Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

SunnyGrassBeachRelax t1_jacgk77 wrote

And yet UK energy companies are still price gouging UK citizens.

114

HarassedGrandad t1_jachnpn wrote

Because getting cheap power for 25 hours doesn't fully offset the price of gas for the other 30 days in december. And when you say "uk energy companies" do you mean the wholesale suppliers who sell you the electricity (many of whom have gone bust), the generators who make the electricity, or the global multinationals who sell them the gas with which to make the electricity.

Because the only one making bank are the multinational oil companies that get to pump the gas out of the ground..

40

JimTheSaint t1_jadixnv wrote

Just because it's green doesn't mean it us cheap.

12

Squiggles87 t1_jadssgp wrote

Wind power is exceptionally cheap to produce once the infrastructure is built. The price of wind power is artificially linked to more expensive energy production means because of profit.

11

All_Tech_Jobs t1_jad28ay wrote

Price offsets are not instantaneous. These deployments have to pay themselves off and that will take decades.

3

UsecMyNuts t1_jad8kas wrote

>these deployments have to pay themselves off

So far all of them are paid off or will be by 2024. The companies who are managing them are only selling the energy to consumers. not using it to offset prices or recoup costs

8

upvotesthenrages t1_jadlfn1 wrote

Windmills only last 2 decades before they need replacement. Parts are replaced after 8 & 12 years, then the entire thing is decommissioned after 16-20 years.

Their ROI is not decades, that wouldn't make sense.

Biomass, the 2nd largest source of "green" energy in the UK is practically fossil fuel light. It requires the import of brand new trees from Canada to keep it running.

7

All_Tech_Jobs t1_jae3t83 wrote

As with anything as more efficiencies are included in the manufacturing/supplier process the price will go down. But that happens incrementally per deployment.

As parts are replaced the overall costs become cheaper and when a new windmill has to be deployed that becomes cheaper but as even you say that's 20 years.

Wind power from what I've read has a very low ROI. One figure I saw was 4%. The article then says the windmill would have to be in service for 22 years to make that money back. And 8% was considered the barometer.of whether a product was worth investing in.

So how much do you gain? If you hard cut at 20 years you're not making your break even. At that point you're relying on the manufacturing efficiencies to be cost feasible for each deployment which does not happen overnight when you consider the entire supply chain.

This same exact thing happened with solar panels. Very high cost for those initial end users who had to wait much longer to see any ROI versus those now getting into. A better manufacturing and supply chain process means less cost means faster ROI to the end user.

−1

Fonky_Fesh t1_jacwks0 wrote

Srsly what do u expect? Do you know how expensive a bunch of windmills and solar panels on god knows how much land is?

−8

danielravennest t1_jadfu28 wrote

UKP 1,125/kW all in for wind turbine

Land area per home for a solar farm is 645 square feet. On a rooftop the same installation needs about 300 square feet because you don't need space between rows like a solar farm. Rooftop installations don't use more land since the house is already there.

Enough solar farms for all 25 million UK residences would take up 578 square miles. You wouldn't build that much because there are other renewable sources. If you did, the UK's land area is 94,000 square miles, so about 0.6%

Agrisolar is dual-use of land for solar and agriculture. A common example is grazing sheep under the panels. That reduces the net land usage.

Land-based wind turbines consume about 1% of the wind farm's area, for access roads and the turbine base. They are compatible with other land uses, like farming. Offshore wind turbines consume no land area, of course.

8

upvotesthenrages t1_jadlmpx wrote

That doesn't include decommissioning, or the cost for backup energy when the wind isn't blowing as much.

You need to look at system cost, not LCOE.

−7

Fuckyourdatareddit t1_jae2n8d wrote

Fuck all compared to every other form of power generation.

I’ll never understand you people, so fucking arrogant that with two seconds of “thinking” you somehow have the impression you’ve come up with pricing problems nobody who actually works in the industry has ever noticed

1