Wind farms - ugly truths

I was looking at installed capacity in French regions, to have a better idea of proportions/ratios between Ireland and France, for example.

Some northern regions of France have larger installed capacity, having that bit more wind and some having less of a tourism industry than others, but I picked 2 for surface areas, and they sort of average out I believe.

Ireland installed capacity as far as I can see from a quick google search (I'm sure it's on here but bedtime nearing prevents me from double checking), the number I find is 3025 Megawatts (MW), but that's from ... IWEA, and the other number popping up from wiki is 2,230 megawatts(MW) as of March 2015.

The Rhone Alpes region + Region Centre Val de Loire surface area comes close to surface area of Ireland : 43,698 km² +39,151 km² = 82,849 km

Ireland 84,421 km2 but that's for the island of Ireland, Republic is only 70,273 km2 (these are wiki numbers again).

So, roughly, let's take our two French regions, being generous, which cover nearly the island of Ireland area, and add their respective installed wind capacity :
169 MW for Rhone Alpes + 758 MW for Centre Val de Loire, which, if I was to guess, has less other energetic resources (nuclear, hydro...).
But remember, we are being generous re-surface area.

So these two French regions, which are nearly the surface area of the island of Ireland, have 927 MW installed wind capacity, while Ireland has 2,230 MW.

So yes, of course Ireland has no hydro to speak of, no nuclear, etc... but as far as I can see, proportionate to its size, it has a very large wind capacity already installed.

If French people for example, think there are enough turbines in Rhone Alpes already, and they do now as far as I know, well then, imagine what it will be for them visiting Ireland in the next decades, if the voracious appetite for more capacity is not curbed.

Land surface area seems to be blissfully ignored in all discussions on wind capacity and how much Ireland could produce. IMO, it should be one of the first considerations, it should be obvious : how much land do we have, what density (of infrastructure) per surface area are we able to accommodate.

Of course, there's more surface area along the coasts, and a bit of margin before these offshore areas reach a turbine/surface area threshold.

Spend a little more on offshore, preserve tourism revenue ? Cost benefit ? It would be an interesting analysis to look at.

I'm pretty useless at numbers, so by all means correct numbers above if there are any mistakes, but I believe the point I am making must be a little clearer despite possible mistakes.

Birdnuts wrote: »

Well thats not really true now is it

Yes, it is:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33619017

djpbarry wrote: »

Yes, it is:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33619017

From your link


"Jonathan Selwyn, a board member of the STA, told the BBC that the subsidy cut would "have a very large impact" on the industry"

My link said the same thing about wind energy with their lobby group throwing their toys out of the pram too. The facts are that these supports have become unaffordable and that is the prime reason they are being cut as my link highlighted. And despite all the talk about "cheap solar" etc. its clear the industry cannot survive without imposing steadily rising energy bills on consumers.

AngryHippie wrote: »

And an even less measurable income from them. They can come over, bring their own car/campervan and see the whole coast without paying for anything more than fuel and food. If this is where the tourist demograph is heading, then the government and tourist board need to find a way to increase the spend, or increase and manage the numbers if they want to keep it viable in the long term....

Alot of assumptions there - around my place in North Mayo(Erris) local Hotels,guest houses, rented accomodation, boat tour operators etc. all had a very good year despite the weather. The primary draw to this part of the country is its natural wonders.

AngryHippie wrote: »

in response to



But cool story anyway. lots of context, no generalizations or anecdotes !

I was responding to your suggestion that people simply pass through such areas without spending much. Generalizations indeed!!

Birdnuts wrote: »

My link said the same thing about wind energy with their lobby group throwing their toys out of the pram too. The facts are that these supports have become unaffordable and that is the prime reason they are being cut as my link highlighted.

Your link highlighted nothing of the sort – if anything, it highlighted the opposite:

However the policy of subsidizing wind and solar capacity prevents the wholesale market from fulfilling its longer term function as a capital allocation mechanism. Although retail electricity prices are rising sharply, incentives to invest in new thermal generating capacity – especially in gas-fired power stations – have been destroyed. The energy input of wind and solar comes from the weather and doesn’t have to be paid for. When the wind blows and the sun shines, they are at the bottom of the merit order, displacing coal and gas power stations. Large, random amounts of zero marginal cost wind-generated electricity make it virtually impossible to earn a return on conventional power stations.

So cheap power from renewables is undermining investor confidence in conventional thermal plants – well boo-bloody-hoo.

Meanwhile, from the link I posted:

Energy Secretary Amber Rudd said: "Our support has driven down the cost of renewable energy significantly.

"As costs continue to fall it becomes easier for parts of the renewables industry to survive without subsidies."

She told the BBC's Today programme: "We can't have a situation where industry has a blank cheque, and that cheque is paid for by people's bills.

"We can't have a system, which we've had up to now, where there is basically unlimited [subsidy] headroom for new renewables, including solar."

It’s getting extremely difficult to take this “renewables are too expensive” argument seriously.

How much is also energy security- ok some of our gas will be coming from mayo- if the squeeze comes on our international supply do we need a diversity of supplies ( personally I'd like to see either a gas storage facility ( as was being investigated for east cork ) or/ and a LNG regasification plant - wind turbines would stretch out a very finite resource -
( not sure about very large scale biomass in Ireland - economically- environmentally and energy security wise) yes we should increase insulation and efficency - yes we should bring in effective smart meters -

djpbarry wrote: »

Your link highlighted nothing of the sort – if anything, it highlighted the opposite:

So cheap power from renewables is undermining investor confidence in conventional thermal plants – well boo-bloody-hoo.

Meanwhile, from the link I posted:

It’s getting extremely difficult to take this “renewables are too expensive” argument seriously.

I suggest you re-read what you just quoted. Its says that subsidizing wind/solar has disrupted energy markets to the detriment of base loads leading to higher retail prices. Your second quote ignores the reality that the trade bodies of both the solar and wind industry are claiming that cuts to subsidies will hit the sector hard which strongly suggests these reneweables are not viable without the current level of supports - which are being cut preciesly because these costs continue to escalate and hit retail users hard despite falling oil and gas prices. You only have to see how both the Spanish and Australian wind industries have near ground to a halt in terms of adding new wind capacity on the back of recent subsidy cuts.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/02/08/business/australian-wind-farms-face-13-billion-wipeout-political-impasse/

https://www.navigantresearch.com/blog/spanish-wind-industry-faces-subsidy-cuts


"Some 44 Australian wind-farm projects, about half of them overseas-funded, have been shelved since the new conservative government said it wanted to cut state support for the industry a year ago, with investors and operators saying they are considering either downscaling or leaving the country altogether if it succeeds.".

and in Spain



"Even if the companies survive this hit, the prospects for domestic development of wind energy in Spain are dire. Companies like Iberdrola and Acciona have the option to go abroad to markets in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Brazil to install wind energy; but for wind development in Spain, there is nothing attractive to investors about joining a market where regulation is uncertain and government support withering. In 2014, Spain installed just 28 MW of wind power, far below the 175 MW installed in 2013. "


Also with regards my earlier link concerning the UK

"Predictably the renewable energy lobby criticized Ms Rudd’s announcement. But they had it coming. More renewables mean higher electricity bills. It was entirely predictable that policy-driven electricity price rises would, at some point, become politically unsustainable"

Birdnuts wrote: »

I suggest you re-read what you just quoted. Its says that subsidizing wind/solar has disrupted energy markets to the detriment of base loads leading to higher retail prices.

It absolutely does not. It claims that:

1. The policy of subsidizing wind and solar capacity prevents the wholesale market from fulfilling its longer term function as a capital allocation mechanism.
2. Retail electricity prices are rising, but incentives to invest in new thermal generating capacity is being eroded.
3. Large, random amounts of zero marginal cost wind-generated electricity make it virtually impossible to earn a return on conventional power stations.

No direct link is made between subsidies and higher retail prices. Rather, a link is implied between subsidies, higher levels of renewables, lower returns from conventional generation and, therefore, lower investor confidence in conventional generation.

Birdnuts wrote: »

Your second quote ignores the reality that the trade bodies of both the solar and wind industry are claiming that cuts to subsidies will hit the sector hard which strongly suggests these reneweables are not viable without the current level of supports…

Any industry body would make exactly the same claim if they had subsidies cut – it’s in their interest to do so.

For example, the UK steel industry is currently seeking government protection. According to your logic, this obviously means that the steel industry is not viable – does the world no longer need steel? I doubt it.

Birdnuts wrote: »

…which are being cut preciesly because these costs continue to escalate…

Why do you insist on repeating this nonsense about increasing costs of renewables? Every piece of available evidence suggests that they are cheap and getting cheaper.

Birdnuts wrote: »

"Predictably the renewable energy lobby criticized Ms Rudd’s announcement. But they had it coming. More renewables mean higher electricity bills.

He fails to demonstrate why this should be the case - it's a completely unsupported statement.

I would also point out that you’re referring to a blog post, almost completely unreferenced – it is simply an opinion piece. The author’s opinion is no more valid than yours or mine.

Also, the investigation that he refers to by the CMA is still ongoing, so I’m not sure what report he’s referring to.

Birdnuts wrote: »

You continue to cling to the simplistic notion that "wind is free" and therefore cannot be behind the high retail energy costs on grids with a large wind/solar installed capacity.

I never said anything was free.

Birdnuts wrote: »

Completly ignoring the fact that the likes of wind impose signficant extra costs on a grid such as balancing payments,subsidies, baseload issues, signficant extra distribution costs etc. that end up on consumer and industry's retail energy bills. These facts are borne out across the EU on a table of retail energy costs

Care to put a figure on all these extra costs?

Just a few short posts ago, a figure of €4 billion was put forward (I’m not sure what the source was) for the cost of Ireland’s investment in wind. I showed that this was actually a pretty good investment, both for the consumer and for emissions reduction.

Birdnuts wrote: »

The graph below starkly illustrates the strong relationship between higher retail energy bills and installed wind/solar capacity

https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/rstudioscreensnapz027.png

That graph is claiming that each additional kilowatt of installed renewables capacity per capita results in an increase of 0.02 c/kWh in costs to consumers. In the case of Ireland, there’s about 2.2 GW of wind capacity, which equates to approximately 0.489 kW per capita.

So the installation of all that wind is costing Irish consumers an extra 0.489 * 0.02 < 0.01 c per kWh.

Wow. Shocking stuff.

Birdnuts wrote: »

confrimed by this in depth study

http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21608646-wind-and-solar-power-are-even-more-expensive-commonly-thought-sun-wind-and

That’s not an in-depth study – it’s nonsense. You posted it before, remember? I posted this in response:

So what was inaccurate about Dr. Frank’s key assumptions? In his calculations, U.S. solar and wind power are one-third to one-half less productive than they actually were during 2008–13. His calculations assumed that solar power is little more productive on sunny afternoons than its annual average, even though its strong near-coincidence with peak loads is, as he agreed elsewhere, a major source of its value. He assumed solar and wind power capital costs are twice those documented in the 2012–13 U.S. market­place (and falling fast). Conversely, he assumed combined-cycle gas plants are twice as productive as they were in 2008–13, but did not count methane leakage (which offsets carbon savings) and gas-price volatility (which increases risk and hence cost). He assumed that new nuclear power has half its actual market price per MWh, a construction time roughly half the world average over the past decade, and U.S. operating costs one-fifth what the Nuclear Energy Institute says was the average in 2012. With data like these, his conclusions weren’t surprising—just wrong.

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/planetpolicy/posts/2014/09/03-sorry-wrong-numbers

But I’m sure you’ll ignore this once again.

Birdnuts wrote: »

As for the steel industry. One of the reason governments in the likes of the UK have moved to support it is preciesly because energy costs have risen so high on the back of current energy policies that prioritize the likes of wind energy.

Is that right? I suppose that’s why all those coal mines were shut too, is it?

Birdnuts wrote: »

Your seriously delusional if you believe that.

Believe what exactly? I've provided plenty of facts, figures and calculations to back up my arguments.

Birdnuts wrote: »

And the study I linked too is reflected across the EU and the US in actual retail power prices - and the pro-wind "opinion piece" you linked too doesn't change that fact.

Eh, both pieces were produced by the same institute (Brookings)?

Birdnuts wrote: »

The 4 billion euro figure mentioned earlier for the current cost of wind energy in Ireland is likely to be very accurate based on the 5-7 billion extra it will cost to realise the current governments crazy plans to double this generating this capacity

Ok, well, I’ve already shown that the €4 billion was well spent. Feel free to challenge the figures I produced.

Birdnuts wrote: »

The link also points out how Irish retail energy costs have spiralled over the last 15 years on the back of such folly and have gone from below the EU averge to just behind Germany and Denmark as one of the most expensive. Your claim that this is somehow "good value" for the Irish consumer is laughable especially given the sharp fall in gas and other fuel prices over the last number of years.

I’ve already shown that the €4 billion that Irish consumers have paid up front works out at about €34 per MWh – are you saying that’s expensive? Or are you just against the idea that the new infrastructure has to be paid for by consumers/taxpayers?

Birdnuts wrote: »

The idea that his farce is the best and most cost effective way of reducing emmissions in Ireland is beyond laughable at this stage...

Nobody has made that argument, so no need to laugh at anyone.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-06/solar-wind-reach-a-big-renewables-turning-point-bnef

Wind is the cheapest electricity.

signinlate wrote: »

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-06/solar-wind-reach-a-big-renewables-turning-point-bnef

Wind is the cheapest electricity.

Unfortunatly this article refers to wholesale prices only and the simplistic notion that wind is "free".The real costs of wind on a grid shows up in the retail price of power which factors in constraint payments,subsidies,back up power, extra pylon builds and maintainance costs etc. associated with wind power. That is why the likes of Germany and Denmark have the highest retail energy prices in the EU as pointed out many times on this thread.