Bishop Hill AEP and the GLCL*
Jan 11, 2016 Energy: wind 
Detail from woodcut by Paul Bloomer http://www.paulbloomer.com/Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has an article in the Telegraph boldly declaring that the UK is backing away from wind power just as they become competitive with fossil fuels. The story seems to be that if only wind turbines could be made really, really huge, then everything would be OK.
Cue a barrage of graphs to support the (alleged) case.
"Great levelised costs lie?", I hear you ask.
You bet.
A study by Bloomberg New Energy Finance concluded that the global average for the 'levelised cost of electricity' (LCOE) for onshore wind fell to $83 per megawatt/hour last year compared to $76-$82 for gas turbine plants in the US, or $85-$93 in Asia, or $103-$118 in Europe.
Ho hum.
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*GLCL: Great levelised costs lie.
Reader Comments (79)
I have discovered that a solar panel in orbit around the sun would actually generate electricity at less than $0.001 /kWh. And give a constant output.
My Nobel prize for cat belling, is in the post, allegedly.
Only when windmill contacts require uninterruptible power input to the Grid, within defined limits, can any more wind farms be accepted: Subsidy Farmers must bear the cost of standby power.
AEP is wrong about everything, all the time. He is constantly predicting catastrophes, none of which seem to come to pass. So he is probably wrong about big windmills too.
Fixed it for you Bish:-
This is exactly why there should be no "investment" in wind power technology now, why plaster the countryside in turbines that will be obsolete in 5 years time, you would only do that if there was a shortage of electricity, which there ain't (quite the opposite in fact). Economists doing engineering is not a pretty sight, neither is the decline of The Telegraph.
It's a big stretch blaming the government for local nimbyism. But never mind onshore versus offshore and big blades versus small, maybe the best place for wind generators is at high altitude anyway:
http://globalecology.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab/Caldeira_research/Archer_Caldeira.html
From a comment below the AEP article (about battery storage):
"And also figure out how you are going to charge those batteries. If all the renewable electricity goes into the grid there is none for the batteries, but if you charge up the batteries there is none for the grid."
I've not seen that argument before; pretty neat or is someone going to tell me it is wrong?!!
Wind Turnbines hanging from Airships to pick up the Gulf Stream in Berkshire.
No fly zone around them then . One way to stop the third runway at Heathrow
PS RIP our David
Renewable energy cr*p from AEP = perpetual motion machine......:o)
This is as credible as the true believers blaming climate skeptics for the failure of the climate consensus predictions or their failure to convince people about their obsessions.
I know it's a bit tedious, but I think you should spell out exactly what the GLCL lie is and why it's a lie. Previous posts on the subject don't really seem to do this either. You'd only need to write it out once, then refer back to it each time it comes up.
What's his beef?
All we've done is backed away from subsidising windmills. If they're so cheap, have superb gearboxes, and are almost silent, show us. Build a demo park with your lovely windmills. There're a nice piece of land in Hyde Park.
Oh, I forgot to mention, we' d like firm, round-the-clock production; In spite of us having 22GW of new renewables, we're a bit short of firm capacity.
That won't be a problem, will it?
Matthews
The great LCL is simply that you're selective about what costs you include in your analysis. This analysis omits such trivia as mitigating the cost or renewable intermittency.
Paul, so-called "levelized costs" refers to the idea that if one excludes from wind things like the cost of depreciation, "normalizes" operating costs, continues operating subsidies forever, penalizes coal and gas until they are too expensive to use, ignores nuclear, ignores the terrible actual rate of delivered wind power, and enjoys huge industrial sized clutter chopping up birds covering the countryside, then wind is about equal to other forms of power.
Surely if you keep making windturbines bigger and more expensive, you are just wasting more money to prove wind turbines don't work, when the wind isn't actually blowing?
If there is a potential advantage, it would be that they can produce better subsidies in lower windspeeds, so does anyone know how much closer to zero windspeed, they can still generate bankable money?
What would be really useful is a graph showing windspeeds against profit generation, combined with the percentage of time per year, that income is generated. Planners get bamboozled with figures of CLAIMED generating capacity, which everyone knows is just blowing rowlocks. Planners need to know the likely profit for producing nothing useful, when they grant Planning Permission. Local residents may be interested to learn the real economics of wind.
I suspect Paul knows that, hunter, but nonetheless I think his request for a short but comprehensive note spelling out precisely what's meant by the GLCL - to which future references could provide a link - would be helpful.
Wind needs back-up.
The cost of that back-up - ALL of it - is a necessary component of the real cost of wind energy.
The real price comparable is the cost of stuff that works v cost of wind PLUS cost of stuff that works.
Therefore wind energy is ALWAYS more expensive than its competitors.
The end.
CheshireRed and others:
I presented to the four Planning Inspectors of the Examining Authority for the proposed 970MW Navitus Bay offshore wind farm the suggestion that the developers should also provide a 970MW CCGT so that between the two facilities they could provide a baseload capacity of 970 MW or a load-follow capability of up to 970MW and then the full economic cost of the wind farm intermittency would be born by the developer. Needless to say, my suggestion did not gain traction.
I agree with the above commenters about the need for a clear explanation of the "levelized cost issue".
I also would like to request a short, clear summary of what is included and especially what is excluded in this definition of levelised costs as used by the green blob. A link to a previous clear explanation would of course also work.
Thanks in advance!
Here's a good critique of levelised costs with numbers.
http://web.mit.edu/ceepr/www/publications/reprints/Reprint_231_WC.pdf
Didn't we have a post about levelised costs a few months ago. Was it from the GWPF?
JamesG
"maybe the best place for wind generators is at high altitude anyway:
But only when they have stopped all air traffic to save the planet. The other problem of course is getting access to the power produced, see John Brignell's numerous visits to the topic:
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/cables.htm:
This infomercial for wind was generated by the same quality of thinking that has North Carolina wood chip mill owners smiling as they watch their product sail off to the suckers in the UK and Europe for use as fuel for electric power plants.
I know it's a bit tedious, but I think you should spell out exactly what the GLCL lie is and why it's a lie. Previous posts on the subject don't really seem to do this either. You'd only need to write it out once, then refer back to it each time it comes up.
Jan 11, 2016 at 10:57 AM | Registered CommenterPaul Matthews
Yes. I wondered but did not dare to ask. (Or was too
idlebusy to track it down and read up on it.)Levelised Costs: here's a link to the definitive paper:
http://www.iesisenergy.org/lcost/
Nothing more needs to be said.
Dennisa
Skepticism is warranted but there are engineers doing just that right now with several cunning schemes. I try to balance my scepticism with the knowledge that if engineers had ever listened to deskbound naysayers then we'd still be using pre-industrial-revolution wind and water mills and there wouldn't be any air traffic to ban :)
Fascinating, Capell. Just did a quick eyeball of the spreadsheet in that LC report. - It also includes costs of backup by the way - and it comes up £10/MWh for coal and £187/MWH for on-shore wind. Very interesting. A bit more eyeballing reuired.....
Bit of a typo/eyeball error in previous comment. Coal should be £100 not £10 - and even then, it depends on whether CCS etc is employed.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-154910/Power-surge-soap-killer-strikes-again.html
Also ban Kettles and flushing the toilet after every dramatic England football sudden death penalty shoot out.
What Paul said.
The ideal location for windturbines, at height, is to mount them on top of coal fired powerstation cooling towers.
When there is no wind, they could be pivoted down, so the blades rotate in the updraft of steam and water vapour. As conventional power stations have to be on permanent standby anyway, this would be a 'No Lose/No Lose' situation, as opposed to the 'Dead Loss/Dead Loss' situation, we are currently lumbered with.
This would be the biggest advance in windmills evah.
I presented to the four Planning Inspectors of the Examining Authority for the proposed 970MW Navitus Bay offshore wind farm the suggestion that the developers should also provide a 970MW CCGT so that between the two facilities they could provide a baseload capacity of 970 MW or a load-follow capability of up to 970MW and then the full economic cost of the wind farm intermittency would be born by the developer. Needless to say, my suggestion did not gain traction.
Jan 11, 2016 at 11:54 AM | Registered Commenter Phillip Bratby
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No it wouldn't would it. 'They' don't like people throwing an almighty spanner in the works while making themselves look a bit dim.
Capell 11:11am, not just Hyde Park in London, what about Hampstead Heath aswell? It might scare away some of the 'Badger spotters', so Badgers can get on with what badgers know best.
There is also Highgate Cemetery. What better place to erect a monument to zero productivity, through failed political doctrine, than overshadowing the grave of Karl Marx? If they build it quick, Corbyn might still be around, to celebrate a triumph of foreign failed engineering with unemployed Brits, all made possible by stupidity.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - says it all really. Another upper-class twit.
Probably an English/Economics graduate so superbly qualified to pontificate on Claimit (not a spelling error) "science".
AEP, I believe has been got to by the green blob - probably sat upon by Dong or Vasteras.
Back in the day, he never used to be so
thickobtuse when referencing such items as that very fanciful chimera known as 'levelised costs'.AEP, the bloke is some sort of abstract philosopher economist for crying out loud, not an bod' who actually knows about stuff - like an engineer would.
But that's the problem is it not?
Advocates, the jerks who pronounce on such things of which they know FA about and mimicking to an audience most of whom are equally as dense. Those dense areas at the top of the neck - a goonfest and who are constantly fed a very sugary [not to be recommended] highly concentrated diet of fast with the truth factoids - concerning and covering the great scam.
Ah the great warmunist scam, it's ideas, not least the idea that birdmincers will somehow eventually and by some very creative statistics - become equal players with fossil fuelled electrical generation. - which as I said - is a type 1 lunacy, only those who bark at the full moon would actually promulgate - step forwards, Naomi Klein, the beeb, roger the harrabin, Leo Hickman, Joss Garman et al and least of all - AEP.
Wind power seems to be very effective in Scotland, generating most of our electricity. As reported on the BBC today and in several newspapers "the environment charity said wind power produced the equivalent of 97% of Scotland's household electricity needs" in 2015. The charity is the WWF so I presume that the various reports are lifted uncritically from a WWF press release. So what is the difference between "97%" and "the equivalent of 97%"? Are our "electricity needs" the same as our electricity usage? Most importantly can we now abandon all but 3% of non renewable generation capacity as we don't now seem to need it?
Don't you wish that we had some decent journalists who would actually question claims which must surely look dubious rather than simply and uncritically regurgitating them and thereby giving them a stamp of authority for the large number of people still inclined to believe the BBC or what they read in the newspapers?
Capell, in the link you give to Colin Gibson's paper he states
I take it to mean that the "same product" means the cost of electricity on demand (which 'renewables' cannot reliably supply, so the cost must include backup). This appears, to me, to be the opposite definition to that used by Paul L. Joskow in the paper linked by JamesG.
I feel no wiser as whether there is a commonly understood definition of levelized costs. As requested by others, perhaps the Bish might give us his definition.
I am offered retail electricity for around 8 cents per KWH here in Texas. I don't really think it can cost $80 per MWh at the producer.
Funny, there is a lot of wind generation here but I've never seen a wind generator. I've been to Dallas, Houston, Austin and of course Paris. Maybe they are in West Texas.
@Guirme: The best thing to improve Scots' Renewable Energy would be to place phase switches at the 'border' to stop their subsidy farmers, who bankroll the SNP, from dumping excess energy in gales to the rUK.
Then the Scots would have to do a proper job with pump storage instead of raping the English poor, always a prime aim of the SNP which dreams of replacing N. Sea oil with windmills.
It seems to me that if wind farms are indeed competitive with other means of power production there is no need to subsidise them.
The same goes for solar, or any other scheme.
Guirme: Re Scottish winf power: You could have indicated that the report of 97% wind-generated power came from this article in the DT
An interesting part of the report puts it into context:
I don't believe a word of it.To NCC 1701E - I find your response somewhat shocking, Generation is a Westminster reserved matter so I don't see how this is an SNP issue. I am not a member of the SNP (or any other political party) but I find your suggestion that the subsidy farmers "bankroll the SNP" as lacking credibility - are you really suggesting that wealthy landowners are natural or actual SNP supporters. As regards your comment about "raping the English poor" I find that deeply offensive and tasteless in the extreme. Are you not aware that the major Westminster parties are all unquestioning "climate change" supporters?
It would be better to concentrate on what we can all do to change their skewed view of reality rather than hurling baseless and inappropriate insults.
I missed the article, but I'm puzzled by the thrust of it, which seems to be a complaint that support for wind energy is being downgraded just as it is becoming competitive with fossil fuels. Surely that's appropriate. If it can stand on its own feet, it should be allowed to do so! Something funny about the logic being touted here..
Comment removed by author.
Harry Passfield - The DT report is a bit odd. They have added an extra %age, upping the figure to 98% and they claim it is in relation to all of Scotland's needs, not just to household needs. This is an even more ridiculous claim than that made by the WWF as reported on the BBC and in the Scotsman, inter alia. Start with a lie and then tell an even bigger one. Sadly there are many credulous people who will believe this nonsense.
it's a real pity that we can't have a myriad of end user tie ups to the type of energy you want
I'm thinking that those who want windmills can have ALL their power from it
other could have unicorn dung and faerie dust generators
those that want lovely instant gas can have it
then on most days of the week we can walk down Acacia Av and have right good laugh at the non-charging of their eye phones
and with no internet connection , or at best wildly intermittent (see what I done there?) wouldn't be able to inflict stupid articles and comments on the grown ups
Michael Hart
I've failed to download the Joskow article but I have managed to get an abstract. This says:
" I demonstrate that this metric is inappropriate for comparing intermittent generating technologies like wind and solar with dispatchable generating technologies like nuclear, gas combined cycle, and coal. It overvalues intermittent generating technologies compared to dispatchable base load generating technologies. It also likely overvalues wind generating technologies compared to solar generating technologies. Integrating differences in production profiles, the associated variations in wholesale market prices of electricity, and life-cycle costs associated with different generating technologies is necessary to provide meaningful comparisons between them."
That seems to be exactly the point Gibson is making. If you're going to do a levelised cost analysis correctly then you have to include all the costs. If you want to lie about the costs you exclude costs which don't tell the story you want.
Thus: want to convince everyone that solar is at grid parity right now?: do a levised cost study on solar but exclude intermittency mitigation - just as KPMG did recently (albeit, they coughed up in the very small print - they do appear to have some integrity).
I suppose the lesson is: always check that a levelised cost study at least tries to embrace all the costs.
You can ask the Bish for another explanation, but it's always going to come down to the reader of such a report doing some careful thinking about what they've read.
@Guirme: West Midlands businessmen paid for Brown's private office, and Balls via the Smith Institute. They got subsidies and PFI. 200 Scots' businessmen despoiling the Highlands backed Salmond and the SNP. DECC is controlled by the Climate Change Committee, not UK Government.
A generating oligopoly with smart meters = peak time pricing. In 2011, the CEO of the National Grid Company warned that by 2020 there would be no guaranteed domestic supply; high prices or darkness. This takeover by Corporate owners directly taxing the poor is Corporatist Fascism.
RG and PM, Planning Engineer corrected the EIA LCOE for wind compared to coal and gas. Step by step, including backup costs for 10% penetration on a real grid, ERCOT. Answer is CCGT about $53/MWh, wind over $140.
2015 guest post True Cost of Wind at Judith Curry's Climate Etc. the Bish is welcome to write a summary and provide a link to the detailed analysis.
Coincidences in AEP's track record
And what kind of experts does AEP quote in THAT article ?And what's Jeremy Leggett's track record for predictions ?- Monbiot claimed victory in 2013Yet when the gov RECENTLY talked about downsizing solar subsidies just now, Leggetts predictions on parity were forgotten and not mentioned by Greens.
..... I swear I do not make the sh*t up !
Intermittency and lack of power density are insurmountable when fossils are so dense, and so there.
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