By Paul Homewood
https://windeurope.org/about-wind/statistics/european/wind-in-power-2017/
According to Wind Europe, the self acclaimed “voice of the wind industry”, new wind power capacity of 4270 MW was added in the UK last year. Of this, 1680 MW was offshore, and 2590 MW onshore.
Despite fake claims about how much the cost of wind power has been falling, what are the actual costs of this new capacity?
Offshore
The following developments, which all have CfD contracts, started producing power in 2017:
- Burbo Extension – 258 MW
- Dudgeon – 402 MW
- Walney Phase 1 – 330 MW
All three have index linked contracts, currently worth £161.71/Mwh. These are due to be increased for inflation in April.
In addition, 690 MW of capacity has been added by developments which still qualify for ROCs, as they were already in the pipeline when the RO scheme was wound up for new projects.
These schemes are awarded 2 ROCs per Mwh. An ROC is worth £47.22/Mwh this year, so these schemes receive an effective subsidy of £94.44/Mwh.
The current wholesale price of electricity is £45.80/Mwh, so these projects could expect to receive a total payment of £140.24/Mwh.
If we add the CfD and RO projects together, the average price works out at £152.89/Mwh, more than three times the market price.
Onshore
We have not got any official BEIS data for Q4 yet, but it is reasonable to assume that the new capacity added last year still qualifies for ROCs.
Onshore wind farms receive 0.9 ROCs per Mwh, so the subsidy is worth £42.50.
Including the market price earned, they would receive £88.30/Mwh.
Remember this when the wind industry brags about how much costs have come down!
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
February 15, 2018 at 08:03AM
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