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July 31, 2025 at 04:04PM

Image by Alexandra_Koch from Pixabay

By Jo Nova

In a nasty shock, the VNI West interconnector price has doubled and doubled again

The whole renewables fantasy is unraveling before our eyes.

In 2023 the Victorian NSW interconnector was supposed to cost $1.8 billion. By May this year the price-tag had doubled to $3.6 billion, and now a mere two months later, the estimate has been revised again up to $7.6 billion and that’s plus or minus 30 to 50%. So it could cost as much as $11 billion. (And who knows where this trend ends?)

Without this transmission line, many future wind and solar farms evaporate, not just ones that wanted to connect to it, but other ones further away. Even offshore wind farms are less profitable without the VNI and other mainland connectors. Intermittent generators make more profits when there are bigger mainland lines to spread their erratic surges of electricity through.

“The Jacobs review also notes that without VNI-West, other significant renewable energy generation and network projects like offshore wind off the coast of Victoria will be less effective.”

— Summary of the Independent Assessment of Plan B

This […]

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July 31, 2025 at 03:37PM

57.32046 -2.54515 Met Office CIMO Assessed Class 5 Archived Actual Temperature records from 18/3/2015.

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) in conjunction with the International Standards Organisation (ISO) produced the weather station assessment classifications from the Commission for Instrumentation and Meteorological Observations (CIMO) in 2014. Oyne No 2 started supplying temperature records in 2015 from this new site that is so poor it ranks as Class 5. The entirety of the CIMO standards definition for Class 5 is just two lines and reads:

“2.6 2.6 Class 5 (additional estimated uncertainty added by siting up to 5 °C)
Site not meeting the requirements of class 4.”

This site is a complete waste of time and money.

The village of Oyne lies in inland Aberdeenshire on the railway line between Inverurie to the east and Insch to the west. The original weather station in Oyne was installed in late 2007 and ran until 2013 with an atrocious observation record in a terrible location which for many years barely managed 50% of required readings. The nadir was 2011 when just 90 days successful readings were managed in the year. This was the location of the original Oyne site.

Whether or not this unreliability determined the relocation is not known but the reading frequency did not get that much better for all the effort. The ridiculous site that was chosen to relocate to is below.

{n.b. I have checked historical imagery and confirmed the “white box” in the next garden to the left in the above is not a Stevenson screen.} This screen literally is in a domestic back garden (like dozens and dozens of others) alongside a hedge, between houses and subject to shade. I seriously doubt much wind gets into the garden to disturb the entrapped air in the screen to over record during warmer weather from Aitken Effect. These types of sites like Carlton-in-Cleveland simply make the Met Office look like some Sunday morning “Pub” league team compared to the Premiership. The absurdity is that if any of these sites were to record an “extreme” it would almost certainly be ratified and heavily publicised as if the Met Office feels above ridicule. Consider just how incredibly poor Astwood Bank weather station actually is and the shameless way it was promoted as establishing a daily record – presumably there is no expectation that the public may find out where it actually is.

The astonishing thing is that this site is shown as a “Domestic garden” with the “Reason for running the site” as “Personal”. Presumably this makes it a hobby with all the optionality a hobby offers – it certainly seems that way as far as the observations record is concerned.

To study the observations record in detail. The Archive shows readings starting from 2013.

Quite why the archivists set up the spreadsheets for 2013 AND 2014 is rather puzzling as no readings whatsoever were actually taken. Temperature readings only actually started on the 18th March 2015 when of the 288 required day’s readings only 256 actually were taken (12% missing.) Things sadly did not improve and in the entirety of 2016 there were only 285 successful days with 22% missing.

In 2017 the decision was made to convert the LIGT maximum thermometer to a PRT and as at Portnellan Farm possibly to change the entire screen. Why was further expense lavished on a site barely even taking regular readings? Maximum readings completely stopped on the 2nd December and only 186 days of the year had fully completed readings. It is important to remember this is in a domestic back garden so a very short walk and this is a hobbyist/enthusiast after all – not a difficult task.

The record continues: In 2018 readings did not even start until the 10th January and only 267 readings were managed in the whole year. 2019 saw 280 readings (a quarter of a year’s equivalent missing readings). 2020 brought Covid lockdown and a reading improvement to the peak 344 , 2021 the recidivism set in dropping to 310 readings. 2022 managed 339 before further declines to 282 days readings in 2023 and 212 days in 2024.

If this all seems unduly harsh criticism of an amateur site, that is simply because that is exactly the best description. Oyne is an extremely poor site with a poor observation record replacing an equally bad predecessor. The Met Office has thrown taxpayer funded money at a site in relocation and upgrading costs that can only ever produce unrepresentative readings. It genuinely would seem the whole exercise at Oyne sites is a waste of money producing completely worthless data.

“Observations from amateur stations and those not part of the Met Office’s official network cannot be considered for entry into the official records as they’re not subject to the same internationally agreed standards that are required for the official records.”

What internationally agreed standards the likes of Oyne actually meet has become rather a sad joke.

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July 31, 2025 at 03:31PM

By Paul Homewood

 

  OFGEM are rearranging the deckchairs!

 

 

Ofgem will today (30 July) launch a major review into how costs are allocated across the energy system – including looking at a range of potential alternative pricing models for consumers. As part of the review, stakeholders are being asked for their views on what a new pricing model might look like, which would be subject to future consultation. 

The energy system is changing, with maintenance investment and upgrades required. Renewables will help protect billpayers from volatile global fossil fuel prices by allowing us to generate homegrown energy and increase market stability.  

Meanwhile, many domestic consumers have made it clear that they think the current system of a standing charge and a unit rate is unfair – though research indicates there is no consensus on a preferred alternative model. And both domestic and non-domestic customers are changing the way in which they use energy, including by using new technologies to shift their use to different times of the day and in some cases by increasing their use of electricity (for example via electric vehicles and heat pumps).  

With drivers of cost in the system changing, and energy taking up a greater proportion of household bills than has previously been the case, now is the right time to look at potential alternative models in how billpayers are charged, with a clear ambition to develop an overall better system, including to ensure increased fixed costs don’t disproportionately affect vulnerable and low income consumers. 

The Cost Allocation and Recovery Review (CAR) will look at the whole energy system – from energy generation through to household use – and explore the trade-offs involved in different models of cost allocation.  

Ofgem CEO Jonathan Brearley said: 

“As we transition to a more secure, homegrown, renewables-based energy system, unit costs may decrease due to reduced reliance on expensive and volatile gas. However, fixed costs – such as those needed to upgrade the energy network to deliver cleaner and more secure power to our homes – could rise. This shift in the make-up of system costs means we need to review how we pay for energy and carefully consider how these costs are distributed. 

“We know customers have real concerns about fairness and transparency in their bills, especially around fixed costs. That’s why we’re asking big questions about how and where these costs are shared – and whether there are better, fairer ways to do it. 

“The launch of this review is the next step in developing fairer pricing for a changing energy system, ensuring more choice for consumers while protecting those most in need.” 

The regulator is only seeking views at this point and is not recommending any specific option.

Some decisions, such as how costs are shared through bills or taxes, or who gets extra support, are rightly for the elected government, not the regulator. However, many choices are made jointly by government and regulator, shaping what goes into energy bills and how costs are recovered. Ofgem’s role is to protect all consumers, both now and in the future, and for that reason we are keen to ensure that we look at bills in the round, considering all the costs and options available and how these feed through to the consumer. We’ll work closely with government to ensure our respective approaches are not misaligned.

As we rely less and less on the price of gas, the variable costs in our system may go down, but the fixed costs of running the system may rise as we invest in upgrading and maintaining it to make the most of cleaner and more secure renewable forms of energy. While we can’t make costs disappear, we know that how costs are allocated and bills are put together can have a big impact on customers, particularly where high upfront fixed costs could pose a barrier to energy use. 

Under the existing arrangements, system costs are paid for by energy system users and consumers through their energy bills, with separate standalone bills for electricity and gas. System costs are the total amount of costs for all the energy, infrastructure and activities that are required to deliver gas and electricity to consumers, then charged to both domestic and non-domestic consumers.

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/press-release/ofgem-announces-major-review-how-costs-are-allocated-across-energy-system

OFGEM are desperate to avoid mentioning the truth – that Net Zero will massively increase energy bills.

Hence this nonsense:

No OFGEM, renewables will lock in higher prices permanently, preventing the public benefitting from cheap gas.

If Net Zero was going to reduce energy bills, as Miliband has repeatedly promised, there would be no need for the exercise in futility – everybody would be better off.

The fact that OFGEM now want to increase bills for some in order to subsidise the poor is proof that costs will go up, not down.

And this:

Simply pushing up prices for the vast majority of consumers in order to subsidise the poorest is no solution at all. It is an admission of a total failure of policy.

The idea that you can just magic away the very real and substantial additional costs imposed by Net Zero is a fool’s economics. And even the liar Brearley must now realise that unit costs will not fall; on the contrary they will increase substantially as NESO have said.

It is time that OFGEM put the interest of all energy consumers in front of all other considerations. And if, as is inevitable, Net Zero puts up energy bills, Jonathan Brearley should have the courage to say so.

If he does not have the courage, he should resign.

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July 31, 2025 at 03:00PM