UK Government’s Energy Policy Is A ‘National Disaster’
Watchdog group Net Zero Watch has condemned the Government’s green energy policies as “a national disaster.”
This follows the announcement that a major offshore wind farm will not activate an agreement to sell power at a much lower cost to the grid.
The Times has reported that the Hornsea 2 wind farm, which had a contract to sell power at £73 per megawatt hour, will instead sell in the open market, where prices have averaged £200 per megawatt hour this year, and reached £508 last week. [bold, links added]
Britain’s struggling energy consumers will likely end up paying a billion pounds extra for Hornsea’s electricity over the next 12 months.
The new Prime Minister should urgently look into the legal options for canceling or revoking these poorly written contracts, the spirit of which is being grotesquely abused to the huge disadvantage of British consumers.
By 2026, there could be more than 16 GW of offshore wind farms exploiting the perverse loophole (Moray East, Hornsea 2, Triton Knoll, Inchcape, Seagreen Phase 1, Neart na Gaoithe, Dogger Bank A, Dogger Bank B, Dogger Bank C, Sofia, Hornsea 3, Norfolk Boreas, Moray West, and East Anglia Three.)
Assuming they deliver 50 percent of capacity each year, and the differential between market price and CfD price remains at £130/MWh, the cost to consumers will be £9 billion per year, at a cost of £337 per household.
Onshore wind farms, solar, and remote island wind farms will raise that figure still higher.
Reacting to the news, Net Zero Watch Director Benny Peiser said:
“In the midst of the worst energy crisis since World War II, wind companies are milking the system by using a perverse loophole.
And just a few weeks ago, Kwasi Kwarteng signed the contract for Hornsea 3, which contains the same loophole, as does the contract for every other offshore wind farm on the horizon.
The Government is putting every household on the hook for hundreds of pounds more, every year. Energy policy is lurching from one rip-off to another. It’s a national disaster.”
See more here: climatechangedispatch
Please Donate Below To Support Our Ongoing Work To Defend The Scientific Method
PRINCIPIA SCIENTIFIC INTERNATIONAL, legally registered in the UK as a company 
incorporated for charitable purposes. Head Office: 27 Old Gloucester Street, London WC1N 3AX.
Trackback from your site.
Kenneth Hughes
| #
Let me get this right – We, the consumers, have paid for this infrastructure through green taxes and higher energy prices. The power companies haven’t paid a penny that didn’t come from us.
Now, we will have to pay more than we contracted for, to line the pockets of these power companies who got their facilities on the cheap via our subsidies.
Who drew up these flawed contracts? Civil servants? Clearly they couldn’t run a bath, not even for their inflated salaries and inflation proof pensions that we also pay for.
I am an Engineer, you know, a professional Engineer, (I don’t fix washing machines), and I have worked for many years in the management of design, Engineering, Procurement, construction, commissioning and handover. I know what a contract is and only a complete buffoon, or a corrupt individual would ever write such a contract.
I’ll leave you to figure out which.
Reply
Gary Brown
| #
August 27, 2022 RWE to dismantle wind farm after safety concerns
One of the turbines (turbine number 4) was shut down in August last year when damage to the tower was detected. Shortly after, the remaining five turbines were shut down as a precautionary measure and comprehensive safety measures put in place.
Nordex has now drawn up a dismantling plan for the Jüchen A 44n wind farm with support of RWE, the city of Jüchen and the utility company NEW.
https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2022/08/27/rwe-to-dismantle-wind-farm-after-safety-concerns/
Reply
James
| #
So that’s what happens when politicians have no knowledge of basic engineering and arithmetic. Don’t you have schools in the UK? Seems the greens with the help of absent teachers have reached their objective: no energy, no industry. Your politicians abandoned the low cost energy fort that was armed with oil, coal, nuclear, gas and hydro, without first having the new garrison in place, even high cost. Is it so hard to understand that sun and wind are discontinuous so intrinsically useless? Just trying to write the contract should have made it clear that such projects are dreams only.
So now the UK has a chance to show that dreams can come true. What are you waiting for, a miracle? Where I live I use timber from the garden, hot water from the sun, panels financed by the State, very little gas and electric from the pipes, and a bike. None of which will protect me from empty supermarkets though. I thought it was only in Russia that one has to queue outdoors in winter to buy bread.
Reply
Howdy
| #
Why so bad?
Wind:
A lack of wind could also come into play.
‘We have had quite low wind output in July and August…Demand is a lot higher in the winter, so if we have those weather conditions in the winter, our system is going to get very tight and that raises a risk of blackouts’.
there is ‘no escape’ for the 66million people in the UK who will be encouraged to cut their use of gas and electricity this winter and even turn off the lights when the wind drops.
Gas:
The EU’s sites are now currently 80 per cent full.
the UK is on course to export 14billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas to the EU by the start of winter, or about 14 per cent of total EU storage capacity.
He said: ‘The National Transmission System here in the UK has and continues to play a critical role in supporting the EU’s ambitions of refilled storage.’
Local gas from the UK and Norwegian side of the North Sea is also being sent to Europe via the UK.
National Grid estimates that these supplies account for about 70-75 per cent of current exports.
The never satisfied NHS:
The Analysts predict the health service will need at least another £4billion to account for spiralling costs. As a result, NHS chiefs are demanding another emergency top-up in the coming autumn’s budget.
Right-wing think-tanks have repeatedly described the NHS as being a ‘blackhole of taxpayer money’.
Their argument — that the health service is in dire need of reform, not extra cash — is that its budget has drastically increased under the Conservative Government yet performances have worsened.
The ridiculous:
Britons are turning to TikTok for tips and tricks to stay afloat as the cost of living crisis deepens.
TikTok of all places, for sane advice? Things really are worse than I thought.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11176597/Britain-buy-gas-exported-Europe-lights-Christmas.html
Reply