Wind turbines will have to be switched off on 38 days every year because it is too windy, the National Grid said yesterday.
By Holly Watt
6:12AM BST 14 Jun 2011
In a new report, the grid said it could not cope with the surge of power from wind farms and will have to switch off turbines to avoid overloading the power transmission networks.
The admission casts doubt on the Government’s decision to push for a seven-fold increase in the amount of electricity generated by wind by 2020.
Wind farm operators are given “constraint” payments to keep their turbines idle and some experts believe this will cost almost £300 million a year by 2020, with the cost passed on to consumers.
The National Grid fears that warm and breezy summer nights could cause a surge in the electricity, combined with a lack of consumer demand. The electricity cannot be stored, so one solution – known as the “balancing mechanism” – is to switch off or reduce the power supplied.
They are currently switched off on 25 days a year, but the National Grid says this will have to increase significantly as more turbines are built.
Wind farm operators were paid £2.6 million to keep their turbines idle last month in the latest stealth charge on household power bills and the cost of switching them off is likely to rise.
Last week Scottish Power, one of the “Big Six” energy firms, said it will increase gas and electricity bills by 19 per cent and 10 per cent respectively from August – adding £175 a year to the average bill.
According to data from National Grid, which operates the main power and gas transmission networks, Britain is expected to increase wind power capacity seven-fold by 2020 to 26.8 gigawatts, which would put additional strain on the transmission network.
Wind farm operators are paid large subsidies, with more than £500 million going on wind power last year under the Renewables Obligation, the Government’s mechanism for supporting renewable energy. The average turbine is understood to generate power worth about £150,000 a year, but is awarded incentives in the form of subsidies worth £250,000.
Dr John Constable, director of policy and research at the Renewable Energy Foundation, said: “This work from National Grid acknowledges that wind power may cause very high system management costs in 2020, at around £286 million a year. When combined with the required subsidy costs of upwards of £6 billion a year in 2020, the consumer burden entailed by the renewables policy is looking increasingly unsustainable.”
Campaigners have fought wind farms throughout Britain, insisting that they do not produce the amount of electricity claimed and also blight views.
A grid spokesman said cutting wind generation output had involved a small number of wind farms each time over a few hours: “Over the past year we have had to reduce output from wind generators on 25 days, amounting to less than half of one per cent of the output of wind generation connected to the high-voltage transmission system over the same period.”
Tuesday, 14 June 2011
It is shameful that this government is resisting a solar revolution
Cutbacks have hit fledgling solar projects in schools, farms, businesses and councils
Leonie Greene
The Guardian, Tuesday 14 June 2011
You report that "subsidies for large-scale photovoltaic installations are to be cut drastically" (Solar power industry dismayed as subsidy for large plants cut, 10 June). However, the most devastating impact of the government's actions will be on "community-scale" solar – which is poorly understood but crucial to building a modern green electricity infrastructure.
As you state: "The government said its review of feed-in tariffs (FITs) for renewable energy would divert funds from field-sized ... solar power plants to panels on house roofs." The Renewable Energy Association campaigned alongside Friends of the Earth for the FIT legislation to ensure that diverse people and groups can invest easily in renewable power, including solar. Solar projects in schools, farms, businesses and local councils were beginning to flourish.
Overseas, FITs have proven incredibly successful at driving renewables forward and opening up the electricity sector to millions of new investors. Solar is hugely popular, attractive and long-lasting. The UK has around 4,000 square kilometres of roof space. Solar on south-facing roofs and facades alone would meet a third of our electricity needs.
If we invest today, by 2020 a typical domestic solar roof should cost around £3,000, supplying around half the occupants' power needs, carbon-free, for 40 years. But instead of embracing the future, the coalition government is locking the UK industry out of vital manufacturing and global share prospects. You report: "The government's reform will favour domestic and other small-scale installations of solar electric power – up to 50kw ... which would not be enough for some community-scale installations." The industry was shocked that no assessment of economic and jobs benefits was undertaken by the government before, in effect, it killed off community and large-scale solar.
Britain came late to solar and was clearly taken aback by the sheer dynamism of this global industry. More solar capacity was installed across Europe last year than any other renewable energy technology. Germany, China and Japan have scaled back on nuclear and invested heavily in both solar and wind.
The UK solar industry is asking for as little as £3 per household per annum during the lifetime of this parliament to start a solar revolution in Britain.
Minister Greg Barker says: "I want to drive an ambitious roll-out of new green energy technologies in homes, communities and small businesses." I can't support his very limited domestic plans. He has been boxed in by the Treasury (no experts on energy), and let down by his own department's shockingly poor understanding of solar: the latest report by its "expert" consultants anticipates a 37% drop in solar costs between 2010 and 2020. Prices dropped around 25% last year alone.
The government needs a fresh approach to this technology, which has the potential to revolutionise the way we own and generate electricity. Solar energy has to be allowed to compete directly with fossil fuels and new nuclear. It empowers millions of people, not a handful of energy companies. Could that explain the resistance?
Leonie Greene
The Guardian, Tuesday 14 June 2011
You report that "subsidies for large-scale photovoltaic installations are to be cut drastically" (Solar power industry dismayed as subsidy for large plants cut, 10 June). However, the most devastating impact of the government's actions will be on "community-scale" solar – which is poorly understood but crucial to building a modern green electricity infrastructure.
As you state: "The government said its review of feed-in tariffs (FITs) for renewable energy would divert funds from field-sized ... solar power plants to panels on house roofs." The Renewable Energy Association campaigned alongside Friends of the Earth for the FIT legislation to ensure that diverse people and groups can invest easily in renewable power, including solar. Solar projects in schools, farms, businesses and local councils were beginning to flourish.
Overseas, FITs have proven incredibly successful at driving renewables forward and opening up the electricity sector to millions of new investors. Solar is hugely popular, attractive and long-lasting. The UK has around 4,000 square kilometres of roof space. Solar on south-facing roofs and facades alone would meet a third of our electricity needs.
If we invest today, by 2020 a typical domestic solar roof should cost around £3,000, supplying around half the occupants' power needs, carbon-free, for 40 years. But instead of embracing the future, the coalition government is locking the UK industry out of vital manufacturing and global share prospects. You report: "The government's reform will favour domestic and other small-scale installations of solar electric power – up to 50kw ... which would not be enough for some community-scale installations." The industry was shocked that no assessment of economic and jobs benefits was undertaken by the government before, in effect, it killed off community and large-scale solar.
Britain came late to solar and was clearly taken aback by the sheer dynamism of this global industry. More solar capacity was installed across Europe last year than any other renewable energy technology. Germany, China and Japan have scaled back on nuclear and invested heavily in both solar and wind.
The UK solar industry is asking for as little as £3 per household per annum during the lifetime of this parliament to start a solar revolution in Britain.
Minister Greg Barker says: "I want to drive an ambitious roll-out of new green energy technologies in homes, communities and small businesses." I can't support his very limited domestic plans. He has been boxed in by the Treasury (no experts on energy), and let down by his own department's shockingly poor understanding of solar: the latest report by its "expert" consultants anticipates a 37% drop in solar costs between 2010 and 2020. Prices dropped around 25% last year alone.
The government needs a fresh approach to this technology, which has the potential to revolutionise the way we own and generate electricity. Solar energy has to be allowed to compete directly with fossil fuels and new nuclear. It empowers millions of people, not a handful of energy companies. Could that explain the resistance?
Berlusconi's nuclear power plans crushed
Referendums see huge votes against PM's plans - a second setback in under two weeks
John Hooper in Rome
guardian.co.uk, Monday 13 June 2011 19.51 BST
The anti-nuclear movement won a crushing victory in Italy on Monday when well over 90% of voters rejected Silvio Berlusconi's plans for a return to nuclear power generation.
The result represented an overwhelming setback for the prime minister, who had tried to thwart the outcome by discouraging Italians from taking part. The referendum needed a turnout of at least 50% to be binding. Interior ministry figures projections indicated that more than 57% of the electorate had taken part. Greenpeace called it a historic result. Quorums were also reached in three other referendums held simultaneously – the first time in 16 years that a quorum had been achieved in any referendum in Italy.
Official projections showed more than 95% of voters rejecting water privatisation and a law allowing Berlusconi and other ministers to cite government business as a reason for delaying trials in which they were defendants. The expected majority against nuclear power was 94%.
For the prime minister it represented a second, bitter setback in under two weeks. His government, which yokes his Freedom People movement to the regionalist and Islamophobic Northern League, first ran into serious trouble on 30 May when his candidate for mayor of Milan lost in a local election runoff. Milan is Berlusconi's home city and traditionally a weather-vane accurately pointing to Italy's future political direction.
Acknowledging defeat even before the polls closed, Berlusconi said: "We shall probably have to say goodbye to nuclear [energy]." He told a press conference in Rome that his government would now throw all its energy into developing renewable sources. The outcome was a huge success for the anti-nuclear movement in the world's first nationwide vote on the issue since Japan's Fukushima disaster. The ballot was also the latest, and most persuasive, evidence that a majority of Italians have turned against their flamboyant prime minister.
The government, which appealed to the courts for the vote to be scrapped, did all it could to keep turnout low. Berlusconi boycotted the vote and Italian television, largely under his sway, almost ignored the approaching ballots until the final days of a poorly funded, low-profile campaign.
Following the defeat in Milan, many rank-and-file Northern League supporters have been urging their leader, Umberto Bossi, to cut himself free of Berlusconi. The party leadership has so far remained wedded to the coalition while pressing for a radical change in economic policy that would deliver tax cuts to its lower middle-class electoral base. But as the results of the two-day ballot became known on Monday, it was clear that even some of the League's top officials were losing patience. Roberto Calderoli, a cabinet minister, said: "In the local elections two weeks ago we took the first hit. Now, with the referendum, has come the second. I would not like taking hits to become a habit."
Italy abandoned its nuclear programme following a similar referendum in 1987. The government of the day opted to phase out all the country's existing plants. The last one shut down in 1990. Berlusconi had planned to generate a quarter of Italy's electricity with French-built nuclear plants. Construction of the first was due to start between 2013 and 2015.
Vittorio Cogliati Dezza, president of the environmental organisation Legambiente, said: "The era of nuclear [energy] is coming to an end today. Definitively. A new season of development for the country is beginning." Recalling Italy's first and most famous legislative referendum in 1974, when voters were asked whether divorce should be outlawed, the leader of the biggest opposition group, Pier Luigi Bersani of the Democratic party, said the latest ballot had also been a referendum on divorce. But this time, said Bersani, it was about "the divorce between the government and the country".
John Hooper in Rome
guardian.co.uk, Monday 13 June 2011 19.51 BST
The anti-nuclear movement won a crushing victory in Italy on Monday when well over 90% of voters rejected Silvio Berlusconi's plans for a return to nuclear power generation.
The result represented an overwhelming setback for the prime minister, who had tried to thwart the outcome by discouraging Italians from taking part. The referendum needed a turnout of at least 50% to be binding. Interior ministry figures projections indicated that more than 57% of the electorate had taken part. Greenpeace called it a historic result. Quorums were also reached in three other referendums held simultaneously – the first time in 16 years that a quorum had been achieved in any referendum in Italy.
Official projections showed more than 95% of voters rejecting water privatisation and a law allowing Berlusconi and other ministers to cite government business as a reason for delaying trials in which they were defendants. The expected majority against nuclear power was 94%.
For the prime minister it represented a second, bitter setback in under two weeks. His government, which yokes his Freedom People movement to the regionalist and Islamophobic Northern League, first ran into serious trouble on 30 May when his candidate for mayor of Milan lost in a local election runoff. Milan is Berlusconi's home city and traditionally a weather-vane accurately pointing to Italy's future political direction.
Acknowledging defeat even before the polls closed, Berlusconi said: "We shall probably have to say goodbye to nuclear [energy]." He told a press conference in Rome that his government would now throw all its energy into developing renewable sources. The outcome was a huge success for the anti-nuclear movement in the world's first nationwide vote on the issue since Japan's Fukushima disaster. The ballot was also the latest, and most persuasive, evidence that a majority of Italians have turned against their flamboyant prime minister.
The government, which appealed to the courts for the vote to be scrapped, did all it could to keep turnout low. Berlusconi boycotted the vote and Italian television, largely under his sway, almost ignored the approaching ballots until the final days of a poorly funded, low-profile campaign.
Following the defeat in Milan, many rank-and-file Northern League supporters have been urging their leader, Umberto Bossi, to cut himself free of Berlusconi. The party leadership has so far remained wedded to the coalition while pressing for a radical change in economic policy that would deliver tax cuts to its lower middle-class electoral base. But as the results of the two-day ballot became known on Monday, it was clear that even some of the League's top officials were losing patience. Roberto Calderoli, a cabinet minister, said: "In the local elections two weeks ago we took the first hit. Now, with the referendum, has come the second. I would not like taking hits to become a habit."
Italy abandoned its nuclear programme following a similar referendum in 1987. The government of the day opted to phase out all the country's existing plants. The last one shut down in 1990. Berlusconi had planned to generate a quarter of Italy's electricity with French-built nuclear plants. Construction of the first was due to start between 2013 and 2015.
Vittorio Cogliati Dezza, president of the environmental organisation Legambiente, said: "The era of nuclear [energy] is coming to an end today. Definitively. A new season of development for the country is beginning." Recalling Italy's first and most famous legislative referendum in 1974, when voters were asked whether divorce should be outlawed, the leader of the biggest opposition group, Pier Luigi Bersani of the Democratic party, said the latest ballot had also been a referendum on divorce. But this time, said Bersani, it was about "the divorce between the government and the country".