Posted on 07/06/2023 6:52:44 AM PDT by george76
In a move that gives the lie to years of propaganda claiming falling costs, the wind industry’s leading lobbyists have written to the Government threatening to abandon the U.K. unless subsidies for their companies are hugely increased.
The industry lobbyists claim that unforeseen rising costs now require three actions:
A revision to the auction rules so that the winners are not determined by lowest bids but by an administrative decision that weights bids according to their ‘value’ in contributing towards the Net Zero targets.
Special new targets and thus market shares for floating offshore wind, one of the most expensive of all forms of generation;
A vast increase in the budget for the fifth auction (AR5) of Contracts for Difference subsidies, with an increase of two and half times the current levels for non-floating offshore wind alone;
Such changes, were the Government to agree to them, would not only increase the total amount of subsidy to an industry that was until recently claiming no longer to need public support, but also provide the industry with protected shares of the energy market, eliminating risks for investors at the expense of the paying public. It would also clearly be an open invitation to corruption.
Climate lobby group Net Zero Watch has urged the Government to stand up for consumers by rejecting the wind industry’s latest demands.
Dr. John Constable, Net Zero Watch’s Energy Director, said: “It would be both absurd and counterproductive for Government to bail out the wind industry in spite of the evident failure to reduce costs. A refusal to learn from mistakes will be disastrous.”
In a press release, the organisation argued the Government should “reject the self-serving demands” because the U.K. economy should not be expected to continue to subsidise a sector “that is still uneconomic after nearly 20 years of above-market prices and guaranteed market share”.
“The wind experiment has failed and must be wound down,” it adds.
The Government should also be mindful that U.K. households and businesses are already experiencing extreme pressures on budgets, and a further burden on the energy bill should not be tolerated, it says.
This is particularly the case as the wind industry’s current cost difficulties are “neither unforeseen nor unpredicted but have been obvious to careful observers for over a decade”.
OBTW, hold them accountable for removing the old and failed units.
You mean it’s not profitable? I’m shocked!
Net Zero targets = people get zero electricity. .
“The answer my friend, AIN’T blowin in the wind....” ALL subsidies should be stopped. EOFS!
“It would also clearly be an open invitation to corruption.”
WOULD BE?? That’s a laugh. The wind industry (and solar) has been corrupt from the get-go. Any industry that gets government to subsidize it for 30 years or more and cannot make it on its own in a competitive market is rottenly corrupt.
It is amazing that the rubes and bureaucrats have fallen for this scam for so long, all for the infinitesimally small hope that earth’s temperature MIGHT be 0.1 degrees cooler in 100 years than it is today. Meanwhile, we all get to suffer sky-high energy prices and soon very unreliable electricity.
“For what?” you might ask. All so the greeniacs can rob the public treasury. That is corruption.
Life lesson # 69.........
Reducing your carbon footprint on a carbon based planet is pure insanity ,LOL
Don Quixote is my hero. Get em Don!
IIRC, the UK is heavily invested with gov’t pensions in ‘green energy’.
They will fold to all pushback from ‘greed evergy’. They have no choice.
“Green” energy has always been a scam to enrich the politically connected. Why would it be a shock that the purveyors of the scams want more money and no competition?
What will be really amazing is when Toyota or Mercedes make a solid state battery break through. Solar will become economically viable and all the leftists will turn against it.
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