energy costs

Wind Energy…..Much Less Power, for MUCH MORE money!!!

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Rocketing Prices AND Blackouts: South Australians Lament Their Dark & Dismal Wind ‘Powered’ Future

November 15, 2015 by
waterloo

SA’s media digs into its wind power debacle: spiralling
power prices AND mass blackouts, who would have thought?

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A week back we covered the unfolding calamity in South Australia – where a sudden wind power output collapse plunged 110,000 homes into darkness, across most of the State, without warning:

Wind Industry’s Armageddon: Wind Farm Output Collapse Leaves 110,000 South Australian Homes & Businesses Powerless

What’s become painfully clear to the general populace (although probably at times when they’re without the aid of electric light) is that attempting to ‘rely’ on a wholly weather dependent generation ‘system’ is a seriously dangerous fantasy.

In the aftermath of one of the worst blackouts in recent history, politicians of all persuasions copped a grilling on radio stations; from people like ABC’s Matt and Dave; and 5AA’s, Leon Byner.

Byner is to South Australian airwaves what Alan Jones is to national radio broadcasting; sharp and to the point – and with a “take no prisoners” attitude. As the interview below attests.

First, a little background on the protagonists. Christopher Pyne is a Liberal member of Federal Parliament, steeped in South Australian Liberal politics.

Tom Koutsantonis, Industry Minister in the State Labor government, has been top head kicker and part of Labor’s squad; going back to Premier Mike Rann – the principal offender in South Australia’s unfolding wind power disaster.

Danny Price, energy market expert with Frontier Economics, hates wind power with a burning passion; and has been pointing out the ludicrous costs of subsidising wind power, as well as the insanity of trying to rely upon a wholly weather dependent generation source, for years now.

What follows is a very telling exchange amongst them.

SA’s State power outage and Renewable Energy
Leon Byner with Tom Koutsantonis
5AA
2 November 2015

LEON BYNER: The Industry Minister joining us, Christopher what do you say?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Good morning Leon, well the point that I wanted to make was that South Australians pay the highest energy prices in Australia.

We have one of the most unreliable supplies of energy. We’ve been obsessed for some years with renewable energy, which in itself is not a bad thing. But I think the public, it always surprises me how they don’t understand that they are subsidising wind and solar power to such an enormous extent.

They seem to think when I talk to people in the supermarkets in my electorate for example, that this is all coming without a cost. But the truth is the only reason wind power is viable in South Australia is because of the massive subsidies being paid by the taxpayer and the same goes for solar power.

And even more concerning to me, to have solar power in years gone by you needed to stump up the several thousands of dollars to get the solar energy and then you got the subsidy. Which means the poorest South Australians were subsidising some of the most well off South Australians, who have got much lower energy costs as a result of solar power.

So, I just think that in the debate the public need to know the facts, which are that these things don’t come without a cost.

LEON BYNER: What would you be suggesting the Government do, Chris?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well obviously the Government has made some bad decisions and bad choices over the years because of an ideological obsession with renewable energy and I wouldn’t discourage renewable energy. But they also made it harder for Alinta to stay in business.

When Alinta said that they were closing Leigh Creek and Port Augusta, one of the factors they stated was because of the subsidies for wind and solar power. Now how they produce those subsidies is something that the State Government needs to look at, because it’s a question whether they are sustainable at the level that they are into the future, especially if they are not delivering, as we saw last night, reliable power to South Australia. Or maybe the South Australian Government needs to invest in another way of connecting with interstate energy rather than the one we have through Hayward at the moment.

LEON BYNER: Ok what do you say Tom?

TOM KOUTSANTONIS: Well I think a lot of what Christopher says is right. There is only one problem, it’s not the State Government that’s subsidising Leon, it’s the Commonwealth Government. They are the ones that give the subsidies to the wind generators, but the reality is, is that we needs to be a national solution to this problem because coal is not sustainable. The world is not going to keep burning coal to generate electricity; the world is going to look to other sources…

LEON BYNER: Yes but we have an immediate need and I don’t think you were…

TOM KOUTSANTONIS: Yes I understand that. We have an abundant transitional energy source here in South Australia, which is gas. Now we should be doing as much as we can to incentivise gas. We are in this perverse position where the Commonwealth Government are incentivising renewables as has the state in the past with the solar feeding tariffs off peoples rooves and then coal is given preferential treatment and the transitional fuel in the middle, gas and which is probably the solution to our energy needs gets almost nothing.

Now the reality is we need to be looking at what our natural abundant resources are, especially in this state and we have two of them: uranium and gas. So we should be doing as much as we can to support and incentivise the export of uranium out of the state for the world’s power needs and doing as much as we possibly can to incentivise the extraction of gas for generations to come in South Australia.

LEON BYNER: Yes but you see you can do all the extraction you like, it’s still got to be viable. Chris, what do you say to that?

CHRISTOPHER PYNE: Well I think it’s hard for Tom Koutsantonis to claim that the Rann-Weatherill Government didn’t do a great deal to encourage wind generators to be set up in South Australia.

I mean they provided a great deal of support for wind power and Mike Rann trumpeted South Australia’s growing reliance on wind power as has Jay Weatherill.

Now I agree however with Tom that what we do need to do is get our uranium moving out of Australia and that’s why the current Federal Government is trying to settle a deal with India to sell them uranium and I’d encourage him to encourage his federal colleagues to make that easier rather than harder, because that well help us get the revenue he needs and the Commonwealth needs and particularly the South Australian Government needs to invest in energy.

This is something that needs to have a bipartisan approach between Labor and Liberal and he can help us with his federal colleagues to make that treaty with India around uranium sales sail smoothly through the Parliament.

LEON BYNER: Now Tom so let me get this right, you’re going to make an announcement sooner rather than later on incentivising some kind of, either other interconnection or indeed base load power, because as Danny Price pointed out with the upgrade of the interconnector, lightening or other problems aren’t going to be much use to us.

TOM KOUTSANTONIS: Yes that’s right; we need to incentivise the existing base load energy that we already have…

LEON BYNER: And you’ll be making an announcement about that when?

TOM KOUTSANTONIS: I will very, very soon and I’ll come on your programme and I can talk to your listeners, I’m quite happy to do that with you Leon. But I’ll just point out this, the Howard Government, the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd-Abbott-Turnbull Governments all subsidise wind.

The support we give them is planning approval and the actual subsidy for the power generated comes from the Commonwealth Government. So I don’t want to get into a he-said, she-said with Christopher other than to say this is a national problem and we need national solutions and this State Labor Government, especially me as Energy Minister and Treasurer, I am very keen to work with Christopher to come up with a solution that benefits South Australia and the nation.

LEON BYNER: Alright just quickly, Danny Price is what you’re hearing today is that ‘hey they get it’ yet or what?

DANNY PRICE: Nothing else has this ability to concentrate with this level of political interest and I’m kind of pleased to see this, because this has been a long time coming. I think what the Minister’s saying about wind farms is exactly right. I think it’s disingenuous to say that this is just a Commonwealth problem. But I also agree with the Treasurer that it has to be a national solution. South Australia is just part of what we call the national electricity market. It has to be a national…

LEON BYNER: One question, we got nothing up the connector and there are those who say why didn’t the other states that have got electricity feel any pain? Or was it just because of our reliance on wind that failed?

DANNY PRICE: Well the market is basically designed to as much as possible cut the cost consequences of local problems to that local region and that’s precisely why the market is set up that way.

Now in South Australia people are now looking for solutions for supply in South Australia, that’s what the market is designed to do.

My only concern with what the Treasurer seems to be hinting at is that it may be that he’s thinking about contracting directly with the Pelican Point power station, but the problem with that of course is that you have to think about the consequences down the line and so if these primary generators suddenly think that they’ve got the Government over the barrel and the Government is prepared to directly contract with these generators, you might find them offering less on the market than they would otherwise which forces the Government’s hand. So you’ve got to be careful about starting that game.

LEON BYNER: Danny Price thank you. Well know you’ve got the full story about what happened last night and the fact that it won’t be the end.
5AA

DannyPrice_banner1

Of Byner’s line up, only Danny Price really gets it.

****

Despite Koutsantonis being an entrenched member of the team that created the wind power debacle in South Australia, he was remarkably quick off the mark to throw responsibility back at the Federal Government when he (rightly) says: “the actual subsidy for the power generated comes from the Commonwealth Government”.

Indeed it does; soon to be a figure in the order of $3 billion a year – all added on top of already rocketing Australian retail power bills:

Out to Save their Wind Industry Mates, Macfarlane & Hunt Lock-in $46 billion LRET Retail Power Tax

But Koutsantonis’ line that his State Government merely facilitated the rollout of 1,477MW of wind power capacity with SA’s 17 wind farms is kind of glib – reminiscent of war criminals who, when thrown in the dock by the victors, claimed they were “only following orders”.

All too cute, for STT’s liking. His former boss, Mike Rann saw to it that SA went harder and faster into the wind power fraud, than any other State; for his (and his relatives) own selfish, pecuniary interests; and did so without ever even considering the costs or putative benefits of a subsidy-scam loaded with the former; and bereft of the latter.

But, precisely the same can be said of the successive Federal governments that set up and have maintained the Large-Scale RET – the largest, single industry subsidy scheme in the history of the Commonwealth by a country mile (see the link above).

Although, as things are turning out, the accusatory finger-pointing between State and Federal governments, over just who’s responsible for South Australia’s calamitous energy mess, is of no real concern to South Australians.

Among the 110,000 homes and businesses that were plunged into darkness, two weeks ago, when wind power disappeared in the blink of an eye, there isn’t a whole lot of interest in whether it’s State or Federal policy to blame. These people are already sick and tired of paying the highest power prices in the Nation (if not, on a purchasing power parity basis, the highest in the world).

Plunging them into darkness without warning (placing them and their families at unnecessary mortal risk – think people at home on life support systems; and unlit intersections without functioning traffic lights) simply because wind power output collapsed is, for most, a bridge way too far.

Despite the best efforts of the wind industry’s top propaganda merchants, South Australians are a wake up to the fact that it wasn’t the fault of the interconnectors – that are designed to merely transport power (when available) from Victoria and New South Wales – but, rather, the fact that the 40% of SA’s generating capacity (said to always come from wind power) collapsed, because the wind stopped blowing that fateful Sunday night. Funny about that.

SA 1 Nov 15

It’s a little hard for the wind industry and its spruikers to blame something else; when, for more than six years, they’ve been ramming the ‘wonders’ of wind power down South Australian throats, with maniacal zeal.

If you’re continually talking up SA’s brilliant “wind resource”; and bragging out loud via every media outlet about those (few) occasions when wind power output registers a half-decent proportion of its actual capacity, you’re going to have trouble explaining away those occasions when total (and totally unpredictable) collapses in wind power output coincide with mass blackouts. As this one, most certainly did.

No, this time around the cat is well and truly out of the bag.

In the hierarchy of media, when an issue becomes the top story on Channel 7’s Today Tonight, you can guarantee you’ve reached not only a substantial audience by number; but that you’ve also hit political dead-centre – in terms of reaching voters capable of deciding elections; and policies on the way to them.

The Today Tonight viewer mightn’t be a Twitter jockey, but he or she is a first-class talker; whether it’s at work or backyard barbecues, whatever they’ve seen soon becomes the topic of the day (or the week). When the topic is their spiralling power bills and, despite paying through the nose for the stuff, suffering statewide blackouts to boot, you can guarantee plenty of fist-waving fury being added to tea room and backyard debates on just who, or what’s to blame.

Just how dire things are for the wind industry, is laid out in just such a barbecue-stopper of a Today Tonight broadcast; one that has snapped South Australians out of their complacency about energy policy, in general; and their wind power debacle, in particular.

The only trick that Today Tonight missed, was the fact that the blackout wasn’t the interconnectors’ fault. As detailed in last week’s post (and the graph above), the interconnectors ‘failed’ because they became overloaded, as wind power output plummeted that night. The ‘load’ being drawn by SA over the interconnectors rose exponentially (and inversely with the wind power output collapse) until they hit the limit of their capacity and ‘tripped’, plunging SA into pre-historic gloom for hours.

STT hears that Today Tonight has been directed to our blackout post; and is keen to follow up with a story that sets the record straight, laying the blame – where it belongs – fair-and-square on SA’s ludicrous ‘reliance’ on the vagaries of the wind.

(Click on the image below to reach Today Tonight’s video of the broadcast – transcript appears below)

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today tonight

Transcript:

Rosanna Mangiarelli (Presenter): Good evening and welcome to the program. First tonight the price we’re all likely to pay for South Australia’s renewable energy experiment. Now as power stations close and we rely more and more on wind and solar power, the outlook, according to some experts is dim. Job losses, skyrocketing prices, and ongoing blackouts and as Hendrik Gout reports, they’re just some of the risks the state’s taking as we enter the untested and the unknown.

Hendrik Gout (Reporter): We South Australians are living in an experiment, a world first. We’re the white mice in this state-sized laboratory.

Mathew Warren (CEO, Energy Supply Association of Australia): South Australia is an accidental experiment in the deploy of renewables at scale in a large grid around the world.

Danny Price (Managing Director, Frontier Economics Australia): South Australia is the canary down the mine as it were. It’s more likely that there’s going to be blackouts because of the combination of your reliance on the interconnector, but particularly because of the large reliance on wind.

Mathew Warren: When we look around the world the problem is no one is doing it as aggressively as South Australia.

Hendrik Gout: Sometimes this experiment goes catastrophically wrong. On the night of Sunday the 1st of November 2015, Adelaide went black. It was lights out at 10 PM. 100,000 homes, businesses, service stations, all the streetlights, all dead, because of this – the interconnector. Think of it as a heavy-duty extension cord, taking electricity from Victoria’s Latrobe Valley power stations to energy dependant South Australia. And when it fails…

Danny Price: Unless those interconnectors are running it’s extremely difficult to reliably meet supply in South Australia.

Hendrik Gout: Danny Price from Frontier economics has shocking news for South Australia.

Danny Price: South Australia is an experimentation in systems control, power systems control and I think people are struggling to work out how it’s going work.

Hendrik Gout: Thomas Playford, Premier from the 30s to the 60s, decided South Australia should be electrically self-sufficient. His government developed the Leigh Creek coal fields to fuel this, South Australia’s huge Port Augusta plant. 800 million watts, for thoroughly modern living.

Narrator: You will envy this little lady, and say to yourselves, I would like an electric range myself.

Hendrik Gout: Here on Torrens Island, locally produced thermal electricity.  And then ten years ago we cast our fate to the wind.

Mike Rann (Former SA Premier): Bit by bits we’ve started the process of making South Australia the leader in wind energy in Australia.

Pat Conlon (Former Labor Minster for Energy in SA Government): The truth is, green energy isn’t any cheaper in terms of dollar price than conventional energy but it is much, much cheaper for the environment.

Hendrik Gout: But from Starfish Hill to Snowtown, Waterloo to Wattle Point, Waymouth to Woakwine, it was new dawn for some and the end of an era for others. Fuelled by easy State Government approval, often overriding local objections, wind farms grew exponentially. Yet they produce power only intermittently.  They’re unreliable, and sometimes they have their share of itty-bitty problems.

How many windfarms do we have, installed, planned, approved, or under construction? This many – 39.

Mathew Warren: Certainly the numbers that we are at now, around 40% of generation coming from solar and wind is incredibly high by global standards. And the world’s watching. The world is interested in how South Australia manages this.

Hendrik Gout: Australia’s Energy Supply Association is the industry’s peak national body.  Its boss is Mathew Warren.

Mathew Warren: Clearly we need to pay very close attention to South Australia. It’s really at the cutting edge of integrating renewables in the world and that brings with it both, you know challenges but also risks.

Hendrik Gout: And those risks, well somebody accidentally unplugging this extension cord.

Mathew Warren: Sunday night was an event that no one planned when there was a fault, and the interconnector was out, and the consequences were an outage.

Hendrik Gout: The potential problems, says Danny Price, will get worse when the Northern Power station at Port Augusta closes early next year.

Danny Price: That’s the largest, single largest power station in the state and one that provides large quantities of reliable cheap energy.

Hendrik Gout: And South Australia has the most expensive electricity in the country. You probably pay more than $2,500 a year for electricity. People who live in the ACT pay not even $1500. In 2010 an 18% hike, 17% the next year, nearly 13% in 2012. Down by 1.8% (somebody probably got sacked for that) and then up again in 2014.

Hendrik Gout: So how much are your electricity bills a quarter?

Robert Bell: They’re up to around 3 grand.

Hendrik Gout: And what were they when you started?

Robert Bell: They were about $800-$900.

Hendrik Gout: Robert Bell sells fish from his Glynde aquarium. His tanks have heaters, pumps, bubblers.

Robert Bell: It’s now the second biggest bill that we have here, behind rent. It’s tripled in the last 6 years. It’s got a double edge sword effect for us. The customers are closing down their tanks and all the while, our overheads are going up here, with electricity.

Hendrik Gout:  So fewer people are buying and your own costs are going up.

Robert Bell: Exactly.

Hendrik Gout: Compounding the problem –these -Solar PV systems.

Mathew Warren: South Australia has around 25% of its housing stocked now with solar panels on their roofs. This is the highest rate of roof-top solar PV penetration in the world.

Hendrik Gout: And that’s also pushing up prices through generous State government subsidies.

Mathew Warren: The renewable technologies, once they displace conventional generators are more expensive. If they were cheaper it would be a lot easier to manage this challenge.

Hendrik Gout: The closure of the Port Augusta power station also comes at a cost. A human cost – hundreds of South Australian jobs disappear as we switch to Victorian power, made by Victorian labour. According to Danny Price, wind power isn’t filling the vacuum.

Danny Price: We don’t actually develop any wind technology here, we buy it all. We just simply assemble and that technology and it doesn’t take much labour to run it.

Hendrik Gout: An increased risk of blackouts, crippling power prices and the country’s highest unemployment.

Robert Bell: The economy is in a bad state and Adelaide, itself, is in a really bad state.

Hendrik Gout: The perfect storm.

Robert Bell: It really is for business owners in South Australia at the moment.

Danny Price: Some of the largest employers are those who use quite a lot of electricity. I am extremely doubtful that any new business would set up in South Australia. I think that they would be mad to, simply because of the high cost of electricity, which is set to get higher and unfortunately, more unreliable.
Today Tonight

blackout

That Today Tonight story hit the nail on the head.
Now, has anyone got any matches and candles?

Unreliable, Impractical Wind Turbines – When the Wind Don’t Blow, the Lights Don’t Glow!

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Another Wind Power Collapse has Britain Scrambling to Keep its Lights On (Again)

November 12, 2015 by
turbines pylons

Nowhere near as ‘useful’ as they look …

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There’s an old adage about ‘bad luck’ coming in threes. For the wind industry its rotten ‘luck’ seems to run in endless crashing waves. Here’s another board-snapping set from the UK.

National Grid uses ‘last resort’ measures to keep UK lights on
The Telegraph
Emily Gosden
4 November 2015

Coal plant breakdowns and low wind power output force National Grid to pay dozens of businesses to reduce their energy usage

Britain was forced to rely on new “last resort” measures to keep the lights on for the first time on Wednesday after coal power plants broke down and wind farms produced less than one per cent of required electricity.

National Grid used a new emergency scheme to pay large businesses to cut their electricity usage, resulting in dozens of large office buildings powering down their air conditioning and ventilation systems between 5pm and 6pm.

The scheme, which is paid for through levies on consumer energy bills, was introduced last year but had never been called upon before.

National Grid blamed the power crunch on “multiple plant break downs”. Several ageing coal-fired power plants had unexpected maintenance issues and temporarily shut down, experts said, reducing available supplies.

The problem was compounded by low wind speeds meaning most of Britain’s 6,500 onshore and offshore wind turbines were barely generating any power just as demand hit its highest.

UK wind farms have a theoretical maximum capacity of more than 13,000 megawatts, but produced less than 400 megawatts of power for much of the peak demand period – meeting less than one per cent of the UK’s electricity needs, published data suggests.

T1

Britain’s 8,000 megawatts of solar panel capacity would also have produced no power during the peak, because it was dark at the time.

National Grid first intervened in the market yesterday lunchtime, issuing an alert to power plants that more generation would needed between 4.30pm and 6.30pm.

T2

The alert, called a Notification of Inadequate System Margin, (NISM), was the first to have been issued since 2012.

Short-term electricity prices spiked as a result, with analysts reporting that one power plant was paid £2,500 per megawatt-hour – about 50 times average power prices.

T3

National Grid later announced that it had also had to use a scheme called “demand side balancing reserve” (DSBR) to reduce demand on the Grid by about 40 MW.

The scheme was one of two emergency schemes first introduced last year to help cope with Britain’s tightening power margins, as old coal plants are closed down and not replaced.

T4

The second emergency measure, which has so far not been used, would see a reserve of old power plants fired up.

Businesses that volunteer to take part in the DSBR scheme are paid a retainer, in return for agreeing that they will receive additional payments to cut their demand if needed. National Grid has estimated the scheme will cost consumers about 50p a year.

National Grid had previously said that the schemes would only be used “as a last resort in the event that there is insufficient supply available in the market to meet demand”. Until Wednesday it had never actually asked businesses taking part to cut their usage.

Flexitricity, one of the companies coordinating businesses to take part in the scheme, said commercial energy users had reduced power at 46 sites, mostly by “turning down building ventilation”. This was primarily air conditioning at offices, it said.

A spokesman for National Grid insisted that the measures taken on Wednesday did “not mean we were at risk of blackouts”, only that “we needed the safety cushion of power in reserve to be higher”.

Lisa Nandy, Labour’s shadow energy secretary, blamed Government policy for “creating an energy security crisis” while the GMB Union said Britain was in the “bonkers position… where National Grid is using consumer’s money to pay firms to stop work in order to avoid blackouts”.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change declined to comment.

T5

The Telegraph

Good to see the DECC – willing accomplices in implementing Britain’s energy disaster – quick to front up with reassuring words for British power punters! Maybe they were just busy rounding up truckloads of candles and blankets to secure Britons’ winter energy needs?

Earlier in the week we covered the unfolding calamity in South Australia – where a sudden wind power output collapse plunged 110,000 homes into darkness, across most of the State, without warning:

Wind Industry’s Armageddon: Wind Farm Output Collapse Leaves 110,000 South Australian Homes & Businesses Powerless

What’s become painfully clear to the general populace (although probably at times when they’re without the aid of electric light) is that attempting to ‘rely’ on a wholly weather dependent generation ‘system’ is not only fantasy, it brings with it a host of unnecessary risks to life and limb.

STT can’t wait to hear the cynical efforts from wind worshippers to explain and spin away the hundreds of avoidable deaths, that will inevitably occur, during Britain’s fast looming, dark and bitter winter – when wind power output collapses; the grid along with it; and little old ladies freeze to death in their unlit homes.

What started out as sell-able idea about ‘harnessing’ the power of the wind, has turned into an unmitigated disaster. Welcome to your wind ‘powered’ future.

blackout

Has anyone seen or heard anything from the
boys from the DECC or the Wind Energy Association?

Harvey Wrightman Explains How One Wind Company is Bilking Taxpayers for $287,040,645.00 Per Year.

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Here’s how NextEra makes $287,040,645/year from Ontario wind projects

Posted on 11/09/2015 Ontario Wind Resistance

NexterasMillionsOntarioby Harvey Wrightman
Seven years ago when we first entered the fight against wind projects, everyone including myself assumed that wind companies sought to put their turbines on the sites with the most wind. Wind data was gathered and fiercely guarded by wind companies, the data being “proprietary.”  That’s how it is in the real world – performance is the goal or should be.

Well, in the alter-world that is Ontario Energy Policy, real data is undesirable. Imaginary data is much more useful. It’s almost impossible to find out how much the wind companies are getting paid. The terms of the Feed in Tariff (FiT) contracts are never released to the public – that’s also proprietary and confidential information.  However, from the minutes of the final Community Liaison Committee (CLC) meeting for NextEra’s Adelaide wind project in mid July this year, a smidgeon of real data did surface revealing how much power NextEra was claiming to have produced – it’s a lot more than anyone ever expected.

Here Operations Manager, Peter Miller, let slip how much NextEra was billing the Ontario Power Authority for power production (p 7):

“ … over 160,000 MWH of wind energy has been produced since commercial operation.”

That’s 160,000 MWh for 9 months, or 213,000 MWh/year.

Nameplate capacity for  Adelaide Wind is 60 MW which means Adelaide Wind will produce 60 MWh x 24h x 365 days = 525,600 MWh/year if at 100% of capacity.  This means that Adelaide Wind is claiming production efficiency of 41%!

At $135/MWh the Adelaide Wind project will rake in $28,755,000/year.

But, but, but… real world operational efficiency in SW Ontario rarely exceeds 25%according to the Independent System Operator (IESO) records. The windiest sites mightgenerate close to 40%, but that’s definitely the exception. It seems the Ontario government has decreed that the wind industry shall be paid what the wind industry believes it should be paid. Real numbers/data don’t matter.

Then a question is posed as to how the  Independent System operator (IESO) determines who gets to put power into the grid (p 9). Ben Greenhouse, NextEra Executive Director of Development states:

 “… our electricity system is bizarre … If we bid zero [to IESO, system operator], we would get zero from IESO but we would get compensated at the end of the month for our contract price which is 13.5 cents per kilowatt [$135/MWh].”

Greenhouse conveniently neglects to say that the grid must take renewable (wind/solar/biomass) if available over any other source, and the price for wind is 13.5 cents/KWH. He also doesn’t explain the complex calculation process used to determine the “theoretical availability” of a wind project. Whether it is operating or not doesn’t matter. It’s the theoretical or imaginary availability that does matter for payment purposes.

What the grid managers do to fill in the “theoretical” gaps is their headache. Wind companies could care less.

With payments based on an imagined capacity factor of a whopping 40%, it hardly matters where the project is sited – it could be in a cave!  A little bit of creative data and you’ll be paid close to max. No doubt this is standard industry practice.

Let’s see how much of the $28.755 million filters down to the community. NextEra presents the annual payments to the municipality and lease-signed landowners (p 5):

Property taxes                        $250,000
Lease payments                     $500,000
Community contribution         $150,000

Total:               $900,000 or 3% of earnings goes to host community. 

Estimating maintenance at ~ $2 million/year, total annual costs of Adelaide Wind come in around $3,000,000/year. This leaves NextEra Adelaide Wind with a tidy profit of $25,755,000/year.

Adelaide Wind cost ~$132 million to build.  The return on investment is 19.5%! Where else can you get that?

I haven’t included the financing costs because these projects offer so many “securities packages” that are secured by liens on the farmland.  Since the operating companies are “shell” entities lacking any real assets, attaching a lien to the leaseholder property is rather convenient.

Note also that NextEra states:

“Previous estimates included taxation on transmission line infrastructure, which we have determined is currently not being assessed.”

Once again Nexterror delights in rubbing a bit of dirt in your face.

Presently NextEra has 592 MW of nameplate capacity in its Ontario wind projects.  Using the same calculated 41% capacity factor, NextEra will earn $287,040,645/year from its Ontario wind projects. Not much wonder they want to build more!

…and on an even larger scale, Ontario has 4042 MW of nameplate wind capacity.  Using that figure from CanWEA , the yearly cost to Ontario homes and industry is about $2 billion/year for wind turbines – most of it imaginary power that has never been produced.

More Proof that Proximity to Wind Turbines, Affects Sleep & Quality of Life

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Scientific Proof: Wind Turbine Noise Causes Wind Farm Worker’s Sleep & Health to Suffer

November 6, 2015 by 1 Comment

Proof

Among the growing list of what’s getting to the wind industry, its parasites and spruikers is the fact that – despite their relentless efforts to cover up both the work and the results – highly skilled people are working flat out around the world to discover the precise mechanism that causes the adverse health effects from incessant turbine generated low-frequency noise and infrasound, including sleep deprivation, vertigo and the like.

It’s not only the fact of their rather obvious conclusions that has wind-spinners in apoplexy, it’s the fact that they’re looking at all.

You see, the line being run is that there is NO problem – a tobacco advertising guru said so – so why on earth should anyone be looking?

For the wind industry and its parasites, the problem is, that there IS a problem: teams of highly skilled scientific investigators don’t generally devote their every waking hour to chase answers and solutions, when there’s nothing to chase.

Here’s just another example of what properly qualified people can do when looking for answers to real problems.

This time the victims are Iranian wind farm workers, who, funnily enough, suffer precisely the same negative health consequences as everyone else who has the miserable misfortune to be exposed to the insidious and intolerable noise and vibration generated by these things. Here’s a summary of the study.

Impact of wind turbine sound on general health, sleep disturbance and annoyance of workers: a pilot-study in Manjil wind farm, Iran
15 October 2015

Authors: Abbasi, Milad; Monazzam, Mohammad Reza; Akbarzadeh, Arash; Zakerian, Seyyed Abbolfazl; and Ebrahimi, Mohammad Hossein

Background: The wind turbine’s sound seems to have a proportional effect on health of people living near to wind farms. This study aimed to investigate the effect of noise emitted from wind turbines on general health, sleep and annoyance among workers of Manjil wind farm, Iran.

Materials and methods: A total number of 53 workers took part in this study.

Based on the type of job, they were categorized into three groups of maintenance, security and office staff.

The persons’ exposure at each job-related group was measured by eight-hour equivalent sound level (LAeq, 8 h).

A Noise annoyance scale, Epworth sleepiness scale and 28-item general health questionnaire was used for gathering data from workers. The data were analyzed through Multivariate Analysis of variance (MANOVA) test, Pillai’s Trace test, Paired comparisons analysis and Multivariate regression test were used in the R software.

Results and discussion: The results showed that, response variables (annoyance, sleep disturbance and health) were significantly different between job groups.

The results also indicated that sleep disturbance as well as noise exposure had a significant effect on general health.

Noise annoyance and distance from wind turbines could significantly explain about 44.5 and 34.2% of the variance in sleep disturbance and worker’s general health, respectively.

General health was significantly different in different age groups while age had no significant impact on sleep disturbance. The results were reverse for distance because it had no significant impact on health, but sleep disturbance was significantly affected.

Conclusions: We came to this conclusion that wind turbines noise can directly impact on annoyance, sleep and health. This type of energy generation can have potential health risks for wind farm workers.

The hard-hitting team behind the paper were:

Milad Abbasi, Mohammad Reza Monnazzam, Seyyed Abolfazl Zakerian, Department of Occupational Health Engineering, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Arash Akbarzadeh, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Mohammad Hossein Ebrahimi Department of Occupational Health Engineering, School of Public Health, Shahroud University of Medical Sciences, Shahroud, Iran.

The full paper is available here: Impact of wind turbine sound on general health, sleep disturbance and annoyance of workers: a pilot-study in Manjil wind farm, Iran

manjil wind farm

Southern Australians Suffering Due to Foolish Adoption of Wind Turbine Agenda…

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Wind Power Disaster Unfolds: SA Facing Total Blackouts, Rocketing Power Prices & Thousands More Chopped from the Grid

November 2, 2015 by

jay weatherill

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To call what South Australia’s Labor government has ‘gifted’ their constituents an energy ‘policy’, is to flatter it as involving some kind of genuine ‘design’. It’s an economic debacle, pure and simple.

The current mess started under former Premier, Mike Rann –  a former spin-doctor, whose relatives lined up at the wind power subsidy trough from the get-go.

Under its current vapid leader, Jay Weatherill, SA’s Labor government has been talking up a wind powered future for months now; swanning off to Labor’s fantasy world, where the wind blows and the sun shines 24 x 365; and the power is, of course, totally “free” – with his claims that SA can ‘enjoy’ more than 50% of its power from the sun and the wind, with just a little (more) government “help”.

Back in ‘harsh reality land’, however, Jay’s presiding over the worst unemployment in the Nation, at 8% – and soon to rocket – worse still than perpetual basket case, Tasmania. Here’s In Daily on the latest dole queue figures.

SA jobless down but still worst in nation
In Daily
15 October 2015

sa unemployment

South Australia unemployment figures experienced a slight drop of 0.2 per cent in September, but the state still has the highest jobless rate in Australia.

Date released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Thursday morning show the SA jobless rate fell from 7.9 to 7.7 per cent, seasonally adjusted, the second biggest fall after Tasmania (down 0.4 per cent).

However, more South Australians are also leaving the job search.

SA had the largest decrease in the seasonally adjusted participation rate (down 0.8 percentage points), followed by Western Australia (down 0.6 percentage points) and Tasmania (down 0.5 percentage points).

Seasonally adjusted figures for September show SA had 864,200 people in jobs, with 66,400 people looking for work.

Victoria was the only state with an increase in the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate, up 0.1 per cent.

The trend rate for South Australia increased to 8 per cent.

National unemployment figures remained at 6.2 per cent (seasonally adjusted).

Employment, Higher Education and Skills Minister Gail Gago said the State Government had directed its focus on struggling South Australians.

“We recognise the difficult road ahead for many workers as we transition from the old economy to the new economy.

“Last week, we saw Alinta announce it will close its coal-fired power station by March next year.

“We are also seeing a downturn in resources jobs across the nation as a result of a global collapse in commodity prices.”

Gago said diversifying the economy while investing in new and growing industries were part of the government’s long-term structural reform.
In Daily

With economics ‘maestros’ like Gail Gago focusing on ‘struggling South Australians’, they’re in for a bumpy ride on her “difficult road”; to be sure. That the road was laid by megalomaniacs like Mike Rann and ‘serviced’ by the completely ‘Clueless’ Jay Weatherill, seems to be lost on Gail Gago, much to the miserable disadvantage of those they pretend to govern.

You see, most with the slightest grip on the basics of economics pick up on the fact that producers of widgets (and the like) are driven by profits (a motive lost on Labor/Green apparatchiks), which, in turn depend upon input costs. For widget makers, butchers, bakers and the like, drive up input costs and, all things equal, their profits will fall; and their ability to invest in their business and employ people will drop off, too.

Where the item is high on the list of inputs, a jump in its cost may see that business, or even whole industries, collapse; as they end up insolvent.

As just the most glaring example, where the input is electricity, industries that use stacks of it – like manufacturers, miners and mineral processors – have been literally crushed, as power prices have skyrocketed; thanks to wind power subsidies and the additional and unnecessary costs of peaking power to back it up when it disappears every day:

Britain’s Economic Nightmare Unfolds: Wind Power Costs Killing Thousands of REAL Jobs

South Australia’s economic debacle is, in no small part, due to its diabolical wind power policy; that’s led to South Australians paying the highest power costs in the Nation – if not (on a purchasing power parity basis) the highest in the world.

The fact that SA is an economic train wreck (see our posts here and here) is clearly lost on the likes of Gail Gago, when she talks about a “transition from the old economy to the new economy” – a place where, apparently, the rules of economics are permanently suspended, with skyrocketing power prices having no effect on investment, growth in incomes or employment. Maybe Weatherill & Co’s heralded “new economy” runs on moonbeams and fairy dust?

It’s going to need to – SA ‘relies’ on 17 wind farms and their ‘notional’ installed capacity of 1,477MW. However, its faith in the Wind Gods, pixies and the like seems to disappoint more than deliver:

May 2015 SA

We covered the dismal data from SA depicted above and more besides here:

The Wind Power Fraud (in pictures): Part 1 – the South Australian Wind Farm Fiasco

That woeful missive drew focus on the pathetic performance of the 17 wind farms that have led to SA being known as ‘Australia’s wind farm capital’: it has the greatest number of turbines per capita of all States – and the highest proportion of its generating capacity in wind power by a country mile. But that tag is far more a curse than a blessing, as the following pieces attest.

SA renewables use may lead to blackouts
Australian Financial Review
Ben Potter
29 October 2015

South Australia’s rising share of renewable power could cause blackouts if the Australian Energy Market Operator doesn’t intervene, the agency’s chief executive, Matt Zema, said.

SA’s rooftop solar panels could meet electricity demands during the middle of some days by 2024-25 if uptake continued at the current rate, he said, but this would lead to more volatility and less reliability, and a greater reliance on the interconnector, with the large eastern state generators to keep power flowing on some days.

The warning is relevant for the federal Labor opposition, which has called for 50 per cent of Australia’s electricity to come from renewable sources by 2030. An interconnector is a high-capacity transmission line connecting two electricity markets.

Mr Zema said prices are becoming more volatile in SA because of the withdrawal of coal power plants and the strong uptake in solar energy.

Prices have hit the National Electricity Market limit of $13,800 a megawatt hour several times in the state in recent months. That makes industrial users uneasy and has led to speculation the government may have to pay thermal-coal generators to provide standby capacity. “The signal in that market is you actually need more thermals in reserve,” Mr Zema told a Committee for Economic Development of Australia lunch in Melbourne.

He said rather than Germany, which has a large share of renewable generation and is fretting over security of supply, SA is “more like Portugal – it’s at the end of the grid”. “So if they are going to go completely renewable, they are going to rely more and more on the interconnectors for system security.”

Mr Zema said the Energy Market Operator was intervening to balance the market to avoid blackouts in SA while the interconnector is upgraded, causing outages and complaints.

Peter Dobney, the head of energy and resources at packaging company Orora, told the lunch SA “has become a basket case for large industry energy users” and the outages were costing industry millions of dollars.

But Mr Zema said the upgrade had to be completed before the summer of 2016-17 because Alinta will close its Northern and Playford B thermal power stations in 2016, dropping 15 per cent of current capacity in SA.

He said the Energy Market Operator was purchasing frequency controlled ancillary services or FCAS “to stop SA actually going black if the interconnector drops out”. “How much do you want to pay for system security in SA? Because that’s what we are buying,” Mr Zema asked. “If we don’t buy FCAS and the system trips, we lose the whole state.”

Mr Zema said Germany, Spain and Italy were dealing with a similar problem by relying on interconnectors with France, which has a large surplus of nuclear power.
Australian Financial Review

elephant-in-the-room1

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Hmmm… Not a single mention of SA’s wind farm fleet from the Fin Review. How curious? Could it just be the result of a little ‘group-think’ over at Fairfax?

True it is that the struggling Fairfax rags run with a maniacal cult-like veneration of wind power (see our post here).

But to head up an article as ‘SA renewables use may lead to blackouts’; and to avoid mention of wind power altogether (especially where wind power capacity in SA ‘outshines’ solar capacity by a whopping margin), smells like Ben Potter was deliberately directed to avert his eyes from the enormous, economy-destroying ‘elephant in the room’.

No, revealing that pesky-pachyderm was left to The Australian which, funnily enough, while covering exactly the same AEMO report, managed to draw reference to SA’s woefully wanting wind farms (or ‘wind’/’wind generation’) no less than 6 times (8, including the headline and the caption to its photo of a turbine: “The AEMO report will reignite debate about wind farms”); and referred to solar panels, just once.

SA ‘risks power shortfalls’ because of wind farm dependence
The Australian
Annabel Hepworth
26 October 2015

South Australia could experience electricity supply shortfalls as it becomes more reliant on wind farms and imports from Victoria, a new report finds.

The report by the Australian Energy Market Operator finds the closure of Alinta’s Northern Power Station by the end of March next year could have an impact in “extreme” conditions over the next three years.

The document, to be released today, is likely to reignite debate over wind farms just as the renewables industry hopes for more support after the change of prime minister.

Malcolm Turnbull’s backing for a carbon trading scheme contributed to him being toppled as opposition leader in 2009, while Environment Minister Greg Hunt has recently suggested that criticism of wind farms was confined to “views expressed by particular individuals”.

Under Tony Abbott the Coalition scaled back the renewable energy target, directed the $10 billion Clean Energy Finance Corporation not to invest in wind farms, and axed the carbon tax.

According to the new AEMO report, the planned closure of the Northern Power station will impact the balance of demand and supply in South Australia over the next three years, increasing the state’s reliance on wind and on imports from Victoria.

“When high demand coincides with low wind generation, plant outages, or low levels of imports, South Australia may experience supply shortfalls,” the report says.

In July, Alinta said it would close its Flinders operation in South Australia’s Port Augusta, which comprises the Northern and Playford B power stations and the nearby Leigh Creek mine, by March 2018, if not as early as March 2016.

Alinta boss Jeff Dimmery attributed the decision to policies aimed at supporting renewables and falling power demand that had led to a glut of power in South Australia. Earlier this month, the company confirmed the closure would be next year.

AEMO has produced its new report on the impacts of the Northern closure because it is considered significant enough for AEMO to update its yearly ­guidance on the adequacy of power generation in the National Electricity Market for the next decade.

Overall, the report finds the earlier withdrawal of Northern would not impact the point at which South Australia could breach the “reliability standard”, which says that just 0.02 per cent of power can go unserved in an area in a year.

AEMO has previously forecast that South Australia could breach the standard in 2019-20 and 2024-25, with the potential uptake of solar rooftop panels alleviating the situation in the years between.
The Australian

Could it be that Fairfax hacks have been engaged in a little ‘cherry-picking’, in order to keep spinning its ‘wonders-of-wind’ editorial line? Same AEMO report being covered, but an entirely different story. George Orwell generated a whole lingua franca – including terms such as “newspeak”; “doublespeak”; and “doublethink”- to capture what Fairfax considers should pass for ‘journalism’, these days (see our post here).

When the AEMO report talks about times when: “high demand coincides with low wind generation, plant outages, or low levels of imports, South Australia may experience supply shortfalls” it’s referring to data like this from June this year (the graph above is from May), showing the chaos that is wind power generation in South Australia:

June 2015 SA

In the AFR piece it talks about occasions when: “Prices have hit the National Electricity Market limit of $13,800 a megawatt hour several times in the state in recent months”.

But, for some strange reason, the AFR fails (or refuses) to join the dots: those occasions – when the spot price paid to generators goes from around $70 per MWh to the market cap of $13,800 per MWh perfectly coincide with sudden (and often, complete) wind power output collapses, as detailed here:

South Australia’s Unbridled Wind Power Insanity: Wind Power Collapses see Spot Prices Rocket from $70 to $13,800 per MWh

The cost of SA’s insane wind power policy is borne, of course, by its beleaguered (remaining) businesses; and struggling households (think old-age pensioners and the thousands of unemployed).

This is a State where some 50,000 homes have been disconnected from the grid – families simply no longer able to pay their power bills; who’ve been reduced to lighting their homes with candles, and, unable to power a fridge, using Eskies (coolers) to keep their perishables – cooking on wood stoves and trying to keep warm using barbeques.

With the fall-out from its wind power fiasco unfolding fast, hundreds of businesses will hit the wall; and thousands more households will soon get to join the tens-of-thousands, already sitting freezing (or boiling) in the dark.

SA power prices to surge by $150 a year, report warns
The Advertiser
David Nankervis
22 October 2015

POWER prices will surge up to $150 a year for hundreds of thousands of householders under controversial changes to electricity charges, an investigative report warns.

The SA Council of Social Services report also says small businesses face a 50 per cent rise in power costs and that this could force some to close.

The findings are based on a SACOSS investigation into the impact of rule changes by the Australian Electricity Market Commission.

The change is designed to shift the demand for power away from peak periods to take pressure off the network.

In response to the new rules, SA Power Networks has proposed introducing a monthly network charge calculated on a customer’s highest half-hour of energy use between 4pm and 9pm on any given day.

This will provide a “pricing signal” to customers to ration the use of appliances, SAPN spokesman Paul Roberts said.

“That means not turning on all major appliances at once during peak periods such as tea time on a hot day, instead delaying using the dishwasher or washing machine until later,” he said.

But SACOSS executive director Ross Womersley said the changes, beginning as early as 2017, would see half of all householders worse off.

“It would be madness for this to proceed and any changes should be deferred for at least a few years,” he said.

“And this new system should be introduced only on a voluntary basis, which would allow people to opt in only if they believe they will be better off.

“This is because people on low income and many other householders would be worse off.”

According to the SACOSS report, which will be submitted to SAPN as part of the network company’s consultation process:

APPROXIMATELY 50 per cent of householders would be worse off

THE biggest bill increases could reach $150 a year

THE biggest savings could be just $10 a year

HALF of small businesses would be worse off

ALMOST one-in-five small business would face a 50 per cent increase in energy costs

The report also said there was “limited (public) support” for the changes to the billing system.

SACOSS research revealed consumers were concerned about big variation in bills amounts, making it more difficult to budget for electricity costs.

The report said this would have a serious impact on low-income households over summer.

Mr Roberts said SAPN invited “consultation” on its proposed billing changes earlier this month because “we know people care about electricity prices”.

“We’re not only consulting on the detail of the changes, but also an appropriate transition that protects the interests of customers and gives them time to adjust to the changes.
The Advertiser

studying candle

Wind Pushers Want to Evict People From Their Homes, via “Eminent domain”…

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Falmouth Wind Turbines 2nd American Civil War

Falmouth Wind Turbines 2nd American Civil War

When the Town of Falmouth evicts the wind turbine neighbors and absorbs their properties through an act of eminent domain, those same townspeople will have to open their doors to their own wind power refugees. They may need to be reminded of the hard hearted turning back of the New Orleans Hurricane Katrina refugees as they tried to cross the bridge into the next parish by the Parish Sheriffs.

When civility disappears, it can get pretty brutal.

Anyone reading this needs to understand that this is the 2nd American Civil War, and it is being fought in many American communities.
The sooner the people can come to their senses about the “Falmouth Version of Climate Change BS”, the sooner they will be able to recover from this folly that is destroying them.

Already there is a significant feeling among the Town Meeting members that they are now reluctant to vote on the proposed Articles 1,2,&3 because they were not truthfully explained to them by the Select Board . (Obfuscation, anyone?)

The eminent domain presentation can be viewed on the link below Article 2 :
Board of Selectmen 10/5/15 part 2— 1:30 minute mark presentation and endorsement 2:24 minutes
http://www.fctv.org/v3/vod/board-selectmen-10515-part-2

All this erodes the people’s trust in government, and feeds anarchy. The situation in Falmouth, seized by anarchy, has behaved horribly. The very prospect, the very thought of seizing someone’s home by phony, 50% valuation, eminent domain turns one’s stomach. Some land of the free!

The noise torture :

While there are many sources of Infra-sound, most of them are generated by passing and sporadic sources, like rockets, aircraft, volcanoes, etc. Wind turbines are permanent installations. They operate at variable speeds. The kinds of noise that they produce is modulated, increases and decreases in intensity, dependent on local wind speeds. They confuse the nervous system and trigger the “fight, flight, freeze response” that all humans have hardwired into our nervous systems.

We developed this response to sense the approach of low growling lions and tigers back when we roamed the African savannah in search of food and shelter. This was a MOVING source of noise that we recognized as lethal.

Now, the wind turbines, a technological source of lethal noise, while fixed in place, produce (infra-sound and low frequency noise) in a modulated fashion, triggering the FFF response, causing a cascade of alarm hormones; adrenalin to flood the nervous system.

This may be adaptive to modern humans; case in point, some imbecile cuts you off in traffic and forces you to suddenly swerve and apply the brakes. You fuss and fume, but you are able to recover from this and continue to drive on normally.

When wind turbines sporadically impact on people in their sleep, they are aroused in a state of anxiety, and are unable to get back to sleep. This systematic sleep deprivation far exceeds any methods of interrogation so far devised, and presents these unsuspecting residents with the most exquisite form of torture yet.

When they finally seek legal redress they are met by measures of eminent domain to silence them and remove them from the state-driven wind power agenda.

Town Meeting Member Dave Moriarty discusses the upcoming Special Town Meeting concerning Wind 1
Click here to watch the youtube video : Falmouth MA Wind Turbine Fiasco 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs8SwaR4KjE&feature=youtu.be

Last please view the presentation by Attorney Chris Senie

Falmouth ZBA Sept 17 with Chris Senie -This link :
Zoning Board of Appeals September 17, 2015 Senie & Associates, P.C. Representing Impacted Neighbors
https://windwisema.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/senie-to-zba-ceasedesist-2015-09-17.pdf

Wind Industry Deserves to “Collapse”, just like one of it’s Useless Turbines!

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UK Wind Industry Collapses as David Cameron Slashes Subsidies for Wind Power

October 31, 2015 by

SWITZERLAND-WEF-DAVOS-CAMERON

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While the wind industry, its parasites and spruikers continue to wail like banshees about dreaded ‘uncertainty’ all over the globe, there seems to be another ‘certainty’ keen to muscle up alongside the usual pair cited as examples of dead-set certainties in life: “death and taxes”.

The newest absolute certainty is that, in the absence of massive and endless subsidies, the wind industry will die a sudden, natural and inevitable death.

When David Cameron romped to absolute control of the UK Parliament, earlier this year, he did so on a promise to end subsidies to wind power outfits. Seen by delusional wind worshippers as a mere idle threat, Cameron’s election manifesto has now been realised, as the necessary amendments wind their way through Westminster.

Best deal for bill payers and investors as subsidies for onshore wind end
Department of Energy & Climate Change, Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth and The Rt Hon Amber Rudd MP
8 October 2015

The Government is pushing ahead with its commitment to end public subsidies for onshore wind farms, by closing the Renewables Obligation across Great Britain from 1 April 2016.

The Government is pushing ahead with its commitment to end public subsidies for onshore wind farms, by closing the Renewables Obligation across Great Britain from 1 April 2016.

In amendments to the Energy Bill we have set out the grace period criteria, providing further certainty for investors. We estimate that around 2.9GW of onshore wind capacity will be eligible for the grace periods, meaning that bill payers will be protected.

The projects that are eligible for the grace period will need to demonstrate either that they had planning consent as at 18 June; that they have successfully appealed a planning refusal made on or before 18 June; or that they have successfully appealed after not receiving a planning decision due by 18 June. They will also need to show that they had a grid connection and land rights in place. Projects that have met all these criteria and can demonstrate that they have struggled to secure finance from lenders since 18 June will be allowed extra time but no longer than nine months.

In total, the amount of onshore wind capacity that could be deployed by 2020 is still 12.3GW and will ensure we meet our renewable energy commitments.

Energy Minister Lord Bourne said: “We have a long-term plan to keep the lights on and our homes warm, power the economy with cleaner energy, and keep bills as low as possible for hard-working families and businesses.

“To do this we will help technologies stand on their own two feet, not encourage a reliance on public subsidies. By bringing forward these amendments we are protecting bill payers whilst meeting our renewable energy commitments.”
Gov.uk

While wind worshippers continue to make wild claims about wind power already being “free” – and, apparently, getting cheaper all the time – it appears that selling a product with no commercial value is getting tougher all the time.

Even the merest mention of a cut to subsidies has the wind industry’s parasites quaking in their boots. Follow through on the threat and big talking wind farm developers head for the hills:

Deliverance for Brits: David Cameron Empties Subsidy Trough & 250 Wind Farms Get Scrapped

In a predictably waffly piece from a wind worship blog, here’s the story of another wind farm being scrapped: this time in Wales, due to “changing market conditions” – which is wind industry code for “the subsidies have gone”.

Vattenfall ditches North Wales wind farm project that was 10 years in the making
businessGreen
Jessica Shankleman
17 August 2015

Nant Bach project has failed to keep up with changing market conditions, says developer

Swedish energy giant Vattenfall has scrapped plans for an 11-turbine wind farm near Conwy in North Wales after 10 years in development, partially blaming a shift in government policy for the decision.

In a statement today, Vattenfall said the Nant Bach wind farm, which was granted planning consent four years ago, no longer fitted with its strategy of developing and operating the “very best wind energy sites capable of delivering low-cost, competitive green power that finds a route to market”.

The developer said the 100m-high wind turbines were no longer economically viable in current market conditions. In order to use larger turbines the company would have had to refile for planning permission.

Industry insiders suggested larger turbines may have struggled to secure consent now the government has announced changes to planning policies for onshore wind farms, which effectively give locals the final say over applications.

The lodging of a second planning application may have also compromised the project’s ability to access the current Renewables Obligation (RO) subsidy scheme, which the government is preparing to close for new wind farm projects from next year.

A spokesman for Vattenfall said a range of policy changes had made the wind farm unviable, adding that the changes had created a “complex” situation for the developer.

Jonny Hewett, Vattenfall’s project manager for the Nant Bach scheme, said the market had moved on “and left Nant Bach behind”.

“It’s obviously disappointing to have to stop the Nant Bach wind energy project after 10 years of development,” he said in a statement. “We have had local support and the region’s economy would have benefited from any investment but the reality is that Nant Bach was a scheme conceived 10 years ago when energy policy encouraged the maturity of the new wind power industry.”

Vattenfall refused to disclose how much money it has spent developing Nant Bach.
businessGreen

turbine collapse 9

The Wind Turbine Scam, in Ontario….A Financial Disaster!

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Ontario’s Wind Power Disaster Sends Power Prices Into Orbit, Driving REAL Industries Offshore

October 30, 2015 by

industrial-decline-2

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Ontario is the place where the most bizarre energy policy in the world has seen thousands of these things speared into the backyards of homes – in the most agriculturally productive part of Canada. When we say “bizarre” we mean completely bonkers.

Canada has one of the “cleanest” power generation mixes on the planet, with the vast bulk of its electricity coming from zero emissions sources such as nuclear and hydro.

Adding to the lunacy is the fact that wind power outfits are guaranteed to reap fat profits despite market conditions.

Where the wholesale market price for power in Ontario is between $30-50 per MWh, wind power generators pocket a fixed price of $135 MWh – even if there is absolutely no market for it and the Province literally has to pay neighbouring US States to take it.

Adding insult to injury is the fact that truly productive industries are being crushed by skyrocketing power prices, sending their activities offshore and taking thousands of (previously) stable, well-paying jobs with them. Here’s Parker Gallant on the nightmare being visited upon Ontario.

Surplus power sold at discount: the sad sad story of electricity bills in Ontario
Ontario Wind Concerns
Parker Gallant
4 October 2015

Ontario ratepayer fatigue: covering the costs of bargain basement sale of surplus power from wind and solar

When will it end?

Another month goes by and another $168 million from Ontario ratepayer’s pockets went to subsidize surplus electricity exports to our neighbours in New York, Michigan and Quebec. The month of August saw another 1,759,000 megawatts (MWh) or 1.76 terawatts of excess electricity generation exported. That cost Ontario’s electricity ratepayers $209 million—the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) sold it for $41 million.

The 1.76 terawatts (TWh) sold at the big discount was enough to supply 183 thousand “average” Ontario households with power for a full year. That sale brings our exports to 15.09 TWh for the first 8 months of 2015, enough to supply almost 1.6 million “average” households with power for a full year!

The costs of those export losses fall to all ratepayers; for the eight months ended August 31st, that means a “green energy tax” of $1.4 billion, or about $300 per average household. Quick math will disclose that the average monthly cost is $177 million meaning the total cost for Ontario’s ratepayers in 2015 may reach $2.1 billion or roughly $460 per ratepayer. The 23 TWh we will probably export would have provided 2.4 million ratepayers with their average annual power needs.

What about wind power in all this? In August, wind produced 3.5% (459.3 gigawatts or GWh) of total generation (13.05 TWh) and just over 26% of our exports; solar produced about 29 GWh (not including “embedded generation”). Combined, they represented 27.7% of our exports which begs the question – what benefit do they provide and why do we keep adding more generation at subsidized rates, if we lose money because we must export our surplus generation?

That question is unfortunately not going to be answered any time soon, if we look at the recently released IESO 18 month outlook (Oct 2015 to March 2017).   The IESO report notes:

“About 1,900 MW of new supply – mostly wind and solar generation – will be added to the province’s transmission grid over the Outlook period. By the end of the period, the amount of grid-connected wind generation is expected to increase by 1,300 MW to about 4,500 MW. The total distribution-connected wind generation over the same period is expected to be about 700 MW. Meanwhile, grid-connected solar generation is expected to increase to 380 MW, complementing the embedded solar generation capacity of about 2,200 MW located within distribution networks by the end of the Outlook.”

According to the IESO report, Ontario will add 1,700 MW of generation from wind and solar generation over the next 15 months, which brings wind turbine capacity to 5,200 MW and solar to almost 2,600 MW. This is clearly not needed or dependable.

The IESO report also highlights what we have been told by various business associations that have expressed concern about the effects of rising electricity costs: “For the three months, wholesale customers’ consumption posted a 5.9% decrease over the same months a year prior with Pulp & Paper, Iron & Steel and Petroleum Products accounting for most of the reductions.”

That’s evidence that our primary processors are exiting Ontario, in large part because of high electricity prices, taking jobs with them.

The Ontario Wynne government is bent on ensuring Ontario leads the way to the highest prices of electricity in all of North America; they have only a couple of jurisdictions to overtake.

Time to turn the lights off!

studying candle

Aussies Not Going to Force Wind Turbines on Communities….For Real??

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Angus Taylor MP: Retailer Boycott – Wind Farms will NOT be Built where there is ‘Negative Community Reaction’

October 27, 2015 by

Angus Taylor

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Angus Taylor, the Liberal Federal Member for Hume gave a wind industry scorching interview on Alan Jones’ Breakfast show on 2GB last week. For Australian rural communities fighting the threat of these things, STT thinks that what Angus had to say is the best news that they will have heard, since their battles began.

Alan Jones AO: Which brings us back, thank God we’ve got some like it, to the man I’ve talk to you about many times, Angus Taylor, this bloke has ability. He is an outstanding Federal member for the seat of Hume, a Rhodes scholar. He’s from the bush. He’s got degrees in economics and law from Sydney University, a masters degree from Oxford University in economics and let me fire a warning shot here, because I now learn that the factions, remember Malcolm Turnbull said there were no factions in the Liberal party? The left are cutting loose. Just as the leader now, Tony Abbott has gone, and they’re lining up probably to have a shot at people like Angus Taylor and Craig Kelly and others, mobilising pre-selection. Malcolm Turnbull said at the Liberal party council meeting a couple of weeks ago – the party is not run by factions – Malcolm, you’re kidding us. Joe Hockey’s resigned. I’m telling you the next member for the seat of North Sydney has already been decided. You can forget about your pre-selection. The bloke the factions have decided will be Trent Zimmerman. Now as I told you last time, this gifted and talented Angus Taylor, didn’t make it amongst the 41 ministries handed out by Malcolm Turnbull. It doesn’t worry him because he is very strong on policy. He’s on the line, Angus Taylor, good morning.

Angus Taylor MP: Morning Alan.

Alan Jones AO: Where do we go on all of this? ‘Cos there is an interconnectedness isn’t there, between carbon dioxide, global warming, Paris and a a fortune being spent and then suddenly, embracing renewable energy. And you’ve got this in your electorate.

Angus Taylor MP: I certainly do, I mean I’ve probably got more wind farms planned in my electorate than anywhere else and at the end of the day Alan what we’ve got is a situation where people will move into my electorate from Sydney or Canberra. They’ll pull all of their savings into buying a block of land, a few acres, and a little farm only to discover a year or two later that a big 170 metre wind turbine is going to be overlooking them. And it’s just not on Alan when these things are getting $600,000 or more of subsidies a year …

Alan Jones AO: Each, each.

Angus Taylor MP: Each. Each turbine, each one of them.

Alan Jones AO: Stop stop Angus. Out there, remember what this man has said, this is not some dumbbell from you know out the back blocks, we’re talking to a Rhodes scholar. A bloke with masters from Oxford University in economics. $700,000 of your money per wind turbine and they’re owned by foreign interests.

Angus Taylor MP: The extraordinary thing about is that we don’t have a planning system to deal with it. This is the equivalent of a factory being built in the middle of a new suburb. That’s what’s happening here. And of course if anyone moved into a new suburb and built their house and then suddenly found, without expecting it, without knowing it, a factory was going to turn up next door, ‘cos they’d scream about it, and so they should.

Alan Jones AO: See people are writing to me Angus they’re refugees in their own homes now – they have to leave.

Angus Taylor MP: Well that’s right, practically speaking,  there’s only 2 ways that we can sort this out. One is, we need a planning system that recognises these areas that I’ve got, that are really rural residential now and zones them in a way where you can’t have these sort of industrial developments, or, and this is very important that the energy retailers who enter into long term contracts to allow these developments to be built, say look we are not going to build developments like this in areas where there’s community reaction, very negative community reaction. People like AGL and Origin, Energy Australia, and the ACT Government as well.

Alan Jones AO: But Angus, you’re trained, your academic discipline was economics, but you weren’t just academic, you then worked in that field at an international level.

Angus Taylor MP: That’s right.

Alan Jones AO: Just explain this to me why does it, when the pastry cook whose listening to you now. He’s been up making bread and pastry since 2 o’clock doesn’t get one dollar in subsidy, why should wind turbines be getting billions of dollars of tax payer’s money in subsidies? I don’t understand.

Angus Taylor MP: Well it’s extraordinary, isn’t it. So, let me give you some numbers that I think are really, really stunning. We are – and just accept for the moment, I heard your introduction. But just accept for the moment that we are going to reduce carbon emissions by some amount. We are doing it now, through the Direct Action program, a lot of which is about land use, agricultural land use, at about $15 a tonne. But we are paying these wind turbines about $50 or $60 a tonne to do it. So it’s 4 times more than we know we can do it. Greg Hunt has been able to do this for $15 and yet we are choosing to do it for 4 times that. So it doesn’t make economic sense. And I think the important point here is that if we are going to go down this path, we can not make ourselves uncompetitive, we can’t throw this sort of money at it, particularly when, particularly when we know that significant communities are being very, very negatively affected by what’s going on.

Alan Jones AO: But Angus all this environment crap about carbon and wind turbines – how much carbon dioxide, if that’s the fear, if that’s the demon, how much carbon dioxide is created by building these blasted things? What about you know, when you’re constructing the turbine? You’ve got to get iron ore to build the turbine. You’ve got to make steel to build the turbine. You’ve got to transport the turbines. You’ve got to have tens of thousands of concrete that go into each of these turbines. How much carbon dioxide is created to build these “environmentally friendly” wind turbines? This is a nonsense.

Angus Taylor MP: Well there is a light, and of course the other factor, which you mentioned earlier on, is the volatility of it. It’s unpredictable, it’s  interruptable as they say. And the important point about that is that electricity is no good to anyone unless its at the right place at the right time. And of course you can’t predict when you’re going to get electricity from wind turbines.

Alan Jones AO: And if they weren’t injurious to health, why wouldn’t you put them on Bondi beach, Queens street Brisbane, Collins Street Melbourne, Paramatta road? If they weren’t injurious to health.

Angus Taylor MP: And this is my point. What we are effectively doing is putting big factories into areas which are increasingly subdivided. Look, in my electorate between Sydney and Canberra, there’s more and more people moving in, which is great thing, a great thing. But they’re moving in and suddenly discovering that they’re next door to a cluster of wind turbines and the impact that’s having on their land values, on their peace of mind is enormous.

Alan Jones AO: Astonishing, Astonishing. Now look, we’re going to keep talking to you and I hope that you can persuade some of those people in your Caucasus to all of this because this nonsense somewhere has got to end. But well done, you continue to do terrific work, we’ll talk again soon.

Angus Taylor MP: Thanks Alan.

Alan Jones AO: It’s Angus Taylor, the Federal member for Hume.
2GB Alan Jones’ Breakfast

Angus Taylor delivering with the very substance and style that earned him the well-deserved tagline, “The Enforcer“; and, with one quibble, an exceptional effort.

Where Angus starts talking about the cost of CO2 reductions in the electricity sector purportedly attributable to wind power, he heads off into the land of myth and make believe.

The wind industry has yet to produce a single shred of credible evidence that demonstrates wind power reducing CO2 emissions in the electricity sector (to any degree; or at all). Instead, the hard evidence suggests precisely the opposite result:

Wind Industry’s Bogus CO2 Abatement Claims Smashed Again

Why Intermittent Wind Power Increases CO2 Emissions in the Electricity Sector

But, with that aside, Angus’ considered observations deliver a body blow to the wind industry, its parasites and spruikers – when he talks about how Australia’s power retailers are boycotting planned wind farms in communities that make it clear they do not want them. As the message is critical to every community defender, wherever they are in Australia, we’ll set it out again:

this is very important that the energy retailers who enter into long term contracts to allow these developments to be built, say look we are not going to build developments like this in areas where there’s community reaction, very negative community reaction. People like AGL and Origin, Energy Australia, and the ACT Government as well.

Angus delivered the same message at the recent packed-hall meeting at Yass in NSW, where 160 turned up to make it clear that more than 90% of the Yass/Rye Park communities are bitterly opposed to plans by Kiwi owned Trustpower to turn their slice of Southern Tablelands’ Heaven into an industrial wasteland:

NSW Minister – Pru Goward – Joins Forces with Community Defenders to Kill Plans for Trustpower’s Rye Park Wind Farm Disaster

Not least because the thugs employed by Trustpower and Epuron belted into a 79 year-old pensioner and a disabled farmer at an earlier meeting (see our post here), the crowd at the Yass meeting were keen for revenge (probably why, despite a cordial invitation, Trustpower’s thugs lacked the nerve to show their heads).

The communities’ attitude is pretty well captured by this letter from local STT Champion, Jayne Apps to the local rag, the Boorowa News.

A Letter to the Editor
22 October 2015

To the Editor,

On Friday, October 9 a Public Meeting organised by the Rye Park Action Group was held in Yass. The meeting was widely advertised and open to anyone who wanted more information on the large number of ‘Wind Farms’ being planned and built on the Southern Tablelands and South West Slopes.

Attendees were given information about the effects of sound, including infrasound, from people living at the Gullen Range WF near Crookwell.

Speakers also came from South Australia to tell the audience about the problems of being a WF host on their land and their inability to continue living so close to operating turbines resulting in the eventual sale of their property, and a Yass Real Estate agent gave his opinion about the difficulties he is having selling properties that will be visually impacted by the proposed Yass Valley and Rye Park WFs and the price reductions vendors are taking as a result.

A solar expert also gave a talk, and had a display, on one of the alternatives to wind power and local residents and business owners stressed the need for people to research and ask questions of the developers before agreeing to, and signing, contracts with wind power developers.

The meeting was attended by 160 people, and although the meeting was open to supporters of wind power as well as those seeking more information the majority of these people came from the villages and farming communities that will be impacted by the many developments.

When you take into account that most of these people would have been representing families and friends I think it could be said that there is a large amount of opposition to wind power development in the area.

Trustpower (Rye Park WF) tell us there is widespread community support for their development but after several years of promoting community knowledge on wind power in rural areas I have yet to see any sign of these supporters.

The only supporters I have come across are those who will be benefiting financially, and those who trespass on my land and steal signs, most recently a 760mm high x 1830 wide sign that was several metres inside my boundary fence.

I find it disturbing that a person who is supporting wind power can be offended by a ‘No Wind Turbines” sign that is less that a metre high, but will allow Rye Park to be surrounded with 109 wind turbines that will be 175 metres high and will make a lot of noise, without even taking into consideration the impact it will have on the community as a whole and the precious remnant vegetation and animal habitats that will be destroyed in the construction process.

As a matter of interest, a poll was taken on the night of the Public Meeting.

The question was asked ‘Are you in favour of wind turbines being built in Yass Valley, Boorowa, Rye Park and the surrounding villages and rural areas?.’

Of the 160 people in attendance 138 of them voted. 136 voted no and 2 voted yes.

This is in stark contrast to the survey done several years ago that the wind power companies love to quote saying 80% of people want wind power.

I would also like to note that I personally invited Trustpower representatives Michael Head, Wind Development Officer, and Rontheo Van Zyl, Development Manager, to speak at the public meeting and have a display but they were adamant they would not be attending such a meeting.

I again urge those living in Boorowa to take notice of what is going on around you, give support to your local farmers and residents of Rye Park and do some research on the impact the Rye Park WF, Bango WF and Rugby WF will have if they are approved for construction.

If you would like more information please email: ryeparkactiongroup@gmail.com or get onto Trustpower’s Rye Park Wind Farm website and look at their maps.

Also talk to your Boorowa Councillors.

They are currently deciding on the future of our roads that are to be used in the development stages of the Rye Park WF and if approved will be allowing the huge amount of oversized traffic to pass through Boorowa streets and local roads.

Jayne Apps – Rye Park

Nice work, Jayne. With that sort of response from locals, STT is happy to call the ‘community reaction’ from Rye Park and Yass, ‘very negative community reaction’ – of precisely the kind that will see power retailers refusing to sign the Power Purchase Agreements which are an essential pre-requisite for wind power outfits, like Trustpower to obtain the finance needed to build the wind farms still threatened. No PPAs; means no new wind farms – it’s a simple as that.

For every community defender, wherever you are in Australia, follow the lead set by Rye Park and Yass.

Get angry, get organised, get vocal and help prevent your community from being treated as ‘road-kill’ in the greatest economic and environmental fraud of all time. Fight them now; and they will flee – empty handed.

poster

Wind and Solar….Nothing more than Unaffordable Novelty Energy!

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Top Danish Economist Bjoern Lomborg Declares Wind And Solar Energies A “Fata Morgana” …”Powerless And Expensive”!

By on 25. October 2015

LomborgThe German online Die Welt here has a commentary on wind energy by Danish economist Bjorn Lomborg. The title of his guest commentary: “Wind energy, powerless and expensive“.

Hat-tip Peter H at Facebook.

Wind and sun energy are often viewed by fossil fuel critics as the go-to green energies. But careful analyses show that these energies are in reality impractical due to their haphazard supply and very poor efficiency. Most wind installations fail to reach 20% of their rated capacities; sun only provides power when it’s daytime and not cloudy. The figures that Lomborg presents are sobering, inconvenient and totally discouraging for wind and sun power proponents.

Citing the International Energy Agency, Lomborg writes so far today only 0.4% of global energy comes from wind and sun, despite the tens of billions of dollars invested in the energy sources. He adds:

Even in 2040, if all governments stick to their promises, sun and wind will cover only 2.2 percent of the world’s energy by 2040.”

Lomborg says that the reason why sun and wind will be “no decisive solution against climate change” is the energies’ inability to be effectively stored. He calls the belief that the energies are cheaper than fossil fuels a “Fata Morgana”.

The problem remains that storage technologies today are cumbersome, horrendously expensive and thus unfeasible. Wind and sun remain a luxury for the rich. Lomborg explains to readers how wind energy are dependent on subsidies, and that without them they make no sense. The Danish star economist points out that not only do wind and sun need subsidies, but now also so do fossil fuel plants so that they can remain on standby when the wind and sun go AWOL. He also says that wind and sun only save about half of the claimed CO2 emissions, and that under some circumstances they actually cause greater emissions.

$131 trillion for 1°C less warming

He writes the planned expansion of green energies by the year 2040 will cost 2.3 trillion dollars and result in only in a mere 0.o175 °C less temperature rise by the end of the century (using the climate forcing figures provided by the climate models).

That means 1°C of theoretical less warming would cost 131 trillion dollars! If there ever was a new definition for insanity, that’s it.

– See more at: http://notrickszone.com/2015/10/25/top-danish-economist-bjoern-lomborg-declares-wind-and-solar-energies-a-fata-morgana-powerless-and-expensive/#sthash.BcQQl393.SHzlouYB.dpuf

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