One of the favourite smoke-and-mirrors lines pulled by the wind industry, its parasites and spruikers is that wind power lowers power prices.

Among the ‘tiny’ little omissions in that pitch are that:

1) they’re only ever talking about spot prices when the wind is blowing; and

2) they skate over the massive subsidies that get tacked on top of the price paid by retailers for the power delivered; and

3) they run a mile from the unnecessary cost of base-load plants holding additional ‘spinning reserve’ and the insane and otherwise unnecessary cost of running highly inefficient Open Cycle Gas Turbines, that are critical to keep a grid up and running when wind power output collapses on a total and totally unpredictable basis.

That little trick lasts about as long as it takes Joe the Power Punter to open his power bill; because all of the above is helpfully collected in…