An open letter to the Prime Minister: Please tell the truth about our energy bills
ROGER J ARTHUR
Dear Sir Keir,
On Monday, on the BBC in an interview with Laura Kuenssberg, you attributed our high energy costs on the Ukraine war, despite the fact that EU countries were also affected but their electricity costs are generally lower than ours.
Surely you know that i) the premature destruction of coal-fired power stations – before affordable alternatives were in place – left the UK over-exposed to gas to generate 40 per cent of its electricity, compared with less than 20 per cent for most EU countries; ii) that green levies represent around 30 per cent of electricity bills; iii) that our 2030 net zero targets are far out of line with those of the EU.
Many continue to make the false claim that the sooner we get most of our electricity from renewables the better, because it will be cheaper. That is wrong, not least because solar and wind intensity can be negligible for two or three weeks a year, when conventional power generation plant must be available to keep the lights on. Conventional power plant does not need such back-up.
Try adding the capital, operation, maintenance and replacement cost of that back-up power plant to that of solar and wind to get the correct total. At around £5billion per GW, that would incur a further £200billion of capital. But there is no one in your government who is willing or able to confront the false narrative. So here are some facts that you should feed to Mr Miliband.
In September 2024 a Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) minister said that bill-payers ‘are to spend between £100 and £150 per household on new wind turbines’. But the capital cost of wind capacity would be well over £200billion. That equates to more than £7,000 per household, ie around £700 per household per year over ten years, plus the cost of subsidies. That needs to be challenged.
So far this century, more than £200billion has been paid out (more than £6,000 per household) in green levies to promote solar and wind energy. Any further efficacy improvements will be marginal, and throwing further subsidies at the technology is not likely to improve Capacity Factors (CFs) much further. It will just drive even more UK industry to the likes of China, thereby accelerating global emissions.
Indeed projected wind turbine Capacity Factors have recently been revised from 61 per cent to 43.6 per cent for offshore – and from 48.7 per cent to 33.4 per cent for onshore wind farms. As a result the energy delivered by the 86 and 36 GW of UK wind farms planned for 2035 will be around 30 per cent less than expected, down from 611 to 433TWh. (The CF is a measure of the average power produced in GW divided by the rated power.)
Assuming an average cost of 25p per kWh, the value of the shortfall of around 180TWh, is around £45billion pa, ie about £1,500 per household.
That shortfall could be plugged by an extra 20 & 35 GW of off/onshore wind farm capacity – at £2.7billion and £1.5billion per GW – totalling around £110billion more in capital cost, i.e. well over £3,000 per household.
Added to that is the cost of 3,000 miles of vulnerable offshore submarine cable connections, plus 600 miles of HV overhead lines and substation costs, which together will add more than £10billion 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 £50m/GW pa, the Operation and Maintenance (O and M) cost for 135GW of wind capacity the O and M cost equates to more than £6billion pa.
The wind turbines have to be replaced at intervals of around 20 years (gearboxes more often) and their energy output will never be free. You will also need to grasp the causes of the Iberian power failure to ensure that our grid is not left unfit for purpose by ideological forces.
In case you missed it, the capital plus the O and M cost of the back-up power capacity will need to be added to the cost of wind and solar in any cost comparison.
Roger J Arthur, CEng, MIEE, MIET
This article (An open letter to the Prime Minister: Please tell the truth about our energy bills) was created and published by Conservative Woman and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Roger J Arthur
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