Today the government proudly announced the “success” of the sixth allocation round (AR6) of the Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme. I have already talked a little here about what CfDs involve, and Paul Homewood has dissected the nonsense that is AR6 here so I don’t propose to talk much about AR6. Instead my focus is on what passed for a debate about it in the House of Commons today. So soon after the event, the record in Hansard is still preliminary (or, as it puts it, “This debate is sourced from the uncorrected (rolling) version of Hansard and is subject to correction” , but I think we can trust it enough to get the gist.
It started at 1.46pm with Ed Miliband, the oxymoronic Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, standing to make a self-congratulatory statement. From the beginning, he sets out his dubious stall:
It is less than two months since the Government came into office with a mandate to fix the foundations and make Britain a clean energy superpower.
I have already expressed my reservations about such a claim, given that many Labour voters were voting to get the Tories out rather than enthusiastically supporting Mr Miliband’s dream (or nightmare, depending on your point of view); that just over one in three of those voting supported Labour; and that less than one in five of the electorate voted Labour. And while I’m grumbling, when did renewable energy get to be “clean”? That’s two dubious claims already, and he has barely got started. How many can he pack in? Well, there’s this:
The last Government left this country exposed to international fossil fuel markets. As a result, every household and business paid the price in the worst cost of living and energy bills crisis in memory; because of Britain’s particular exposure, families and businesses in our country were hit harder than others.
And this:
The only way to provide this country with the energy security that the British people deserve is through home-grown clean energy that we control. [my emphasis].
Having said that, he got this right:
Last year’s contracts for difference auction, under the previous Government, was a fiasco. No offshore wind projects were awarded, which was a disaster for the industry…[my emphasis again].
Then he continues by demonstrating that he doesn’t understand that increasing (by almost 60%) the price offered, in AR6,to the renewables sector for the electricty it is to supply, to a level above the current market price will increase the price of electricity, not reduce it:
I made the decision to expand the budget for this year’s auction by 50% to maximise the amount of home-grown clean power we could secure while delivering value for the British people…
He preens over obtaining contracts for 9.6 GW of new capacity, by referring to nearly 10 GW of clean, home-grown power which he claimed is “enough to power the equivalent of 11 million homes”. I’m not sure what the equivalent of a home is, but you do the maths, given that the renewables in question are likely to operate at an average of anything between 15% and 35% of capacity, and given that Ofgem says “We estimate the typical household in England, Scotland and Wales uses 2,700 kWh of electricity and 11,500 kWh of gas in a year.”
After claiming that solar power “is one of the cheapest and most readily deployable energy sources at our disposal” and crowing about new solar and onshore wind secured in AR6, he then goes on to boast about securing some of the most expensive forms of energy known to man:
Floating offshore wind offers a huge opportunity in every part of Britain. The last auction secured no floating offshore wind. On coming to office, I was presented with a budget that risked repeating the mistakes of the past, so I took the decision to more than double the budget that covers this cutting-edge technology. I can report to the House that today’s auction has secured a 400 MW floating offshore wind project, more than 10 times bigger than the previous biggest floating offshore wind farm in Britain.
Apparently he’s pleased with himself about that. At this point Richard Tice intervened to point out that this was “[a]t double the price”. To which the blithe response was:
At a lower price. This floating offshore wind farm alone is double the size of all of Europe’s installed floating offshore wind capacity. In addition, on tidal, where Britain has huge leadership opportunities, we have secured six new tidal stream projects at the lowest ever price.
Well, the table attached to the final results of AR6 as released by his department tells us that the 2027/8-2028/9 administrative strike price for floating offshore wind is £176 per MWh and for tidal is £261. This, apparently, is a good thing.
A little further on we get this:
I can also report to the House that across the whole auction all these results were secured at prices well below the maximum price limit—prices that demonstrate that wind and solar are the cheapest sources of power to build and operate in our country. For the House’s benefit, that means a clearing price for offshore wind that is five to seven times lower than electricity prices driven by gas at the peak of the energy crisis.
Which is an extraordinary exercise in cherry-picking. Today the price of gas sits at 88.8p per therm, against a peak of 702.95p per therm for the briefest of periods in August 2022. That the high price of two years ago briefly drove high electricity prices is true, but today’s price is less than one-seventh of that brief high, so a claim that offshore wind’s clearing price is five to seven times lower than those high electricity prices is meaningless. Especially when the clearing price doesn’t take into account the extremely significant system costs associated with dealing with such remote and unpredictable forms of electricity generation.
He concludes with this worrying piece of nonsense:
This is a Government in a hurry to deliver our mission: energy security, lower bills, good jobs and tackling the climate crisis.
There was so much rubbish and twisted logic in that statement that it represents an open goal for the Opposition. Did the Tories score a goal? No, they blasted high and wide. Here’s Mark Garnier (Shadow Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero):
I would like to put on record that Members on the Opposition Benches welcome the success of the contracts for difference allocation round 6. The Secretary of State is right to be proud of that achievement by the Government. It is to be celebrated that we, as a country, are creating an extra 131 clean energy projects that include 5 GW of offshore wind farms and 3 MW of floating wind.
It gets worse:
The previous Secretary of State recognised the problems of AR5 and the price set for offshore wind—a price that was set before a round of inflation that made the CFD strike price cap too low for the producers. By the way, this was not just a UK problem; it affected other projects for offshore wind around the world. Increasing the strike price by around 60% to the current AR6 price of £73 has been crucial to securing the current success. Of course, in addition, the previous Government had many other successes. In 2010, just 7% of our energy needs were supplied by renewables. Today it is nearly 50%. This has come from many initiatives, not least bringing in the contracts for difference auctions in 2014 and making the auction process an annual event—an initiative that was learnt from AR5 problems.
Does he, I wonder, understand the difference between electricity and energy? For I have to point out that renewables don’t provide anything like 50% of the UK’s energy needs. I should point out also that according to National Grid ESO in 2023 renewables provided just 36.1% of the UK’s electricity needs (wind 29.4%; solar 4.9% and hydro 1.8%), and even if one adds in dubious biomass as a “renewable” source of electricity, it still gets us to just 41.1%, which I would suggest is considerably less than “nearly 50%”. By the way, we also imported 10.7% of our electricity via the interconnectors in 2023. So much for energy security.
The rest is carping around the edges – why is the Secretary of State spending so much on Great British Energy? Why is he cutting back on gas which we need to guarantee base load? But mostly it’s a celebration of our fantastic new Secretary of State:
It would not be fair to ignore the contribution by the new Secretary of State. As he said, he has increased the pot for this year’s auction by 50%. While that is welcome—frankly, who would not welcome more renewable energy…We recognise the importance of investing in renewables to deliver clean energy, and the 9.6 GW announced today is a brilliant step in the right direction…
The Opposition response ended with a whimper:
In conclusion, the Opposition welcome the fact that the Secretary of State has built on our successes in boosting renewable energy. However, we hold serious concerns about what this round will mean for Britain’s green spaces and whether, given the increased cost of AR6, his commitment remains to cut bills by £300.
Which enabled Mr Miliband to repeat some of his most objectionable claims:
He draws attention to the fact that energy bills are rising from 1 October. He is right about that, and that is deeply regrettable. Why is that happening? Because we are exposed to international gas markets. This is about power that we do not control. Every solar panel that we do not put up, every onshore wind turbine that we do not erect, and every piece of grid that we do not build leaves us more exposed. The Conservative party is in a dilemma on this, because it is facing both ways, but it has to face up to that fact. Of course we will have a proper and orderly transition in the North sea, keeping existing fields open for their lifetime and having a just transition for the workforce, but the idea that the Conservative party and some of its erstwhile friends are clinging to—that fossil fuels will get us out of this—is completely belied by all the facts and the crisis that we went through.
So it’s down to the third largest party in the House of Commons (the Liberal Democrats) to instill some common sense into the debate and to provide meaningful opposition. Er, no. Here’s Wera Hobhouse:
We Liberal Democrats very much welcome the results of this round. It is a significant improvement on last year, when the previous Conservative Government completely failed, with zero bids from the onshore wind developers.
The results show that the CfD programme is back on track. They demonstrate the power of industry and Government working together to identify a fixed problem, so that we can widen the level of private sector investment we bring in, which is required for a clean power system transition.
Britain’s unique geography, with its abundance of natural resources, is an asset. We must harness the wind and the world’s largest tides. It is hugely encouraging that a record-breaking amount of solar capacity has been procured. Whatever the Conservatives are saying now about their record in government, solar targets were repeatedly missed, and this round is a welcome change. Unlike the Conservative Government, who, as has been pointed out, left us at the whim of the global oil and gas market, this Government are making choices that will increase our energy independence and lower energy bills for our consumers.
Future allocation rounds, especially in the next few years, must continue to deliver increasing quantities of renewables. That can be achieved by setting ambitious budgets and bringing forward incremental reforms of the CfD regime. Can the Secretary of State assure me that this round is not just a one-off and that we will increase the pace of the CfD allocation rounds?
Oh dear. Well, maybe there’s the occasional Labour back bencher with a different take on things? Apparently not. Here’s Bill Esterson:
My right hon. Friend is correct that clean energy is by far the cheapest way to power the UK, as confirmed by industry bodies today in welcoming his announcement…
If ever there was a non-sequitur, demonstrating the scale of industry capture of Parliament, I would say that’s it.
What about the SNP? Not a chance. Dave Doogan isn’t going to offer any problems for the government:
Fair play to the new Secretary of State: 5.3 GW of offshore wind is a great achievement, especially compared with the flat zero achieved by the Tories in auction round 5.
In short, then, it’s up to Reform UK to provide the opposition, which isn’t all that easy with only five MPs. Anyway, thank you Richard Tice:
Will the Secretary of State, who is obsessed with renewable energy, actually be honest with the British people? The truth is that the offshore wind turbine bids today are some 20% above current prices. The floating offshore wind bids are some three times the current prices. His Department says that this requires subsidies of some £1.5 billion a year. That is before the extra transmission costs, before constraint payments, before compensation payments for blighting my constituents’ countryside, and before the cost of back-up when the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine. Why will he not be honest and tell the truth: that renewable energy is more expensive, not cheaper?
To which he received a non-answer astonishingly lacking in self-awareness:
I am interested by the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, because his manifesto is basically higher bills and to make people poorer. We do not need to look into the crystal ball; we just need to look at the record. The truth is that the cost of living crisis—the energy bills crisis—casts a long shadow in this country. It was caused not by a dependence on renewables but by our exposure to fossil fuels. He just needs to understand this basic point: whether fossil fuels are produced in this country or internationally, they are sold on the international market, and that is why the British people paid the price and the Government forked out £94 billion. The only way to get off the rollercoaster of international gas markets and take back control is to become a clean energy superpower.
There was a brief flurry from the Tory, Sir Julian Lewis, who drew attention to the Chinese exploitation of Uyghur slave labour in the manufacture of so many solar panels and asked about a possible import ban.Happily the Uyghurs can sleep easy tonight, since Mr Miliband acknowledges that “we need to kick the tyres on this, to make sure that the proper controls are in place. My Department is very happy to have discussions with him and other interested parties on those questions.”
A few broadly supportive interventions took place before Lee Anderson for Reform brought the mutual back-slapping to an end:
This Secretary of State is living in a completely different world from my constituents, because they are not asking for this on the doorstep at all. By the way, he is quite happy to spend £11.6 billion on climate aid abroad and £8.5 billion on GB Energy, yet rob our pensioners of £300 at the same time. But I will give him the benefit of the doubt. When will my pensioners in Ashfield receive significant discounts on their fuel bills, and of how much?
To which Mr Miliband blandly responded:
I can absolutely say that this is the way to deliver lower bills for his constituents.
I assume, then, that he actually believes in this nonsense. The debate in 2029 should be a bit more interesting. I wonder if he will still believe it then? I wonder if he will remain in post for that length of time? At some point, reality must bite, but for now, the delusional congratulations will continue, as they did for the rest of what passed for a debate. What a sorry state of affairs.
Climate Scepticism 
Opposition- what Opposition!!, don’t for one second think that the CONsocialists are the Opposition- they are allied and directly linked to Labour, just look at the damn response given to Microbrain’s garbage. Let’s be brutally honest about Not Zero and Microbrain, Not Zero is a Ponzi scheme which will seriously enrich the operators whilst the taxpayer will both pay the high energy prices it generates AND be responsible for the cost of putting the system right when they finally realise that intermittent Wind and Solar really does mean intermittent and will leave the Nations facing days, weeks of blackouts and the strong possibility of National Grid infrastructure being seriously damaged due to constant interruption in energy flow. Secondly, Microbrain has no concept of price and value- to him paying three to ten times for Product A against Product B, both doing the same job, means that A is superior as it costs more……Microbrain’s mathematical skills make Diane Abbot look like Descartes.
Truely the Lunatics are in control of the Asylum.
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Mark, you state:
“Well, the table attached to the final results of AR6 as released by his department tells us that the 2027/8-2028/9 administrative strike price for floating offshore wind is £176 per MWh and for tidal is £261.”
Those were the DESNZ “6 March 2024 – Contracts for Difference (CfD):Budget Notice for the sixth Allocation Round, 2024” 2012 prices.
Today’s figures in the link you provided for Floating Offshore wind is £139.93 per MWh and for Tidal Stream is £172. As shown in Table “(E) Breakdown of the outcome by technology, year and clearing price is as follows (strike prices are in 2012 prices)”
Click to access Contracts_for_Difference_Allocation_Round_6_results.pdf
Applying the inflation factor of a smidgin under +40% leads to Floating Offshore wind at 2024 prices of £196/MWh and Tidal Stream being £240/MWh
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I took up your invitation to do the arithmetic, albeit on the back of an envelope. Household annual energy usage of 14 MWh boils down to about 1.5 KW per household. Dividing this into 2.5 GW deliverable power gives about 1.7 million homes. So Milliband’s 11 million is only 6 or 7 times too high which in this game is near enough spot on!
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“Household annual energy usage of 14 MWh …”
Max, that’s gas + electric.
See the ‘Typical values’ table showing typical annual consumptions for a ‘Medium’ house of 11,500kWh gas + 2,700kWh electricity.
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/average-gas-and-electricity-usage
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Aware of that Joe, but was following Mark who in turn was following Milliband as reported in Hansard.
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Thanks Max.
Mark suggests “that the renewables in question are likely to operate at an average of anything between 15% and 35% of capacity”
If we take 25% as a convenient mid-point average Capacity Factor.
10GW x 24 hrs x 365 days >> 87,600GWh
At 25% CF >>> 21,900GWh
At a typical av home consumption of 2,700kWh:
21,900,000,000kWh / 2,700kWh = 8.111m homes.
So Ed’s 11m homes / 8.111 = 1.356 or +35.6% exaggeration.
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Joe, thanks for the useful clarification regarding the strike price (in today’s values) for floating offshore and tidal – hard to believe, but it’s even worse than I supposed.
Thanks also to you and Max for the calculations regarding the exaggeration about how many homes “could” be powered by the renewables that might come on-stream following AR6. I deliberately quoted the figures for both electricity and gas, because although Miliband’s comments refer specifically to electricity usage, if he and his ilk get their way, then we won’t be allowed gas to cook with or to heat our homes, so in due course (by 2050, presumably) renewables will have to bear the whole load that is currently borne by gas, whether for cooking and heating or as part of the electricity generating mix. Interesting times, but as the Chinese would have it, that’s not in a good way.
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The “debate” is just as surreal in Scotland. Here’s a rolling update from the National (newspaper) website:
https://www.thenational.scot/news/24558819.recap-shona-robison-announces-scottish-government-cuts/
The Scottish Greens have said the cuts announced by the Finance Secretary are “a disaster for our climate”.…
“With global temperatures rising, Scotland must be a climate leader but the SNP is taking us backwards.…”
Utterly delusional. Modest cuts in “climate action” in a country that contributes less than 0.1% of man-made greenhouse gas emissions will be a disaster for our climate (is that just Scotland’s climate? What exactly is meant by that weird choice of language?). And such hubris! It’s bad enough Westminster politicians insisting that the UK has to lead the way on climate, but Scotland? (No offence, Scotland). There isn’t a modicum of realism in this non-debate anywhere now.
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We are urgently in need of an Opposition that opposes!
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Even Nils Pratley (one of the Guardian’s better commentators, IMO), while carrying out the necessary genuflection in favour of renewables, has his doubts, so why is Parliament so lamentable?
“Nice auction, but Ed Miliband is still a long way from his 2030 targets for offshore wind
Arithmetic over capacity does not add up, with supply chains a constraining factor”
…Miliband was claiming credit when it wasn’t entirely due, of course, because this year’s competition was designed well before the general election. Some version of success was guaranteed from the moment the last government said it was prepared to pay up to £73 a megawatt hour (in 2012 prices, confusingly) for offshore wind, a mighty leap from the £44 level that produced no takers in 2023. At the higher level of incentive, developers were bound to come out to play again….
…But here’s the very large qualification: Miliband’s target of having 60 gigawatts of installed offshore wind capacity by 2030 is still a long way from being credible.
Just do the back-of-the-envelope arithmetic: there is about 15 gigawatts of capacity operating today; add the projects commissioned in Tuesday’s auction result plus those already under construction and you still only get to a grand total of about 27 gigawatts. Getting to 60 gigawatts by 2030 – all of it operational – looks a stretch and a half.…
…One big constraining factor here is supply chains. The UK is not alone in pushing hard to add offshore capacity, and most of the kit is sourced in competitive international markets. It is welcome news that the Japanese company Sumitomo Electric is building a £350m subsea cable manufacturing plant on the Cromarty Firth, but few blades and turbines are produced domestically. It is not easy to accelerate meaningfully the pace of rollout of windfarms (and, critically, the rate at which they are connected to the grid)….
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‘… whether fossil fuels are produced in this country or internationally, they are sold on the international market …’
Is this correct? And, if so, why doesn’t it seem to apply to the US?
BTW I think Nils Pratley’s observation that ‘Getting to 60 gigawatts by 2030 – all of it operational – looks a stretch and a half.…’ [my emphasis] is most important. How soon can we expect the new kit announced yesterday (far short of 60 gigawatts even if projects under construction are added) to be operational?
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Robin,
How can we expect the new kit announced yesterday…to be operational?
The workers will do it. The workers will set us free. All we need now is a good motto.
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Robin, the oft-repeated “international markets argument” is one that I suspect is suspect. Just because many contracts are made on the international market does not mean that all contracts have to be. It is not, to me, inconceivable to have a long-term contract between an oil & gas company and a nation’s energy supplier that will be mutually beneficial. Steady income for the O&G company, guaranteed supply of oil/gas at known and non-volatile cost for the nation.
But the renewables lobby won’t and don’t like it – so better forget it. Regards, John C.
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As I have stated previously, on many occasions: LibLabConGreen is the Parliamentary Uniparty. Sunak was parachuted into place after Truss, elected leader by the party membership, was knifed in the back by senior Conservatives in league with Big Corporations and donors – for daring to do conservative things whilst in office. Sunak conspired to do nothing remotely conservative in his time as PM and he conspired to call an early election at the worst possible time in order to hand over the baton to the Marxist Red wing of the Uniparty so that they would then feel free to accelerate the globalist agenda being pursued by the Tories for their 14 years in office. Hence the complete lack of opposition to accelerated Net Zero policies. 20% of the electorate fell for it. It was enough.
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Thanks John C. The ‘international markets argument’ has become an automatic catch-all response to any suggestion that we might exploit own (substantial) fossil fuel resources – as mad Ed wouldn’t put it: our ‘home grown’ resources. Like you I’m suspicious: surely it shouldn’t be too difficult to establish a scheme whereby we would avoid this restriction? After all, these markets may be international but they’re obviously not global. See for example this article in the Telegraph this morning: Let’s be honest: shale fracking has saved the West.
Two extracts:
As I said above, why is the US exempt from joining these ‘international markets’?
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John C: The same thought has often crossed my mind. Since we now live in an interventionist state, new oil and gas licences could be issued with conditions on price/destination/tax/etc.. Provided that some form of deal can be reached, it should be a win-win: cheap and secure supplies for the country; firm revenue for the producers with no market risk.
Mark: it’s a shame that none of the MPs brought up re-bidding by older projects which formed a chunk of the awards. Per the DT article quoted on NALOPKT:
“Flexibilities in the contracts drawn up by Government officials meant that older wind farm projects could withdraw up to 25% of contracted capacity and re-enter it into this year’s auction, allowing them to take advantage of the higher prices on offer. 1.6 GW of successful bids came from such projects – a loophole that may cost households as much as £180m each year. It’s another slip up for a Department that already allowed just one windfarm to net £647 million from delaying the start of its CfD contract.“
Paul Homewood’s comment is worth quoting:
“The idea that a contractor can tear up his contract, in order to bid again at a higher price is repugnant. Presumably there was a fear that they simply would pull out of uneconomic contracts anyway.
In AR6, four projects, with a combined capacity of 498MW, have taken advantage of this loophole – Inch Cape, Moray West, Hornsea Three and EA3. All had signed contracts at £47.30/MWh (2012 prices), and instead will now get £54.23. Miliband’s largesse will cost billpayers around £800 million over the period of the contract. About two thirds will go to Danish owned Orsted, who are building Hornsea.”
I don’t know why there’s such a difference between Paul’s figures and those in the article but, either way, it’s a very twisted way of doing business.
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Joe (Re Milliband’s 11 million)
The way I approached it was to convert the household (total) annual energy usage to power which came to 1.6 KW* which I rounded down to 1.5 KW. I divided this into the same 2.5 GW dispatchable power you used to give 2.5×10^9 divided by 1.5 x 10^3, therefore c. 1.7 x 10^6 or my c. 1.7 million.
* 14 million divided by (365 x 24) giving a figure I’m sure I’ve seen elsewhere so felt comfortable with
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The Telegraph has another article (this one by Neil Record, Chairman of the Institute of Economic Affairs) about the renewable auction: This is not ‘leading the world’. It’s economic suicide.
It covers familiar ground but I thought I’d quote a few extracts:
In other words no risk at all.
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The Spectator has an amusing article today – There’s no shame in being ‘weird’ – by Gareth Roberts.
The closing paragraph:
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Having had more time to ponder the figures, the hole in my logic was taking the mid-point average Capacity Factor within the range “between 15% and 35% of capacity” i.e. using a Capacity factor of 25%.
Table ‘E’ “Breakdown of the outcome by technology,…” shows that *new* wind capacity will be 4,753MW & solar will 3,288MW. However, the former will likely operate at Capacity Factor of *around* 48%, whilst the latter’s CF will be ~10%. The weighted average operational Capacity Factor is therefore likely to be in the region of [(4,753MW x 48%) + (3,288MW x 10%)] / 7,041MW >>> [(2,281 + 329) / 7,041] = 2,610 / 7,041 = 37%
At the weighted Capacity Factor, 87,600GWh x 37% = 32,478GWh.
So, at a typical av home consumption of 2,700kWh, 32,478GWh / 2,700kWh = 12m homes.
Either Ed undersold their capability, or, I’ve slightly overestimated new wind’s operational Capacity Factor. 😀
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Joe,
I find the idea that new wind will operate at 48% of capacity to be highly unlikely over anything other than short periods of time. I accept that they are the official figures, but I am confident that they are massively over-optimistic.
It will be interesting to see what actually happens, but I would be surprised if anyone bothers with a post-completion review in due course. I haven’t seen one yet (with regard to earlier CfD rounds), though I may have missed it.
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”When I use a word,’ said Humpty, ‘less ‘ may mean ‘more’ or ‘more’ mean ‘less’ – as in ‘less’ meaning’ more ‘ for cost of off-shore energy and ‘more’ meaning quantitatively less-effective energy, FAILURE transformed into SUCCESS!”
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I don’t think there’s any escaping the answer based on a simple power-based division, Joe. The bottom line has to be close to the deliverable power divided by the power demand per household. The latter is around 1.5 KW, the former a slightly slippery fraction of the 9.6 GW nominal rating – but 2.5 GW won’t be that far off the mark for a “Fermi” guesstimate like this. Divide 2.5 GW by 1.5 KW and the answer is 1.7 million (households).
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Just noticed Mark’s crack of dawn missive where he says Ed M referred to electrical not total power. So that’s obviously going to make a huge difference and no doubt reconciles our numbers.
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Hi Mark
Are you aware of Andrew ZP Smith’s interactive “Energy Numbers – Thinking about energy
UK offshore wind capacity factors”?
Sadly, it’s not been updated for a couple of years.
Columns can be sorted Max/Min. Especially interesting are Column 2 “Latest rolling 12 month capacity factor” and Column 3 “Life capacity factor”
https://energynumbers.info/uk-offshore-wind-capacity-factors
Hywind’s Life Capacity Factor at May 22 was 52.6%; Dudgeon, Westermost Rough, Hornsea One and Galloper were >47%.
It’s not unreasonable to assume that the latest offshore wind farms will have capacity factors similar to those older ‘best’ sites.
Hence my use of ‘48%’ to simply get a feel for Miliband’s claim. Using ‘48%’ did not destroy Miliband’s ’11m’ homes claim.
Note Andrew ZPS’s second para:
“2020 set a new record for the highest annual average capacity factor for a UK offshore windfarm: Hywind Scotland achieved 57.1% in the twelve months to March 2020. This floating windfarm, has behaved differently to any windfarm we’ve seen before, and that’s best portrayed in its load duration curve.”
The interactive “Load duration curves” graph, is below the Capacity Factors table.
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Hi Max.
IMHO the propagandist powers-that-be will ignore household ‘total’ energy demand simply because the greater the number of kWh involved reduces the number of “Homes supplied”. Their game is to boast about the *number of homes* supplied. 😀
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Mark, “The Scottish Greens have said the cuts announced by the Finance Secretary are “a disaster for our climate”.…”
Is there more than one faction of Scottish Greens? 🤔 (A sarky, rhetorical question.)
https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/aberdeen-aberdeenshire/1584208/aberdeen-greens-join-battle-against-glendye-windfarm-plans/
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Joe, thanks for the link to the site with the offshore capacity factors – very interesting. I take the point, but the rolling 12 month capacity factor for offshore wind as shown as 42.2%, with an average life capacity factor of 39.6%. I assume that’s a reflection of declining productivity as turbines age. I also assume (though my assumption might be based on ignorance and flat wrong) that the most productive locations have already been cherry-picked.
Then there’s the fact that onshore wind has lower capacity than offshore, which will drag down the average for wind overall. SSE claimed a capacity factor (if memory serves) for Viking Energy in the high 40s per cent, and that’s for a wind farm based at the windiest onshore location in the UK. However, thanks to constraints, it’s achieved nothing like that since it started operating. The Shetland Times reported (based on research by the Renewable Energy Foundation) that:
78 per cent of Viking’s generating capacity has been discarded between 17th and 26th August.
On Saturday, for example, SSE estimated that the windfarm could generate 6,298MWh during the day – and they were paid not to generate 6,297MWh – almost all of it.
https://www.shetlandtimes.co.uk/2024/08/27/sse-was-paid-2m-to-keep-viking-energy-windfarm-switched-off
If that is repeated very often, then the generation achieved across the AR6 fleet of new turbines might be very poor indeed. I suppose the truth of it is that we are all – including Mr Miliband – speculating as to what will happen, and none of us knows. Will there be another wind drought such as that which occurred in 2021? We don’t know. But neither does Mr Miliband. That’s why I think his claim that the new generating capacity to be brought forward by AR6 is “enough to power the equivalent of 11 million homes” is disingenuous at best.
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Hi Mark.
I agree that there are numerous variables. And with so many, it can (within reason) be relatively easy to produce whatever outcome is desired.
“I also assume … that the most productive locations have already been cherry-picked.”
My assumption would be that *locations easiest to service* (i.e. closest to coast, closest to land-side transmission infrastructure & in relatively shallow water) have already been taken.
The most *productive* locations are further offshore with stronger & more-constant winds [2x wind-speed produces 8x (i.e. cubed) output]. But generally the water’s deeper, & they’re further from land-side infrastructure, so installation & connection costs are far greater. Hence Floating wind’s CfD > fixed turbines’ CfD.
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Joe, thanks again. That may well be true – but if the “better” (because more productive) locations are in deeper water, necessitating floating wind farms to harness the wind, then they are much more expensive than traditional offshore wind farms, so in terms of cost to the consumer, the improved productivity is probably more than outweighed by the much higher costs. For the consumer it’s a lose-lose scenario.
However, I appreciate the clarification – it’s always good to be clear on these issues.
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Do we have any information on the accuracy and reliability of these reported capacity factors? Admittedly I have not done any digging but, in some years of following these topics I have never seen any reportage on rigorous performance testing of these machines. It’s pretty normal for conventional generators to be tested during commissioning to confirm that they meet their stated capacity. Indeed, it’s not unusual for thermal plants to exceed their rated output in actual service. I have never seen any reports of a windfarm hitting its quoted nameplate capacity and, had one done so, I am sure we would have heard all about it.
In a similar vein, I believe that maximum output our wind fleet has achieved to date is around 21 GW for an hour or two. That’s from an installed capacity of approx 30 GW. That’s very telling: in the best real-world conditions the maximum – fleeting – output is less than 70% of “capacity”.
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Mark & others – from above comments –
“Miliband was claiming credit when it wasn’t entirely due, of course, because this year’s competition was designed well before the general election. Some version of success was guaranteed from the moment the last government said it was prepared to pay up to £73 a megawatt hour (in 2012 prices, confusingly) for offshore wind, a mighty leap from the £44 level that produced no takers in 2023. At the higher level of incentive, developers were bound to come out to play again“
Is it just me that can’t get my head around why 2012 £ prices are compared to 2023 £ prices.
What am I missing?
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Dougie, the strike prices for CfDs are all in 2012 prices, so that it is easier to compare between years – at least, I assume that’s the reason for it. The further away 2012 gets, the more misleading this can be, if someone quotes the price out of context. So it’s always best practice to give both figures.
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Meanwhile, from the “You couldn’t make it up” section of the news (behind a paywall, unfortunately):
“Starmer vows to crack down on profiteering wind farms
‘Pirate’ energy company receives £2m compensation after generating excess power”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/09/04/pirate-wind-farm-operator-accused-massively-overcharging/
This is the story about SSE gaming the system over it’s Viking Energy windfarm on Shetland. The problem is, this government is making us reliant on the pirates.
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To MikeH & Mark
“Do we have any information on the accuracy and reliability of these reported capacity factors?”
I’ve just found another site – REF’s “Renewable Generators” page that shows data by site, to Dec 2023. There are columns for RLF (Rolling Load Factor / Capacity Factor – 12-month period) and ALF (Annual Load Factor). Both are Max/Min sortable – but for the database rather than Technology Type.
https://ref.org.uk/generators/index.php?order=7&dir=asc&start=0
Sorting on (Max) Annual Load Factor presents an interesting top return: “105.1%” for Keilburn Farm CHP. Perhaps Mark / CliScep could offer a small prize (i.e. a congratulatory name-check!) for explanations of why it is entirely plausibile? 😉
Or asking that Q could be the basis of a short Quick ‘n Easy stand-alone post. What say you Mark?
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Joe P: Thanks for that. I did a search/filter for “Wind” and it gave me 43 pages sorted by declining annual output!
However, from a quick scan, there are no offshore projects beyond the first page. Eyeballing that, the highest ALF is 47.2% (Galloper). Overall 14 offshore projects show 40+% out of 43. The rest range down through the 30s and 20s with the worst being Seagreen on 14.1%. Generally it looks as if the bigger, newer projects have the best LFs, unsurprisingly.
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Mike H, thanks for digging.
Joe P, I will give it some thought.
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And so it begins! With our new government and Secretary of State at DESNZ there are two proposals for massive solar farms in Norfolk (Droves (500MW) and High Grove (750MW) solar farms) will see large swathes of the countryside between Narborough and Dereham covered in solar panels. All in 1.25GW of solar panels, something like 5000 acres of farmland needed, 8 or so sub stations and two major stations for connection to the 400kV grid.
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Paul Dennis,
I fear that there is now going to be unleashed on the English countryside a level of industrialisation that the beleaguered rural Scots have been fighting for years.
The Prime Minister was certainly correct when he said that things would get worse before they get better, though I don’t think this is what he was referencing.
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Mark/MikeH, I recall that prof. gordon Hughes at the Renewable Energy Foundation had covered this as part of his analysis of wind costs. As I recall offshore wind load factor fell as the turbine aged, and it fell faster for off-shore than for on-shore turbines such that the off-shore wind turbines were economic life-expired after 10 to 15 years compared to about 20 year for on-shore. But please check my memories against the prof’s real data. Regards, John C.
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This one John >>
“The Performance of Wind Power in Denmark” Prof Gordon Hughes, School of Economics, University of Edinburgh.
Click to access performance-wind-power-dk.pdf
Item #5 on page vi:
“However, for larger 2+ MW onshore and offshore turbines, the age-related decline in perfor- mance is much more significant, amounting to a decline of about 3% per year for onshore turbines and a decline of as much as 4.5% per year for offshore turbines. At age 16, an onshore wind turbine or farm will only produce 63% of the output that it produced at age 1, while for offshore turbines the output will be down to 50% of peak output. In addition, operating and maintenance costs per MWh of output are likely to rise at similar rates, both to fix breakdowns and failures and because fixed costs have to be allocated across a declining output. These factors mean that the economics of keeping a turbine or wind farm in operation look increasingly unattractive once it passes an age of 16 years.”
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I recall that the late Prof Sir David MacKay in his 2013 “On the Performance of Wind Farms in the United Kingdom” argued that Prof Gordon Hughes’s original 2012 numbers which related to Denmark, did not apply to UK wind farms.
Click to access windDecline.pdf
[I’ve just noticed that the above link to “The Performance of Wind Power in Denmark” is Prof Hughes’s 2020 update in which he states “This paper re-examines and extends my 2012 analysis of the relationship between age and performance of wind turbines in Denmark using a much larger dataset for the period from 2002 to 2019.
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Joe P, many thanks for that investigatory work, which I think goes a long way to vindicate our scepticism on this thread about Mr Miliband’s claims.
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Excellent, as always, from David Turver, well worth reading in full
“What the AR6 Auction Results Mean for Consumers
Higher prices and more damage to the economy are inevitable as we enrich overseas investors.”
https://davidturver.substack.com/p/what-the-ar6-auction-results-mean-for-consumers
His conclusions:
The Government hailed the AR6 results in terms Borat would not find unusual, describing them as “the most successful renewables auction to date.” Although the strike prices were lower than anticipated, the new projects will increase consumer bills so the “success” will only be felt by the project developers. That all the offshore projects are owned by foreign investors means the profits from these developments will accrue overseas and UK consumers will foot the bill. Some of the developers have even been rewarded for past failure.
Even this “great success” is not enough to get on track to meet Miliband’s suicidal renewable energy targets and his ambition of a net zero grid by 2030. We can expect more damage to be done to the economy and consumers before the whole edifice comes tumbling down.
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“AR6 Contracts for Cronies?Why did the Government award more than the limit of Permitted Reduction contracts to Hornsea Project Three?”
https://davidturver.substack.com/p/ar6-contracts-for-cronies
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