Bishop Hill More dark rumours
Mar 2, 2014 Energy: grid Take a look at this.
The German owner of Npower is set to write off hundreds of millions of pounds on the value of its British power plants in the latest sign of a deepening crisis among the big six energy suppliers. RWE, one of Europe’s largest power companies, will reveal the British loss as part of an expected £4bn writedown of the value of its fleet of power stations.
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The hit will alarm Whitehall, which is increasingly worried about the lights going out. Companies have stopped building new power stations amid a political and regulatory backlash, sparked last year by Ed Miliband’s pledge to freeze energy prices.
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Peter Atherton, analyst at Liberum Capital, said Britain had become uninvestable as political pressure over soaring household bills has intensified. “I can think of a dozen very good reasons not to invest in the UK, and not one good one to invest here this side of the election,” Atherton said.
Reader Comments (63)
I cried when watching our 3 year old grandson getting the green propaganda juice, with a playtime TV cartoon program intoning "Your electricity comes from big windmills".
Even the Danes are getting cold feet, at least on off shore wind. The Danish Minister of Entergy is objecting to paying DKK 1.05 per KWH for the new Anholt wind park in Kattegat (rated at 400MW) for the first 20 billion KWHs when the current wholesale price for energy is around DKK 0.25 or less than a quarter. He may even abandon proposed Horns Rev 3 and Kriegers Flak, rated together at 1.000 MW if the KWH price is not being reduced. The Anholt subsidy amounts to over 100 million £sterling per annum levied on users through a green subsidy on bills. Denmarks population is around 5.5 million so that is an extra £20 per person per year just to support that one wind park.
http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Penge/2014/03/03/0303055135.htm
Sorry it is in Danish.
@ John Peter
As probably one of the few other regular readers of this blog who understands Danish and can read the article at the link you posted, I will simply say mange tak!
In Denmark wind power can just about be made to work after a fashion since they have hydro-power from the rest of Scandinavia to provide the back-up. To put it another way, the Danes are dependent on importing hydro-power from their neighbours and when the wind blows they can sell electricity back to those neighbours even though the Swedes and Norwegians don't really need it.
That is, as you wrote, a very expensive energy policy, but the British government's policy is far worse. Apart from a few pumped storage schemes in Scotland and north Wales, we have no means of storing the energy that is produced intermittently by wind.
It's the lead time to build power plants that's UK's problem now. Even without the EU and UK and Bonny Prince Climate folks running around crying the sky is falling there are the barking mad nutters herding the power utilities through a circular gauntlet while stealing their billfolds. Great fun for all except those that must choose between starving and freezing. The choice would be freezing since you could likely use layers of corpses and wool to stay warm if one were to huddle together and use body heat. Oh, and make an airlock to keep the heat in or have very, very good plumbing.
'They' are all STILL banging on about 'climate change'...!
Its WEATHER, you d*ckheads....
Anyway - my little (3.2kW) generator is ready and waiting...
Hope Cameron, Davey et al have factored in the likely termination of Russian gas via Ukraine in their soothing statements on European energy security...
Wood burning stove and wood supply, check
Basement electricity generator and fuel, check
Food store and kitchen garden, check
Well and water cistern, check
Shotgun and ammunition, check.
But for the most reasonable future we will sell up and go somewhere
warmer and less crowded then south east England, where government interference causes the most problems.
Futures market in coal, logs, and candles are set to rise in the UK.
"Political electricity" is a great phrase for windfarms that I first heard in Denmark about 10 years ago. I doubt it's only recently that the Danes have become disillusioned, more like it's only recently the government has caught up.
This is probably due to them misreading the popular distrust as a stubborn rump of Luddites that would be soon overwhelmed by the wonderful New Green Reality. Instead, it turns out to be the other way around.
Heh, the market is contesting the arrival.
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42 mins in:
You and yours on Radio 4 talking about companies with high energy consumption having to shut down parts of their plant because of energy shortages and the financial penalties they pay for not doing so:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03wp6kf
Also, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/10670115/Wind-farm-plans-in-tatters-after-subsidy-rethink.html
Don't worry, the rest of the world has already figured out that they should not invest in anything in the UK. When the lights go out you will not need them anyway.