Folly of the highest order
STUART Campbell (Letters, January 20) writes that “producing electricity from the wind is dramatically cheaper than, for instance, gas, which is currently the main means of generating electricity in England” while going on to bemoan our high electricity costs. It’s a myth (but regrettably a very persistent one) that renewable energy, including wind power, is cheap. It may have low marginal costs, but the whole system costs are much higher, and they are what matter at the end of the day. It’s also unreliable and intermittent.
It isn’t true that “battery storage negates any ‘what if the wind stops’ arguments”. Battery storage is incredibly expensive, and the current state of battery technology can provide only limited hours of supply. This winter’s dunkelflautes would have caused severe problems for battery technology had we already ditched electricity generated by gas. Betting the farm (as the current UK Labour Government is doing, and as the SNP has been doing for far too long) on expensive and unreliable sources of energy is a fool’s errand, folly of the highest order.
Graham Lang, Scotland Against Spin, Ceres, Fife.
YOUR correspondent asks why the UK has the highest electricity prices in Europe when producing electricity from wind is “dramatically cheaper than gas”. It’s a very good question.
The cost of energy is not a transparent matter. Wind may have low marginal costs but the whole system costs are much higher than, for example, gas.
As I understand it the prices quoted to support the claim that wind is a cheap form of electricity generation are the wholesale prices that energy companies buy the electricity at. However these prices don’t take into account the cost of the various subsidies, ie renewables obligation, contracts for difference, constraint payments and the cost of upgrading the grid to provide connection to remote wind power generation. These are levied on the suppliers and are then passed on to us the consumers.
Interestingly, the three countries with the greatest wind generating capacity, Germany, Denmark and the UK, are the three countries with the highest electricity prices in the world. Sarah Burchell, Moffat.
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