Offshore wind expansion halted

With respect you don’t seem to have grasped how the CfD scheme works

Still failing to understand the situation. Yet more government incompetence.

The question, Sheepy was an entirely false premise. There is no such thing as free energy.

Anybody considering building a new power generating plant faces a major problem regardless of whether the fuel is fossil based or renewable. There is a huge upfront capital investment recovered over time after completion by selling energy. Trouble is the price of energy generated fluctuates hugely out of the control of the generator. That makes financing power generation plants very difficult. Any new generator will seek to control this risk by agreeing a fixed price contract for the power generated with either the government or the grid (or if onshore with local large power consuming manufacturers). So far no difference between fossil and renewables.

Any new fossil developments negotiate these fixed price agreements directly. Renewables go through an auction process the Contract for difference process. The government sets a ceiling price and potential operators bid at or below that price. The renewables ceiling is way below the price for fossil fuel new capacity as it is now much cheaper. Problem is the Government has failed to reflect recent capital cost increases and hence set the ceiling far too low and hence no projects were financially viable. More incompetence I am afraid.

Onwards and upwards....

Now let’s try to compare like for like. Next day prices fluctuate massively dependent on demand and supply and weather. Wholesale prices for the winter period are currently around £120 - £130 and for a twelve month fix period £110 to £120. If you look to fix for a longer period they are higher still.

The cap for CfD auction that failed was set at £44 . Given increased costs, it probably would need to be around £55 to attract bids. Still 50% plus below wholesale price.

Onshore wind would be cheaper still.

Bollocks. Renewables are no cheaper than oil for the simple reason that there's absolutely no reason why they should sell it cheaper than oil. The renewable energy that we've been using is no cheaper than oil. Now that the govt have attempted to pay the providers less they've simply withdrawn (en masse) from quoting. They want even bigger subsidies. The cost of off-shore wind turbines has gone up markedly (about 40%) and is no longer viable even at the fossil fuel rates.

Watch Richard Tice on Talk TV this Sunday (10 am). He's been looking into it and is reporting on it. This is another scam.