UK Plans Wind Energy Expansion with New Government-Owned Energy Company (bnnbloomberg.ca) 32
The U.K. government "will substantially increase offshore wind investment in the next five years," writes long-time Slashdot reader shilly — "in partnership with the Crown Estate (a public corporation that owns land including the coastal seabed on behalf of the monarch)."
It will do this via its new state-owned energy generation [and investment] company, Great British Energy. The new approach includes ensuring grid connections are in place, and is in tandem with changes to the UK's planning regime that should reduce the ability of NIMBY groups to prevent infrastructure build-outs. Since [the Labour Party] came to power 20 days ago, the government has also approved three new solar farms and reversed a ban on onshore wind.
Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a speech Thursday that "I don't just want to be in the race for clean energy; I want us to win the race for clean energy," according to an article by BNN Bloomberg: Thursday's announcement marks the first concrete step by the government to use Great British Energy in its quest for a zero-carbon electric grid by 2030. The collaboration with the Crown Estate, owners of the UK's seabed, means the public sector will get involved in projects earlier and may attract more private funding... Great British Energy is receiving £8.3 billion of taxpayer money to own and operate assets in collaboration with the private sector.
The article points out that "By allowing borrowing, the government believes 20-30 gigawatts of new offshore wind seabed leases can be secured by 2030."
As Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in his speech, "We've got the potential, we've got the ports, we've got the people, the skills."
Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a speech Thursday that "I don't just want to be in the race for clean energy; I want us to win the race for clean energy," according to an article by BNN Bloomberg: Thursday's announcement marks the first concrete step by the government to use Great British Energy in its quest for a zero-carbon electric grid by 2030. The collaboration with the Crown Estate, owners of the UK's seabed, means the public sector will get involved in projects earlier and may attract more private funding... Great British Energy is receiving £8.3 billion of taxpayer money to own and operate assets in collaboration with the private sector.
The article points out that "By allowing borrowing, the government believes 20-30 gigawatts of new offshore wind seabed leases can be secured by 2030."
As Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in his speech, "We've got the potential, we've got the ports, we've got the people, the skills."
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That nickname really did the trick for you with the election, huh? You keep plugging away at it, sunshine, and one day you'll get that electoral success for your team, honest
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Serious question. Wind power investment has crashed because without massive subsidized and extremely punitive regime on all competitors, it is utterly uncompetitive. Hence the need for this public investment scheme, because private capital made itself scarce after eating losses for a while and now that ESG is not quite as critical for securing loans as it was a few years ago.
Now we have priority dispatch rights for wind over everyone else but solar already. So everyone else must terminate production when wind overproduces. But that results in a catastrophe when it's not windy, and all the alternative generators have gone out of business because government banned you from producing at the same time as wind. Aka Danish scenario, where government had to break its own laws to prevent coal plants from declaring bankruptcy, because without a few remaining coal plants, spinning reserve from Sweden and Norway was insufficient to keep the grid up.
So with those capacities being talked about in UK, is winning scenario the routine blackouts in UK when it's not windy because of wind overcapacity? Or hilariously expensive energy that is offset through taxes as was done in Germany in their disaster of Energiewende? Where now that tax money is starting to dry up and costs blow up on industrial producers, their industrial capacity is offshoring to US East Coast near mass CCGTs as fast as it can terminate the existing commitments?
Or are they going to invest a lot of this money into keeping their current fleet of CCGTs running regardless, and paying them as if they're producing when it's windy so they're there when it's not?
This is a question that not a single nation has solved to date. How to deal with too much intermittent producers with priority dispatch rights in the grid without either doing ridiculous things to ensure that reliable dispatchers remain solvent, or just not allowing too much wind. UK's answer is going to be interesting considering that while Starmer does have to please the far left nutjob side of his party that openly profess their love of Marx, Communism and doomsday cults in their own public party conventions, his rise to power has been on the back of removing those people from most of the practical levers of power. But this move is letting them back into the driving seat. It's going to be interesting to watch him keep the reigns on his own increasingly insane (in technical terms, as left and far left wing peoples in anglosphere are between three and ten times more mentally ill than national average) party.
If you are going to lie to us please try to show some respect for our intelligence by making your lies plausible.
Re: What are the criteria for "winning" here? (Score:2)
I think Luckyo is either in an institution or some kind of AM: artificial moron.
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If you are going to try and look smart while claiming "its all lies" perhaps you shouldnt post AC
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Out of curiosity, what do you think the ROI of a wind farm should be? Downturn in investment in large projects across the board, power generation included, can be attributed completely to high inflation coupled with low capital gains tax. Why build a wind farm, or anything productive for that matter, when buying existing assets has a better ROI after tax. If there is a problem with volatility in power availability the grid, the free market will figure it out if you let it. But that's not the problem.
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> If there is a problem with volatility in power availability the grid, the free market will figure it out if you let it.
I have yet to see "the market" solving a physics problem. Yes, individual companies can (thinking TSMC 4nm node) but solving a complex network issue? No.
Only if the solution comes and scales for free, such as TCP/IP for The Ultimate Network.
Even in stupid cars the market isn't able to solve that the cars don't fit well in cities, because they became too wide. And that is really easy t
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They solved a complex network issue when they built the grid in the first place. Source: the existing grid.
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The buildout is a regulated process.
The coordination of the electricity flows is a tightly regulated centrally coordinated process.
That's my point: regulation and cooperation is required, that's not the forte of the "free market".
Re:What are the criteria for "winning" here? (Score:5, Insightful)
The big issue for investors in renewables is that they need to know that the government is serious about the transition away from fossil fuels. The last Tory government wasn't, they banned on-shore wind and blocked most solar farms. They were issuing gas licences which Labour have not cancelled.
The reason they need to know the government is invested is because they can't just build more windfarms. They need to know that infrastructure upgrades will go in, and that the grid will be required to accept them. Planning will o through and not be blocked, and as we head towards extremely low cost energy there will be a guaranteed minimum price for them that that covers operational costs. All generators need that, but we are towards very long periods of masses of cheap energy being available, and demand being very low for much of the day due to solar.
It's not just about money, it's about planning law, and about promoting things like demand shaping. Unfortunately many consumers are rigid and will just keep getting fleeced even if they could save literally thousands of pounds by spending 10 minutes switching provider, so it's not easy.
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> they banned on-shore wind and blocked most solar farms
Which was a good idea, we have precious limited land in this country.
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OTOH, King Charles is well known for his environmental leanings. He's landlord to a number of farms that grow organic produce & use traditional farming methods. My guess is that he'd be a staunch ally for renewables. He's effectively a dictator when it comes to crown properties & assets. He's the king!
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So, kinda sorta.
The Crown Estate is not run by King Charles in any meaningful way. It is, however, keen on renewables anyway, both because it's pretty keen on sustainability and because it makes a lot of money from offshore wind.
As for Charlie, where he did exert a lot more control was the Duchy of Cornwall (while he was Prince of Wales). Unfortunately, he used that to prevent any offshore wind being installed on Duchy lands for decades. Now Wills is changing that: https://www.theguardian.com/uk... [theguardian.com]
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Yep - my fault for not re-reading. Charlie don't like the look of wind turbines on his land.
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Your basic assertion was that King Charles could make the same kinds of decisions in relation to the Crown Estate as he could with the Duchy of Cornwall, and that's just flat out wrong. He has powers in relation to the latter that he does not have in relation to the former. He could not ban onshore wind on Crown Estate land, but he could and did on Duchy land.
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Nope. He doesn’t even own the Crown Estate as his private property.
https://www.thecrownestate.co.... [thecrownestate.co.uk]
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My point was: not only can he not make decisions about the Crown Estate in the way you asserted he technically could, he doesn’t even own it as private property.
Re:What are the criteria for "winning" here? (Score:5, Insightful)
Offshore wind didn't go forward under the Tories because the offer was crap. When any new generation is built it gets a contract that guarantees a minimum price. They needed to offer more, basically. Still less than fossil fuels, and a small fraction of nuclear, but still not enough.
This is a good way to do it. The government will invest directly in the wind farms, which means that the energy produced can have a lower minimum price and still be viable. The government shares in the profits too, so the money comes back to it. Everyone gets lower bills.
Part of the reason for the cost is that money needs to go back into R&D and infrastructure to open up more offshore areas. Turbines for deeper areas, bigger turbines, distribution cables, that sort of thing. The UK is competing internationally too, there is massive demand for investment in wind.
It's still not enough, and GB Energy is inferior to what was being promised in Corbyn's manifesto (generation and a retail company that would set a benchmark low price). Fortunately we do at least have Octopus Energy who are somewhat ideologically driven, rather than purely about profit.
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I think it's probably fairer to say that offshore wind *stopped* going forward under the Tories. The CfDs were one of the few things they got right from 2010 up to 2022. But fucking Rishi and his gang completely cocked up Round 5 with no bids at all made for offshore when that closed in Sept 2023. Such a bunch of twats.
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> Everyone gets lower bills
I'll believe that when I see it. I've been paying bills for half my lifetime so far and have never seen anything like that!
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Posting AC makes you look lesser than those you are trying to kick.
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I am going to pick my way through the various steaming turds laid out here, and pause to look on with revulsion at just one of them:
"everyone else must terminate production when wind overproduces"
Wind curtailment happens so much in the UK that fucking Drax commissioned a report on how long duration storage could play a role in reducing it. The idea that other forms of energy generation are curtailed before wind is, is just complete and utter bilge
https://www.drax.com/wp-conten... [drax.com]
Hardly (Score:1)
In 5 years Electricité de France will buy it for an apple and an egg.:-)