By Paul Homewood
The analysis, based on audited financial accounts and official generation data, throws into question claims from the wind industry that wind is becoming ever more competitive.
The findings are also another major blow to the government’s Net Zero policy, which will fail without cheap and abundant renewable electricity.
GWPF deputy director, Andrew Montford, said:
“Onshore wind is 60% dearer than the figure in the Government’s plans for Net Zero, making it a nonsense of claims that it is the cheapest form of electricity generation. We are locking high costs into the economy”
The steady rise in onshore costs is thought to be due to windfarms being sited at progressively worse locations. In other words, the best sites are now all taken.
Earlier analyses have found that offshore wind remains extraordinarily expensive, with at best only a small reduction in recent years [2-4].
https://www.thegwpf.org/publications/cost-of-onshore-wind-has-been-rising-for-20-years/
Andrew Montford’s conclusion is that the levelised cost of new build onshore wind is around £80/MWh.
This is consistent with the most recent onshore wind farms commissioned via CfDs, which are attracting guaranteed prices of £90/MWh +:
No significant new onshore capacity has been added since 2019,ie unsubsidised. This implies that onshore wind farms are not viable at traditional market prices of around £50/MWh.
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
January 24, 2022 at 09:15AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 