Thanet offshore wind farm

[ParaHandy]

They've just commissioned this - 100 turbines, each 3MW capacity - at an estimated cost of £900m. The company who built it, Vattenfall, are owned by the Swedish government. Assuming standard 95% utilisation, 30% load, the farm will generate annually 750,000MWhr which at the average UK annual domestic household consumption of 5MWhr will provide electricity for 150,000 households (not the 200,000 that Vattenfall claim). Total revenue comes from the grid & subsidy from the rest of the UK electricity consumers; the grid revenue (at £0.05/KwHr which is market price of conventionally generated electricity) will be £37m plus ROC subsidy (1.5 times ROC subsidy of approx £0.08/KwHr or £0.12) of £90m. Total revenue will be £127m.

The life cycle of the turbines is 20 years and 40 years for the whole installation. At current prices, Vattenfall must depreciate the plant at approx £25m per annum OR not depreciate at all and shut down and dismantle the farm either after 20 or 40 years, which will include cutting the turbine towers 1mtr below sea bed, at a cost today of £12m.

From April this year, an offshore wind farm which begins construction prior to April 2011 will receive two times the ROC subsidy because construction has slowed down due to credit crunch, currency costs etc etc. The principle cost is in the turbine and there are only 2 maunufacturers, one of whom very recently closed its manufacturing plant on the Isle of Wight leaving the UK with virtually no input. This is joined-up government for an asylum; our nuclear reactors will be French without whatever input would have come from Forgemasters. We buy every day power up to 2GWhr from the French government.

The World Wildlife Fund in a statement here applauds Thanet and sets out its vision; it has joined with FOE and RSPB to produce a report which will show how Scotland can generate 100% of her electricity by 2020. This has long since been demonstrated to be impossible; a suicide pact for Scotland if ever implemented without the means of storing electricity on a hitherto unimaginable scale.

Its a crazy waste of money and if we do meet the renewable target by 2020 we will be subsidising this lot with billions which in a country unable to afford some quite basic things seems incomprehensible?

[Olivepage]

Absolutely right.

Its madness on legs, and there seems to be no end to it.

Now proposing an even bigger installation of Nth Norfolk.

Its amazing really how people can persuade politicians to support such nonsense while doing nothing that will seriously address the issue. As I'm sure you know better than I do that all we need is a particularly bad winter and we will be into serious power cuts.

Maybe it will take that to make someone see sense - nothing else has done.

[ParaHandy]

Now proposing an even bigger installation of Nth Norfolk.

This must be the Dudgeon farm off Cromer? 560MW from 3MW up to 10MW turbines. The latter size has not been developed; there's one 5MW turbine being developed. In fact, the difficulty is that the diameter of the supporting steel tower is limited by that which can be carried by road and that diameter limits the height and power of the turbine. 5MW turbines may be the maximum for some time.

I quoted the wrong ROC cost in my calculation of Thanet revenue. It ought to be £0.06/Kwhr which gives a total annual revenue of £105m and not £127m. Sorry ... ROC's are increased with inflation and that figure might be valid in 2020.

The scheme developer, WarwickEnergy, also did the planning for Thanet. Warwick have applied for planning permission for the Dudgeon onshore sub-station. I would imagine there is some urgency for this. With a subsidy of twice the ROC if work starts before April 2011, the revenue from Dudgeon increases from £195m to £240m of which £125m or £170m is the annual public subsidy. In one of Warwick's publications "Myths and Facts .." Warwick imply that the load factor of a conventional power station at 50% is not that much better than that of a wind farm's 30%. They omit to mention that the full power of conventional power stations can be applied when required between 1600 and 1800hrs and then wound down. Wind power can not do this.

The Government plan is or was to allow the market to determine the price of ROCs. As more wind farms are commissioned, the supply of ROCs will increase and will be matched by a reduction in fossil fuel generators seeking to buy; logically the market value of ROCs will collapse well below £0.06/KwHr unless there is growth in UK power demand or the Government increases the % of ROC required by fossil fuel generators (15% at present?). Nuclear power generation is not part of the ROC scheme.

[claymore]

There's one I can see in Morecambe Bay from my Ivory tower.
Its rather pretty I think....

[Olivepage]

"This must be the Dudgeon farm off Cromer?"

Yes that's the one. I'm surprised the bird people are not up in arms (wings?) about this. Its pretty close to the Wash where mega-birds are supposed to go to feed and breed.

The RSPB are normally pretty vocal when the feathered friends are threatened.

I'm not to sure about "pretty"

I sailed past the windfarm off the Scrobies a year or two back. It was a moonlit night and the whole thing struck me as rather spooky. I started remembering all the horror stories about giants and spooks and alien life forms. The shadows from the blades sweeping across the flat sea.

Definitely unsettling.

[ParaHandy]

If that's Walney? or Barrow as it was once known as. That's another WarwickEnergy development but one that they commissioned and operate.

You'll be glad to know though, that a Danish cpy is about to plonk another 102 turbines just seaward of that lot. I know how often you delight in reminding us of your Danish connections and here's a fine opportunity to further this associashun ... Dong's their name. jings, whit a name ..

[ParaHandy]

Definitely unsettling.

Hopefully the towers are well dug in because the sea round there just rips out any permanent fixture. Best examples of long shore drift are off Norfolk ... !