From NOT MANY PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
London: July 9, 2024
Labor’s wind power expansion would be ‘a staggering waste’
Net Zero Watch says Labor’s plans to significantly expand its wind farm fleet would be wasteful. This is because too much electricity would be produced at times when the wind was blowing hard and wind farms would be forced to shut down. They would therefore need to generate income at other times and would have to raise prices to cover their costs.
The UK wholesale market is seeing a rapid increase in the number of overcapacity batches and this is believed to be the main reason why offshore wind farms are asking for and receiving 60% price increases in renewable energy auctions.
Net Zero Watch Director Andrew Montford said:
We don’t have the economic means to store surplus electricity at the scale needed, so Labour’s plans will only increase costs. Millions of megawatt hours of potential generation will be wasted. It’s wasteful and will add billions of pounds to consumers’ bills.
firstNet Zero Watch estimates that quadrupling wind power would result in overproduction of about 30 terawatt hours of electricity per year.
2. Wind farms incur annual costs regardless of their output, so reducing output means charging a higher price per unit. The over-production caused by the Labour expansion of wind power means that wind farms will have to be switched off much more often. As a result, the unit cost of wind power will rise from around £100 to around £150 per megawatt hour.
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