Sunday
Oct132013
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Energy wave in the Telegraph
Oct 13, 2013 Energy: grid ;)
Not now, can't you see we're saving the planet?The cost of energy is all over the Telegraph this morning.
First up, Iain Martin outlines the whole sorry history of Britian's energy policy over the last twenty years. In the same outlet, Booker reviews the week's developments, and reiterates the point that the decision to balance energy supply with diesel generators is going to be very expensive indeed. Meanwhile, Robert Colvile and the paper's cartoonist manage to find something to laugh about.
This will of course have precisely no impact on the thinking of Ed Davey, Greg Barker and the other grandees in DECC.
Reader Comments (58)
'This will of course have precisely no impact on the thinking of Ed Davey, Greg Barker and the other grandees in DECC'.
I suspect you are being rather kind, calling it 'thinking'.
Davey has trotted out the 4% lie on Andrew Marr, it was unchallenged despite Mar saying it was 10% in his question, Davey wittered on about insulation. He also talked about massive investment in the Network as it needed renewing but neglected to add it was really to connect in the useless Wind Farms.
Ed Davey on Andrew Marr today talking about on-shore windmills.
"People don't realise that they only get paid when they are generating electricity ... if they're not generating electricity, they don't get paid."
Is that true?
Ed Davey on the Andy Marr shows.
ED says hes done a deal for Chinese Wind power .Oh god more poxy Turbines.
Caught the end Ed claims that wind owners only get paid for when their Turbines are producing thats bollocks.
matthu: The subsidy they receive is for the amount of electricity they produce. The subsidy works out at anywhere between twice and 10 times the wholesale price of electricity. They also do get paid for NOT producing electricity if the grid can't cope with a sudden increase in wind when the consumer demand isn't there or the local grid capacity isn't high enough.
So Ed was lying.
It's also possible that Ed doesn't know what he is talking about.
Either way he isn't fit to be Energy Minister
the BBC has been particularly poor at reporting the whole mess...R4Today listeners will have zero clue about why people are shouting, as they have been told the green costs are less than a pound a day.
omnologos:
It ought to be important that everybody tells the BBC Trust what they think of the BBC news and current affairs propaganda programmes. Unfortunately the BBC Trust will do what it always does, ie ignore any comments that tell them that the BBC isn't the best thing since indoor plumbing.
http://consultations.external.bbc.co.uk/bbc/news_review
Perhaps Philip knows the answer to this.
Do wind farms get paid if there is a grid breakdown through inclement weather?
Breath of Fresh Air, why is 4% a lie? What was the question?
But on Bbc Radio4 this morning, BH, in the 9.40 paper review, 2 of the guests made scathing remarks about windmills. One was a scientist. The cartoon linked above got a mention.
@ matthu
If the wind blows hard enough but at 'the wrong time' for the National Grid, companies are paid to 'not produce'. Termed a 'constraint payment', it's often paid at three-times the going rate had it actually been used. For example,
"According to the REF figures, enough wind-generated electricity to power 10,000 homes was “dumped” by the National Grid last month. A total of £3.6 million of constraint payments were made to wind farm companies in April [2013], the highest monthly total since September 2011.
EDF charged between £89 to £149 for every megawatt hour (MWh) of energy that was not produced, compared to £50 per MWh the company would have received for selling it."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/10038598/Scottish-wind-farms-paid-1-million-to-shut-down-one-day.html
It's simply inconceivable that Ed Davey or any other on-the-record DECC mandarin is unaware of this highly lucrative arrangement. That Davey willfully lied on state-funded national TV and it went unchallenged tells anyone all they need to know about both.
From official house of commons document
Environmental charges already account for 11% on electricity bills, and 9% of dual gas/electric ones.
By 2020, environmental charges will account for 33% of electricity bills,
By by 2030 41%
BUT commercial bills will bear twice these extra costs (so that means every product will be more expensive for the consumer)
from Paul Homewood's new blog posting
Oct 10, 2013 at 9:21 PM | Registered Commenterstewgreen
11+9/2=10
Plus E Holmes on Sky got Davey to admit to 10% after some proper questioning.
In for a penny, in for a pound
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/10375644/Wind-farms-are-value-for-money-Ed-Davey-says.html
Interviewed on the BBC's Andrew Marr show, Mr Davey was asked if onshore wind turbines provide value for money.
He replied: "Absolutely. They only get paid when they are generating electricity."
Didn't Davey also say that we get 16% of our electricity from renewables?
(Currently wind is 6.7% - on a very windy day, shouldn't imagine much from solar...)
A few years back I considered starting a blog which was to be entitled "The Lunatics are Running the Asylum".
It didn't happen for many reasons, lack of ability, lack of time, others doing it much better than I could - and the thought that it was actually an insult to people with mental problems who in the main are all considerably more sane than LibLabCon politicians. I would of course have donated half of any income (The Bish laughing loudly in the background) to MenCap and similar charities.
The Greens are killing third world people at the rate of 250,000 per year (UN figures) with the bio-fuel lunacy. After a decade of screaming at anyone who dared to say it was bad idea to burn other peoples food in your car, they now say it is a bad idea and try to hide the fact that they demanded governments sign up to it.
The same stupidity is now being played out with bio-mass where, as someone said, "25 years ago Greens were chaining themselves to trees, now they are burning them". The level of insanity of the arrangements for Drax power station has been stated here many times. DECC claimed this was carbon neutral and now admit it has substantial carbon debt. But hey never mind we can ruin the environment in the name of appearing to save the planet.
The current situation with energy beggars belief, being simply delusional. By the time any of the proposed 2020/2030 targets get reached they will be having to replace many of the wind turbines again anyway. Nothing defines the UK's demise in engineering more than the lack of engineers to point out that DECC's plans for the future will not work (apologies to those engineers like Phillip Bratby and Colin McInnes who speak such sense down a long dark tunnel).
My point (if you have managed to get this far) is that all these stupidities, including the unquestioning devotion of our politicians fall at the feet of Climate Science which has for 3 decades portrayed a certainty of outcomes based on belief not science.
It is time for Climate Scientists who are ultimately responsible for this mess to get a grasp of the monster they have created. The world is not warming and may even be cooling now - even AR5 away from the spin is dialling back the alarmism. Climate Science continually looks for reasons (excuses) as to why their predictions are WRONG instead of asking themselves the hard questions about the AGW theory its self. Having been a luke-warmer, I now wonder sometimes if the effect of CO2 can even be detected at all. So do at lot of scientists, but the IPCC says they are even more certain. There is nothing in AR5 so far that shows more certainty - pure spin and activism, not science.
When this all falls apart, and the cracks are now there for all to see (no temp rises, increasing ice in the Arctic, low frequency of tropical revolvers), who will be blamed for the resulting energy car crash?
Politicians will try to save themselves by sacrificing the scientists who have driven the belief. Those that have have told "porkies" might have quite a lot to worry about.
Looking for something else, I came across this which might be of interest
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/246730/uksa_independent_assessment_statistics.pdf
It's a request from the UK Statistics Authority for opinions on DECC's statistics output
The document also gives a useful compendium of links to various energy and emissions-related datasets.
(I found it on the page of DECC's emissions and climate change statistics https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-of-energy-climate-change/about/statistics )
I may send in a response - some of DECC's information is very good (e.g. the UK GHG emissions dataset) - but some things are very difficult to find.
Following a post showing that DECC has spent more than £1.5M on flights over the last 2.5 years we have this:
“ The Enercon E48 turbine’s rated capacity is 800kW. It will be ‘de-rated’ to 500kW, meaning that its maximum output will be reduced by 37.5%.
At 500kW it will earn a Feed-in Tariff rate of 18.04p/kWh compared to 9.79p/kWh for an 800kW turbine. With an export tariff of 4.64p/kWh this gives a return of 22.68p/kWh at the higher rate. The average wholesale price for electricity is around 5p/kWh.
All over the country large turbines are having their output reduced in order to game the system and qualify for a higher rate of subsidy. “
http://www.windbyte.co.uk/index.html
t might or might not be interesting if one of Mr Davey's constituents wrote to him and pointed out his error. I expect it'll just go to DECC unread but you never know.
Just to put the icing on the cake, the EU Parliament has voted for a regulatory environment for shale gas which means it will probably never be exploited.
Meanwhile Scottish councils are getting 7 wind farm applications every working day
Conservative energy spokesman says:
I have not seen the Davey bit and to be honest the man makes my skin crawl so I am unlikely to make the effort. If, as alleged, he has told a lie on our national airwaves then the most effective means of addressing this is for someone with the relevant gravitas (Lord Lawson springs to mind) to pen an open letter to the PM and Nick Clegg asking for an explanation as to why a minister of state would tell a lie and obviously to suggest that such a person is not suitable for high office - as was proved spectacularly by his predecessor.
It also appears that DECC is deliberately trying to mislead by including the cost of connecting wind farms to the grid in the network costs rather than in the cost of government policies. Again, if this is true, this is an outrage.
So I still don't know what is wrong with the 4% figure. Once you strip out programs to help the elderly that is what you get. Is there a problem with helping the elderly heat their homes?
Ed Davey, Lord Deben, Tim Yeo.
Lying, thieving, troughing, genocidal scamsters
No other words to describe them.
And by the way hope those watermelons, currently languishing in Russian prisons get the full 15 years.
Stupid morons- just what were they thinking?
You are probably right but what we need is for the aforementioned twonks to be rendered irrelevant. As things stand at the moment, with the Pollis relying on headline science, our only hope is that the MSM will point out what regulars to this blog know to be the case - UK energy policy is shite - and for the citizens to listen. Lets face it: if the cost of the green madness does not cause a backlash then nothing will.
The cost of energy is gradually making its way to the top of the agenda for the next General Election. The green madness is and always has been a political battle. It needs to be defeated in the ballot box, as we have seen in Australia. We need the MSM on side.
omnologos
The "less than £1 per day" is a standard con used by virtually everybody with a product or concept to sell who knows you wouldn't buy it if you knew how much it cost.
£1 a day = £365 a year which is about ¼ of the average energy bill (so probably a bit exaggerated).
Other common bits of legerdemain:
Less than a pint of beer a week = around £200 a year.
Only an extra 10p a week = an extra £5.20 a year. (This one is usually used to flog something that no-one in his right mind would want at any price!
... and so on!
Don
See Barbara's post at the top of the thread.
What's with all this "thinking" stuff? The assumption that eco-activists are capable of rational thought needs to be knocked firmly on the head. Ditto for politicians with a "cause"!
@Chandra
Did Ed Davey say it was only 4% if you strip out the cost of helping the elderly?
I didn't see it but I would be surprised if he did - others may know.
If he said "well it is 10% but if you strip out etc.........." then that would be honest and informative otherwise it is just an attempt to obfuscate the reality.
If I said that the average citizen was paying only 40% of their salary to the government in tax (it is running at about 52% in reality) would it be OK if later it was revealed that was with the cost of the NHS stripped out?
Wonderful pikky your grace -
Peon: Spare a copper towards my energy bill gentlemen?
Climate Scientists: Sod off peon. We're off to an overseas conference to save the planet.
You should retire Dave):
The Andrew Marr show is now on BBC iplayer:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03dzdds/The_Andrew_Marr_Show_13_10_2013/
At around 50 minutes Ed Davey says that the part of our energy bills that funds low carbon and green taxes is only 4% of the total. He later says that renewables produce 16% of our electricity, and we are well on the way to them producing 30% by the end of the decade.
Wind is currently producing 6.4%, solar SFA.
I presume that low carbon includes nuclear, so we must be getting our windmills for free.
Roger:
If Ed said renewables are currently producing 16% of our electricity, then that is another lie. As of the date of the UK Renewable Energy Roadmap Update (27 December 2012), renewables were producing 11% of our electricity. It is inconceivable that it could have jumped from 11% to 16% in 9months.
Andrew Marr was pathetic this am in his obeisance and acquiescence to the flagrant lies spouted by Ed Davey.
It was obvious from Davey's body language from the get go that the course and tenor of the interview had been stitched up long before the cameras rolled.
Both men were also obviously thrilled that the Chinese are about to invest in Nuclear stations in the UK. They should be ashamed that they have engendered such a humiliating and no doubt costly pass.
Begging bowl Britain has today a new face having lost the occidental original.
Ed Davey also stated that the wholesale gas price has increased by 50% in the last 5 years.
This graph ends in Dec 2012 so unless there has been a significant price increase in the last 10 months he also lied about that.
http://www.bluemarkconsultants.co.uk/business-gas-wholesale-prices.php
So is that 3 or 4 "terminological inexactitudes" by Mr Davey, all in one interview?
If the Secretary of State for Defense had said that the UK had only had troops in Afganistan for 3 years, only 25 had died and it had only cost £300 million he would be forced to clear his desk within the hour. How much longer do we have to put up with a clown like Davey?
Sorry, the correct link to the wholesale gas price graph is:
http://www.bluemarkconsultants.co.uk/business-gas-wholesale-prices.php
The annual running average green energy is 7,9%. This is made up of:
wind 5.1%
hydro 0.7%
pumped storage 0.9%
other (solar etc) 1.2%
For those who wish to check out the numbers visit :
http://nationalgrid.stephenmorley.org/
and scroll down to Past Year average production.
So you can add this to the list of lies from the mouth of Ed Davey.
"The annual running average green energy is 7,9%"
Well, at least he got it half right.
There are various estimates of renewables' contribution to electricity generation but according to Davey's own department (and as Philip Bratby said above) UK Energy in Brief from DECC 2013 says 11% of electricity was from renewables in 2012 (p32).
"At 41.3 TWh, renewables accounted for 11.3% of electricity generated in the UK during 2012, 1.9 percentage points higher than during 2011." (a table shows that was about 47% wind, 37% bioenergy, 13% hydro and 3% solar)
and considering all UK energy:
"Provisionally in the UK during 2012, 4.1% of final energy consumption was from renewable sources; this is up from 3.8% in 2011 and 3.3% in 2010." (of which over 70% was from bioenergy (that is, burning e.g. wood, waste and landfill gas)).
According to DECC’s calculations wind 'saved' 9.3 million tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2011. But that is less than 2% of the UK’s total emissions (550 Mtonnes CO2e in 2011) (my calculations).
I can't find an official estimate of the CO2 'saved' by biofuels. Even the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology is unwilling to make an estimate of the carbon footprint, saying only
“Reports for the government and the Environment Agency have found that the carbon footprint of electricity from bioenergy is generally, but not always, lower than the least carbon intensive fossil-fuel option, gas-fired CCGTs.”
so the actual CO2 reductions from electricity from biofuels may not be much (does anyone have data on this?).
Considering that this small reduction in CO2 emissions seems to be costing at least 4% of our energy bills, how would the costs scale up to the CO2 reductions needed to meet the Climate Change Act targets?
So, 4%, 16%, 50%.... all hopelessly incorrect. Are his civil servants incompetent, or did they lie to him? Is Davey incompetent, or did he deliberately lie? Whatever has gone wrong the consequences are clear - if we have another cold winter the lights will go out and thousands of the old and vulnerable will needlessly starve to death.
I am getting bloody angry about this!
Roger
the lights are unlikely to go out because we have a shed load of diesel generators ready at a moments notice to pump megatons of CO2 into the air whilst costing the consumer an arm and a leg. It's called STOR and it is a brilliant wheeze.
Richard North can enlighten - http://www.eureferendum.com
Ruth Dixon
I don't have any figures for the bio-fuel contribution to reducing CO2 emissions
- BUT I think that whatever it is will have been more than offset by the reduced area of rain forest logged to produce palm-oil. Even the Greens are beginning to wake up to the truth now, even trying to deny they thought it was a good idea !!!
Did you also see the group of elephants that were slaughtered in Malaysia a while back were victims of the drive to grow palm-oil for bio-fuel in mostly European cars. They had "strayed" into the palm-oil crop causing damage. Those responsible for their deaths didn't even bother to take the tusks to make it look like that was the motive. The MSM reported this happening with a picture of a young elephant, who had survived, stood over its dead mother. No MSM report that I saw linked the horrible deaths to our use of bio-fuel.
If Davey says that renewables are generating 16% 0f UK electricity he is lying or does not know what he is talking about.
Current metered UK wind power amounts to about 8GW and this is mostly onshore, so with a capacity factor of 25% the 8GW rated is 2GW averaged over the year. Average yearly UK demand is about 33 GW, so windmills produce about 6% of electricity demand over the year.
There will also be some biomass, solar energy is negligible. I do not know how much biomass electricity is produced in the UK, in the Netherlands this is about 5% of demand. I cannot believe biomass electricity is 10% of demand in the UK.
retireddave - yes I agree that the palm oil business is a scandal - I've tried to stop buying anything with palm oil as an ingredient - burning it is even worse. I don't think it goes into electricity generation in the UK but it probably does form part of biodiesel. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22127123
I wasn't arguing that biofuels are good - just that DECC is allowed to count them as renewables, without there being much evidence that they even reduce CO2 emissions, regardless of the other problems they cause. On the other hand, a proportion of bioenergy in the UK comes from burning landfill gas, which seems a sensible thing to do with it.
Albert:
Ruth and I have given the official (DECC) figures above as of the end of last year.
David Porter: Pumped storage is not generated electricity; it is just recycled electricity.
Ruth: The Government has provided no hard evidence that any of the renewables actually save CO2 emissions. It is all based on the assumption that renewables reduce CO2 emissions.
Phillip - of course, but I like to look at what they say they are achieving. We are paying a lot of people to produce a lot of numbers, it seems only polite to read them :-) If DECC's own figures show how paltry CO2 savings are, one can't be accused of cherry-picking.
Gas prices have rocketed since Kyoto in 1998. Why is that ? Unless you are prepared to face up to reality, you are just fanatics riding a hobby horse..
Of course, the statistics provided by DECC are pretty meaningless. We should not be shown how much electricity is produced by renewables, but how much fuel was saved by adding windmills to the UK grid compared to the grid with only fossil and nuclear generators.
That means that from the gross electric energy produced by windmills should be deducted the fuel used in production, installation, connection, maintenance, removal at end of life, the extra fuel fossil fuel used by fossil generators running below rated capacity i.e. with lower efficiency, the extra fuel used for fast backup such as diesel and OCGTgenerators, the extra fuel cost with wear and tear caused by repeated startup and stopping of the fossil generator fleet etc.
Detailed calculations and estimates have been made of such fuel savings and the result is that with 10% or more gross wind penetration on the grid the fuel savings become negative. In Germany, for instance, notwithstanding the considerable increase of renewable energy last year, more CO2 was emitted for electricity generation than the year before. More CO2 emitted, of course, means more fuel used.
Unfortunately, such statistics are never provided in connection with renewable energy production. Understandable, from the point of the windmill suppliers and the other subsidy sponges. When it becomes clear to everybody that the goals of CO2 reduction can never be met, that is the end of current renewable technology (i.e. wind and solar).
Oct 13, 2013 at 5:16 PM | Registered CommenterPhillip Bratby
Phillip, don't disagree, but better to include it so the warmers don't have a loop hole in which argue their nonsense. After all 0.9% of the total is neither here nor there.
I've just complained about Mr Davey's easy ride, and pointed to poor research on behalf of Mr Marr's team for letting the lies through. Might be worth a few more having a go?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/complain-online/