Green Energy Revolution Megathread

[Ed Anger]

 

[jimmy olsen]

That news from China is great, and so is this!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/09/11/uk-offshore-wind-success-must-go-global/

Why the UK offshore wind success must go global

• Jillian Ambrose
  

11 September 2017 • 8:05pm

Only a few years ago sceptics scoffed at claims that offshore wind power could be generated for a third less within a decade; this week the industry cut its costs by half in less than three years. This will mean cheaper energy bills for British households. But it could also establish the UK as a world leader in the green technology, as turbines are built along the coast.

Yet the Great British offshore wind boom is still notable for the absence of any large, UK-based players. The big winners in the Government's latest auction were Denmark's Dong Energy and Statkraft, Portugal's EDP Renewables and French energy company Engie.

Dong's projects will soon earn the company more than £1.5bn a year in subsidies. Dong Energy secured a guaranteed revenue of just £57.50 per megawatt hour of electricity produced at the second phase of its Hornsea project off the Yorkshire coast in 2022-23. Meanwhile, EDP Renewables and Engie, formerly known as GDF Suez, have been granted the same size contract for the Moray East offshore wind farm off the North East coast of Scotland.

     
This is a sharp fall from the £74.75/MWh granted to Germany's Innogy and Statkraft's Triton Knoll project, which will start up just one year earlier. It is also less than half the cost of turbines already producing power at around £150/MWh. Scottish Power Renewables, the developer arm of the Big Six supplier, dropped out of the running in August before the auction began, saying its East Anglia 2 project off the Suffolk coast would not be ready in time.


European wind developers are working towards meeting the Government's target for 50pc of offshore wind parts to be sourced from within the UK by 2020, with some success. The amount of UK kit and skills going into offshore wind farms has climbed five percentage points in the last two years to 48pc. This figure climbs as high as 78pc in the development phase of a wind project, which includes the licensing, planning and surveying work.

Dong, for example, is building its 260 foot blades at factories in Hull and the Isle of Wight. Its hi-tech components will be exported for use in Europe. These factories have already created hundreds of UK jobs, but ultimately profit manufacturer MHI Vestas, another Danish company. The UK clearly has more work to do to avoid losing the full benefit of the boom to foreign energy firms.

Richard Turner, chief executive of sub-sea cable developer JDR Cables, says the real economic benefit of offshore wind will emerge only if British supply chain companies can tap the growing global market.

"In the UK there are big projects and there's huge potential to grow but if you're looking to set up a business to serve only the UK market there wouldn't be steady enough demand from project to project," he says. "What we're doing now is looking at the global market."

 

To date, the global market has lagged the progress made in the UK. At the same time manufacturers have found themselves priced out of the market due to the strong price of sterling. "Now with the devaluation of the pound and the demand for offshore wind in other parts of the world there is a major opportunity," says Turner.


Peter Keirnan, an analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, says offshore wind power is "a very exportable technology". He adds: "There are many parts of the world where offshore wind hasn't taken off yet. Off the east coast of the US developers have only just begun, and in Asia there is a lot of potential."

Earlier this year Scottish Power quietly broke into the burgeoning US offshore wind market by successfully bidding for two large projects off the east coast, each the size of its entire UK portfolio.

"The turbines are getting bigger, the technology is becoming more sophisticated, so government should really be seeing this as a good export opportunity," says Kiernan.

Turner, who holds a seat on the Offshore Wind Industry Council, is hoping now that the sector has proved its mettle, the Government will step in to offer a "sector deal", its new framework for supporting industries that can underpin growth in the wider economy.

"We're looking 30 years into the future for offshore wind to see what it could potentially yield," he says. "If you look at what's happened to offshore wind in the last 10 years, it's an amazing British success story. It's one we don't promote enough."

[Valmy]

Yeah it is all happening faster and faster now. The tipping point was reached awhile ago. It is amazing to me how many people don't get it. Old out of touch fossils like Ed 

Even Tim cannot taint this. Or can he? 

[Tonitrus]

At risk of siding with Trump, wind power, most especially along the coasts, is a really ugly, un-aesthetic means of renewable energy.

[The Minsky Moment]

Not everything can be as beautiful as a strip mine or fracking slurry.

[Valmy]

At risk of siding with Trump, wind power, most especially along the coasts, is a really ugly, un-aesthetic means of renewable energy.

Presently my coast views endless oil platforms.

But I think they are beautiful personally.

[Admiral Yi]

At risk of siding with Trump, wind power, most especially along the coasts, is a really ugly, un-aesthetic means of renewable energy.

Why is that?  The ones on land have a kind of eerie beauty to them I think.

[Eddie Teach]

You're just glad to have something to break the monotony.

[The Brain]

Does the cost for wind power in the UK take into account subsidies, back-up power/energy storage, power grid modification, and waste and decommissioning?

[Liep]

At risk of siding with Trump, wind power, most especially along the coasts, is a really ugly, un-aesthetic means of renewable energy.

Why is that?  The ones on land have a kind of eerie beauty to them I think.

I agree, but they're somehow more disruptive to the view when on the coast. Also depends on where they are, they fit in just fine along the harbour in Copenhagen but I don't like them along the beaches in Jutland.

[mongers]

Not everything can be as beautiful as a strip mine or fracking slurry.

Indeed.

Besides people love magic energy, made elsewhere, trashing someone else's country and delivered as cheap as possible.

[derspiess]

Does the cost for wind power in the UK take into account subsidies, back-up power/energy storage, power grid modification, and waste and decommissioning?

Not to mention the cost in dead birds.  Bird lives matter.

[Valmy]

Does the cost for wind power in the UK take into account subsidies, back-up power/energy storage, power grid modification, and waste and decommissioning?

Does it for other sources of power and why would it be different?

I mean we have spent trillions fighting wars to secure access to fossil fuels. Is that included at the fuel pump?

[Valmy]

Does the cost for wind power in the UK take into account subsidies, back-up power/energy storage, power grid modification, and waste and decommissioning?

Not to mention the cost in dead birds.  Bird lives matter.

Fuck you man.

[derspiess]

Does the cost for wind power in the UK take into account subsidies, back-up power/energy storage, power grid modification, and waste and decommissioning?

Not to mention the cost in dead birds.  Bird lives matter.

Fuck you man.

Let's be very clear.  If we continue to roll out wind turbines, BIRDS WILL DIE.