Ed Hoskins: UK Weather Dependent Renewable Energy installations: Installed capacity, costs and output 2017

Introduction

This post is concerned with the two main forms of UK Weather Dependent Renewable Energy in the UK, Wind Power, (Onshore and Offshore), and on grid Photovoltaic Solar Power.  In the UK these amount to ~75% of all installed Weather Dependent Renewable Energy.  The other Renewable energy inputs are traditional Hydro power ~8% and the remainder are other sources such as biomass, waste and landfill gas amounting to ~17%.

The capacity percentage, or load factor, of any power generating installation is calculated as the actual electrical output achieved annually divided by the nominal maximum Nameplate output.  This article uses the real measures of capacity reported in up to date time series data of UK Renewable installations.  It thus provides reasonably correct comparisons of the efficacy of Weather Dependent Renewables as is reported annually by the Renewable Energy Foundation in the UK.
 

Climate-industrial complex wasting £100 billion and shutting down debate – warns Lilley

Credit: Fenbeagle

H/T The GWPF

Former Trade and Industry Minister, Peter Lilley warns that vested interests in the renewables industry, politicians of all parties, the bureaucracy and academia have together largely suppressed debate about their reckless waste of public money exposed by the government’s own Review of the Cost of Energy by Dieter Helm.

In a paper published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, Peter Lilley highlights Professor Dieter Helm’s devastating critique, outlined in the Cost of Energy Review which was commissioned by the government.

“Helm shows that the Climate Change Act objective of cutting emissions of carbon dioxide could have been met for a fraction of the £100 billion so far committed, which has already raised the cost of energy by 20%.”

Renewables Rush Sends Germans Back to the Dark Ages: Blackouts Now Part of Daily Life

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Germans are supposed to understand engineering but that doesn’t seem to apply to their leaders, at least where ideological obsession is a factor.
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Talkshop link: Diesel generators installed in South Australia

STOP THESE THINGS

Mutti Merkel’s suicidal obsession with sun &
wind sends Germans to a New Dark Age.

Renewable energy zealots keep ranting about the ‘inevitable transition’ to wind and solar power. The only thing inevitable about it, is rocketing power prices and routine blackouts.

If you don’t believe us, ask a German, South Australian or a Victorian.

All three have been hijacked by lunatics, obsessed with nature’s wonder fuels, the sun and wind; all three suffer retail power prices which are the highest in the world (or in Victoria’s case, rocketing in that direction); and all three have suffered, and will continue to suffer, mass blackouts and routine load shedding, simply because they’re attempting the impossible.

If the tech-savvy Germans can’t make wind and solar power work (despite trillions of euros in subsidies), it’s a pretty fair bet that this wholly weather-dependent nonsense isn’t going to work anywhere on…

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Green flop: Germany is missing its European climate targets

German Chancellor Merkel surveys an offshore wind site [image credit: evwind.es]

Will this failure persuade the media to stop pretending Germany’s energy policy is a shining example to the rest the world? Probably not, as yet more financial pain for its taxpayers awaits, thanks to climate obsessions.
H/T The GWPF.

BERLIN—Germany is missing its European climate targets and will have to pay for rights to emit greenhouse gases due to polluting vehicles, farms and buildings, the government said Wednesday, an embarrassing admission for Chancellor Angela Merkel who had once put energy transformation at the forefront of her policies.

Germany will have to purchase greenhouse gas emissions allowances for the years 2019 and 2020 from other European Union members, an environmental ministry spokesman said.

French environment minister on crusade against fossil fuels owns six cars

Volkswagen camper van

Looks like a classic case of ‘don’t do as I do, do as I say’ unless he’s planning a motor museum.

For a man on a mission to ban petrol- and diesel-guzzling cars, French environment Minister Nicolas Hulot is himself strangely fond of combustion engine vehicles – he has no fewer than eight of them, reports the Daily Telegraph.

His green credentials have been sorely tested after his fleet was revealed this weekend when the assets of President Emmanuel Macron’s ministers were published by High Authority for Transparency in Public Office (HATVP).

Sir Ian Byatt: The economic consequences of UK climate change policies

We’re told Peter Lilley MP ‘calculates a cumulative cost of over £10,000 per household between 2014 and 2030’. Much pain, little gain, no sense of economic reality? Many electricity customers can’t afford these massive and largely avoidable extra costs mandated by the targets of the UK Climate Change Act, in the vain hope of altering the weather.

Sir Ian Byatt, British economist, former Government advisor and a member of the GWPF’s Academic Advisory Council, is presenting a paper today at a climate conference organised by L’association des Climato-Réalistes in Paris, reports The GWPF.

Abstract: The climate change policy of successive British governments are damaging the UK economy.

The UK is unique in having ambitions (80% by 2050) targets for reducing emission of CO2 embedded in a Climate Change Act, and monitored by a Parliamentary committee.

Climate change policy could reduce average individual household income by more than £10,000 over a period from 2014 to 2030, or more if targets for electric cars are also to be met.

Germany’s Wind & Solar Obsession Pushes Power Grid to Brink of Total Collapse

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They are probably muddling through thanks to interconnectors to countries with more reliable electricity generation like France (nuclear) and Poland (coal), but with existing policies things are bound to get even worse.

STOP THESE THINGS

If you’re looking for examples on how to deliberately destroy an economy, look no further than renewables obsessed Germany and its equally deranged doppelgänger Downunder, South Australia: both are attempting to run on sunshine and breezes; both suffer rocketing power prices; and both now have grids on the brink of collapse.

South Australia has become the butt of international jokes as a result of routine mass load-shedding and repeated Statewide blackouts caused by sudden, total and totally unpredictable collapses in wind power output.

Now, Germany is headed in the same disastrous direction. Whenever the Sun disappears (Sunset will do it every time) and/or the wind stops blowing, Germany’s grid managers have to pull out all stops to prevent Deutschland returning to the Dark Ages.

German Media Report: Power Grids In Distress…Highly Unstable Due To Wind And Solar Power!
No Tricks Zone
Pierre Gosselin
11 November 2017

Recently German SAT1 television…

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North Seas require 50GW of interconnectivity by 2045

Scottish offshore wind project [image credit : urbanrealm.com]

No mention here of the huge cost of putting yet more hundreds or thousands of wind turbines miles offshore, or of what is supposed to happen when it’s not windy enough to generate any, or much of, the required electricity – other than vague reference to ‘storage and demand response’, and interconnectivity.

EUROPE: A total offshore wind capacity of at least 230GW is needed in northern Europe by 2045 to meet the requirements of the Paris Agreement, according to newly published research, writes Craig Richard at Windpower Offshore.

This increased capacity in the North Sea, Irish Sea, Channel, Baltic Sea, and Atlantic Ocean would require between 50GW and 80GW of new interconnectivity to ensure reliable operation, energy and climate consultancy Ecofys found.

Germany in crisis as coalition talks collapse over climate hysteria and migration

The contrast between maintaining prosperity and submitting to so-called ‘green’ ideology could hardly be clearer. Political casualties at least partly due to major climate policy differences look likely, as the GWPF explains.

Berlin – Chancellor Angela Merkel was left battling for political survival on Monday after high-stakes talks to form a new government collapsed, plunging Germany into a crisis that could trigger fresh elections.

While the Green Party demanded to phase out coal power and combustion-engine cars, the conservatives and FDP emphasised the need to protect industry and jobs.

And with no other viable coalition in sight, Germany may be forced to hold new elections that risk being as inconclusive as September’s polls.

Germany’s ‘Energiewende has made things worse for climate’ says report

‘The donkey goes on to the ice until it breaks’ – German proverb [image credit: evwind.es]

Debatable claim in the headline, but the German ‘energy transition’ has certainly hurt electricity consumers as prices have shot up in the last decade, with fortunes being wasted on vain attempts to tweak the climate system.

As Bonn this week hosts the COP23 climate talks, a new report claims that Germany’s Energiewende programme “has made things worse for the climate”, reports PEI.

It says it has done this “by shutting down nuclear capacity and locking in dependency on coal for decades, despite hundreds of billions in investments and subsidy-schemes”.

Renewables to make up half the UK’s power supply

Wind turbines towering over the landscape

When they say ‘flexible power sources’ they mean the ones that are needed when unreliable renewables have largely gone to sleep, for example at night or when it’s not windy. The costs of running such a dual system or the consequences of power shortages, especially in winter, are not mentioned, although they admit that there will be “entire weeks and months” where solar and wind will produce “little energy”. It all sounds unreal.

Renewable energy will account for more than half of the UK’s power supply by 2026, according to a new study, reports Utility Week.

The report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance and commissioned by Eaton and the Renewable Energy Association, claims there will be a “significant acceleration” in the shift to renewable sources over the next 20 years and that this move will create new opportunities for new flexible power sources.

By 2040, almost two thirds (63 per cent) of power will be generated from renewable sources, according to the report and at “certain times” wind and solar energy along could meet total power demand in both the UK and Germany.

Electricity is “the new oil” says IEA

Credit: Entek Corp.

This overlooks the fact that ‘the majority of petroleum is converted to petroleum products, which includes several classes of fuels’. It also includes ‘conventional fertilizers [which] are commonly derived from petroleum. In fact, a single 40-pound bag contains the equivalent of 2.5 gallons of gasoline.’ Electricity is only a manufactured power source, as far as national networks are concerned.

Electricity is “the new oil” and the effect of increasing global electrification is having a “very deep rippling effect for the power sector”.

That was one of the highlights this morning at the launch of the International Energy Agency’s annual World Energy Outlook, reports PEI.

Laura Cozzi, head of the IEA’s Energy Demand Outlook Division, said: “We are seeing growing electrification happening throughout the energy sector – electricity going into sectors that were confined to other fuels before: most notably, cars, but also heating and cooling.”

The True Cost Of The Climate Change Act

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Either the Arctic, or even hell itself, will have to freeze over before our current politicians change course on their barmy and futile so-called climate policies.

That or the electorate wakes up and tells them where to get off – unlikely while media climate brainwashing is in full swing.

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

http://budgetresponsibility.org.uk/efo/economic-fiscal-outlook-march-2017/

According to the Office for Budget Responsibility, the cost of Environmental Levies and the RHI scheme, (all a consequence of the Climate Change Act), will have risen to £13.5bn by 2021/22.

All of this cost is borne by energy consumers, except for the RHI, which is taxpayer funded.

But what is likely to happen to these costs in the years after 2021/22? Dieter Helm in his recent report reckons the cumulative cost will be well over £100 billion by 2030, but this appears to be way under the mark, given the costs already identified up to 2021.

There has been an ongoing conspiracy between the Government and the Committee on Climate Change to conceal the true cost of their policies.

I have therefore now undertaken a detailed study of the real costs between now and 2030, and the results are truly horrifying.

By 2030, the…

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France delays reduction of nuclear power

French nuclear power sites [credit: neimagazine.com]

There are artificial self-imposed targets, plans and even laws – and then there’s reality, if ‘keeping the lights on’ is a priority. Scrapping nuclear capacity implies either having something convincing to replace it with, or risking the wrath of the voters if/when things start to go wrong.

The French environment minister Nicolas Hulot says the government is postponing its move to reduce the share of nuclear energy in the country’s power generation mix, reports PEI.

According to Reuters, Hulot says the grid operator RTE warned it risked supply shortages after 2020 and could miss a goal to curb carbon emissions, if it went ahead with the cull of nuclear right away, reducing the share from 75 per cent to 50 per cent.

Will climate change controversy bring down Angela Merkel?

German coal operation

Ideology versus reality? Obsessing over climate looks to have created a mission impossible unless somebody backs down in the German coalition talks. Bizarre that running a country of over 80 million people seems to rest on this one sticking point: how to put the ‘coal’ in coalition.

When it comes to climate change, there are worlds apart between Germany’s aspiring Jamaica Coalition partners, as the GWPF reports. It is all about coal and it is not certain the divide can be bridged.

When the wind is not blowing and the sky is overcast by dark clouds, wind turbines and solar panels cannot generate any electricity. Energy bottlenecks are threatening. Business organisations warn that such “dark doldrums” could trigger complete shutdown in Germany’s industrial heartland.

Coal-fired power plants, thus, are indispensable for a long time to come.

Suppressing Climate

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And the difference between so-called political correctness and censorship is…???

Science Matters

The above video is how I first heard of PragerU.  Now the nonprofit organization is suing Google and Youtube for their ideological bias in suppressing Prager’s videos.

PragerU Sues YouTube For Discriminating Against Conservative Videos
is an article by Ben Weingarten at The Federalist.  Excerpts below with my bolds.

Those blackballed from social media platforms for sharing views dissenting from prevailing progressive Silicon Valley orthodoxy have to date had little recourse against the tech speech police. That is why PragerU’s newly filed suit against Google and Google-owned YouTube alleging unlawful censorship and free speech discrimination based on the educational video purveyor’s conservative political viewpoint has the potential to be groundbreaking.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in California, details upwards of 50 PragerU educational videos that YouTube has, in PragerU’s view, unjustifiably slapped with “restricted mode” or “demonetization” filters, violating its First Amendment right to free speech. These filters…

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Stanford Prof sues scientists who criticized him – demands $10M

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You couldn’t make it up. Welcome to the crazy world of climate recriminations.

Judith Curry writes: Well I am just speechless.

Climate Etc.

by Judith Curry

Mannian litigation gone wild. — Steve McIntyre

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Energy customers foot the bill for failed climate policy

Not only do we have a bad policy, we have a badly implemented bad policy, as the GWPF explains.

Dr John Constable, GWPF’s Energy Editor, contributed a “Thunderer” column to The Times on the 27th of October 2017 commenting on Professor Helm’s recent study for the UK government on the cost of energy (“Energy customers foot the bill for failed climate policy”).

Subsidies to renewable electricity in the UK cost £5 billion a year at present and will rise to more than £8 billion a year by 2020, all drawn from the bills of domestic and business consumers.

One third of this hits households directly through their electricity bills — about 20 per cent of the bill in fact — while the other two thirds, paid in the first instance by businesses, is passed on to households in the general cost of living.

Climate policy threatens to crash German coalition negotiations

Coalition crisis?

German politics could be reduced to a divisive squabble over ineffective attempts to alter global climate by industrial means, amidst threats of crashing the talks.

Exploratory talks in Berlin over the possible first Jamaican coalition at federal level have so far been quite harmonious, reports the GWPF.

Despite arguments between the Liberal Democrats (FDP) and the Greens over the abolition of the solidarity surcharge (established nearly 30 years ago to rebuild the public infrastructure of the former communist states in East Germany) – overall the discussions seem to be relaxed so far.

This could change on Thursday when there are delicate topics on the agenda: refugees, climate and energy.

UK Minister pledges to ‘break the deadlock’ on CCS

Image credit: BBC

UK taxpayers are about to face another futile trip into green fantasy land, as top politicians refuse to believe that CCS is not a realistic or affordable technology.

Climate change minister Claire Perry is convening a taskforce next month to deliver carbon capture and storage plants more cost effectively, reorts Utility Week.

Perry told a House of Commons debate on CCS last week that the Cost Challenge Taskforce, which was unveiled in the clean growth strategy, was being constituted ‘rapidly’.

She said that the taskforce aimed to repeat the success of a similar group, which had helped to identify ways of delivering offshore windfarms more cheaply.