ROGER J ARTHUR
An open letter to the Secretary of State for Energy and Net Zero
Dear Mr Miliband
WE ARE told that 60 GW of new offshore and around 45 GW of new onshore wind farm capacity is to be installed by 2035, delivering around 300 TWh pa. In September 2024, you said that bill payers ‘are to spend between £100 and £150 per household, on new wind turbines’.But at £2.7billion and £1.2billion/GW respectively, the capital cost of the above wind capacity would be well over £200billion.
That equates to > £7,000 per household, ie around £700 per household pa over ten years, plus the cost of subsidies. So clearly you need to correct your statement as soon as possible. The Ministerial Code is clear that ‘It is of paramount importance that ministers give accurate and truthful information, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity.’Please would you correct that error.
Next the cost of back-up power capacity must be added. By 2035, Grid Maximum Demand (MD) is expected to reach 85GW and that backup capacity (eg in the form of gas turbine and nuclear generators) will be needed to carry the MD when wind and solar intensity is negligible. At around £5billion per GW, that would incur a further £200billion of capital.
Added to that is the cost of 3,000 miles of vulnerable offshore submarine cable connections, plus 600 miles of HV overhead lines, along with substation costs, which together will add >£3billion to the capital cost of wind farms. That neglects the extra transmission power losses and the eye-watering subsidies which have been rising year on year, now comprising around 30 per cent of electricity costs.
Of course wind farms are not maintenance-free and assuming £50 m/GW pa, the Operation and Maintenance (O&M) cost for 135GW of wind capacity equates to>£6billion pa. The wind turbines have to be replaced at intervals of around 20 years and clearly their energy output will never be free. The O&M cost of the backup power capacity will also need to be added.
Since we will need 85GW of conventional generation capacity by 2035 – with intrinsic rotational inertia – it surely makes sense to run those generators continuously, more efficiently and stably, than to continue to heavily subsidise intermittent wind. It is clearly time to apprise taxpayers of the whole truth, based on up-to-date viability and cost studies.
Allowing high energy costs to drive industry abroad only to increase global emissions while exacerbating UK fuel poverty and increasing the probability of power cuts cannot be justified.
Best wishes
Roger J Arthur, CEng, MIEE, MIET.
www.conservativewoman.co.uk/a-lesson-in-sums-for-ed-miliband/
See Related Article Below
Ed Miliband’s mad net zero crusade has suffered a fatal blow
Starmer should ditch his fanatical Energy Secretary and adopt the Conservative Party’s Cheap Power Plan to cut electricity bills
This week Ed Miliband was dealt a triple whammy that should finally put an end to his ideological crusade to ruin Britain’s energy system.
First, The Guardian reported that Keir Starmer may ditch Ed Miliband’s mad plans to completely decarbonise our electricity system by 2030, because it has finally dawned on Downing Street that a mad dash to build wind and solar is only going to push up everyone’s energy bills, not bring them down by £300 as Ed promised.
Just look at Ed’s latest wind auction. He is about to buy record amounts of offshore wind at eye-wateringly high prices, after extending the contracts to twenty years. This is like swapping a 4 per cent variable mortgage for a 20-year fixed rate at 10 per cent.
Sure, our bills will be less volatile – but in exchange we’ll be locked into paying much higher prices for much longer. Hardly the genius bill-cutting policy that Labour had us believe.
Next, Tony Blair’s think-tank copied my plan to call time on Ed’s botched wind auction, reduce carbon taxes, and put cheap energy first. They do say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Last, and perhaps most damning of all, energy bosses from the country’s biggest suppliers told Parliament that even if gas itself was free, bills would still go up by 2030 because of the soaring costs of Ed’s plans.
As I’ve been arguing, gas is not the problem. It’s all the extra costs of renewables – including the farce of paying wind farms to switch off when it’s too windy – that are piling on the pain.
My approach is simple. Our energy policy should have a single-minded focus on the biggest problem we face. We have the highest electricity prices in the world. We need radical change to bring those prices down fast.
If not, Britain will lose out on the growth we’d get from industry and AI, and families will continue to struggle with the cost of living from sky-high energy bills.
Our first step will be our Cheap Power Plan which cuts everyone’s electricity bills by 20 per cent instantly. Here’s how.
First, repeal the Climate Change Act and restore control of our energy policy to elected politicians.
Second, axe the carbon tax on electricity generation. Around a third of the wholesale price of electricity is not to pay for fuel, but to pay a carbon tax that the Government chooses to impose. It doesn’t need to be there and serves no purpose but to make electricity artificially expensive. Scrapping it would cut the cost of gas, wind, solar and nuclear instantly.
Third, scrap Ed’s old rip-off wind farm subsidies.
[…]
Our energy system is not here to prop up the profits of wind developers at billpayers’ expense. It is here to deliver cheap, reliable energy for the British people.
The Telegraph: continue reading
Featured image: The Telegraph
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