid investment ever, intermittent , expensive, unreliable. When is the U-turn going to happen? maybe this is the year for blackouts that are inevitable, I hope and pray for no wind this winter.
Energy consumer debt and default is already at record levels – this will simply increase that economic burden
Yes, I’ve long, but reluctantly, thought that we’re going to have to suffer some Winter blackouts and some older people dying from cold before our stupid and/or mendacious politicians will be forced to pull back from their mad dash to wind and solar electricity
Lies, lies and damned lies – Wind is not only, even at present strike prices, the most costly generation, it is, with solar, absolutely engineeringly incompetent
A RenewableUK press release on 04/07/2023 said that the offshore wind industry needed a “budget increase of at least two and a half times its current level to make bids at AR5”. There were no AR5 bids for offshore wind on 08/09/2023 and the Daily Telegraph reported on 25/10/2023 that the offshore wind industry said they needed £65-£75/MWhr (2012 prices), with the upper figure double that of the £37.35/MWhr (2012 prices) winning bids at AR4.
Despite this the DESNZ still issued their update on 20/10/2023 to their “Electricity Generating Costs 2023” with LCOE prices for offshore wind projects commissioning in 2025, in real 2021 prices, as £44.00/MWhr.
The DESNZ must have known their LCOE to be completely false.
Unfortunately, unless the Government repeals the CCA, it will be forced by the courts to adhere to the CCC carbon budgets and will give in to the offshore wind industry’s demands in order to keep the renewable energy increases on track. Without any plan for long-term storage we’re heading for expensive, unreliable, chaotically intermittent and insecure energy controlled by smart meters using variable pricing and rationing.
I assume they used £44 as that was the price that was going to be used in the auction.
Nine times cheaper than fossil fuels, eh?
Who’s suing Carbon Brief?
Who’s prosecuting Ed Miliband for his political lies?
These costs are hammering the UK economy by driving inflation.
Insane, reckless and totally predicted.
Higher prices for things that cost more to make are not “inflation”. Inflation is the devaluation of money, which affects all prices.
No it is not, you are wrong.
“What Causes Inflation?
Economists have identified several possible causes for inflation. Cost-push inflation is the decrease in the aggregate supply of goods and services stemming from an increase in the cost of production. An increase in the costs of raw materials or labor can contribute to demand-pull inflation.”
https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/111314/what-causes-inflation-and-does-anyone-gain-it.asp#toc-what-causes-inflation
Nice theory, AC. Current cause is clearly excessive generation of money.
Like Biden’s “Inflation Reduction Act” (sic), which spends $891 billion the government doesn’t have, to “reduce inflation.” Hilarious . . . except my granddaughter is going to have to pay for it.
Call the Treasury! Print it up!
Climate obsessed governments have snookered themselves. If the wind industry says jump they can only say ‘how high’.
More will default their usage payments, the debt burden will increase significantly. The next step is refusal to pay that debt burden on those that do pay, that payment at the expense of everyday living expenses. There will be an impact on those elected to Parliament based on the candidates’ proposals on how that issue will be addressed.
We have Labour touted as the next Government in waiting. God help this nation, and us individually. An alternative is very much needed.
Labour’s shadow energy secretary, Milliband, still claims he will make Britain “fossil fuel free” by 2030. No-one in our useless media has ever asked him exactly how he will achieve this.
It will be an interesting conundrum for an incoming Labour government to deal with an economy suffering from the highest tax burden in living memory courtesy of a Tory government. Usually Labour leaves the country economically screwed with no spare money. If Rachel ‘plagiarism’ Reeves wants to be seen as a competent chancellor she is going to have to keep the purse strings tight and disappoint a lot of her colleagues who are expecting the usual splurge of spending. A student type politician like Millibrain is going to be hit hard by reality, not unlike Clegg’s Limpdumbs in Call Me Dave’s Liberal government.
I think you would struggle to find any government policy anywhere of any kind that when it fails, isn’t simply given more money/resources. Because government cannot make mistakes. It took 40 years or more to stop using a teaching method that ensured a significant percentage of people were illiterate. The civil service still refuses to admit it was wrong about sub-postmasters and HMRC continues to blame contractors (who are prevented from saying anythjng) for the universal credit fiasco. That the Elites will admit they were wrong about wind power is extremely unlikely. Their entire worldview rests on them being right and us being wrong.
It is a parlour game for the elites. You can’t be wrong in a game. They have no skin in it; they feel no responsibility to you.
“Let them eat cake.”
of some interest?
Curtailment map seems to show SNP wind policy has failed
https://renewables-map.robinhawkes.com/#5.04/52.63/-0.08
That’s a fantastic resource. Kudos to those who put it together.
£75 in 2012 money indexes to £100.32 today. Those optics mean that they will choose a slightly lower price, but by the time the next auction takes place there will have been a further inflation boost next April, probably enough to boost even £70 through the £100 mark. These prices are well above the level of market prices earned by wind since May, which are around £80/MWh eyeballing the green line on this chart from LCCC.
https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiOGUzYmZkOGMtNGZmNy00NmU3LTg5YmItMTM2ZjRjZmMxM2E3IiwidCI6IjE4NWQzYzI1LWE1ZmItNGUxMS05ZWQ1LTgwNDVkMGJjNjU4NyJ9&pageName=ReportSectionbdfe5959d2b2ce70a979
The question is, is it enough? When several companies tried to increase prices previously agreed with NYISO they were looking for $140-180/MWh for a total of 4.2GW of nominal capacity. They already had $108-118/MWh in hand, which is similar to the mooted levels, and pulled out at that level. With Ørsted pulling the plug on another 2.4GW off NJ and Shell another 1.2GW off Massachussets the fact that the BOEM issued a licence for the $10bn+ 2.6GW CVOW project off Virginia smacks more of desperation especially since they were planning to use Siemens Gamesa turbines.
The chance of another slap in the face for wind policy remains high, and the rising shortage of capacity procured and the imbalance in what is procured are a fast escalating problem. For now government is relying on demand destruction from high prices to keep the lights on.
The Germans are doing a great job of reducing their electricity demand and are heading for the lowest annual usage since 1990. No, it is not due to improved efficiency but the highest costs in the world.
Meanwhile…
https://www.virginiabusiness.com/article/siemens-gamesa-cancels-200m-wind-blade-factory/
They seem to be locked in at too low a price. You have to wonder whether the contract will be fulfilled. Not that it is cheap at $3.75m/MW.