There is no limit to our electricity bills as new spending on renewables has diminishing impact on emissions intensity. Our bills are going to infinity and beyond. A thread (1/n)
First up, we need to acknowledge that measuring the emissions intensity of electricity generation is an imprecise science. Three different datasets from Ember, DUKES and NESO give different results although have a similar shape. (2/n)
The numbers are also a bit of a con, because they ignore the CO2 emissions from burning trees at places like Drax. If these are added back, assuming similar emissions as for coal, the the picture is less impressive (3/n)
Going back to the NESO data, it is clear that the main driver of reduced emissions intensity (solid orange line) has been the removal of coal from the system (grey area) (4/n)
From a peak in 2012, emissions intensity fell from 519g/kWh in 2012 to 195g/kWh in 2019 as coal generation fell from 137TWh to single digits. Each extra GW of wind and solar capacity led to a reduction in emissions intensity of 11.9g/kWh (5/n)
Since 2019, extra emissions reductions have been hard to come by, with emissions intensity falling to 151g/kWh after an addition of a further 9.2GW of wind and solar capacity. A reduction of just 4.8g/kWh per GW of added capacity (6/n)
This is hardly a surprising result because despite big increases in wind capacity, the minimum generation has hardly changed since 2015. 1 x 0 =0, 10 x 0 = 0 and 100 x 0 = 0 (7/n)
Looking at the dotted lines out to 2030, we first have to make an adjustment to the forecast emissions intensity. NESO and the Government decided to ignore the emissions from waste incineration and combined heat & power plants, another con. (8/n)
Adding that back means that emissions intensity falls from 151g/kWh in 2023 to 51g/kWh in 2030 after an addition of a further 81.8GW of wind and solar. This gives a measly reduction of just 0.8g/kWh per GW of extra capacity (9/n)
If we believe the Government can achieve the big acceleration of wind and solar deployment, NESO estimate it will cost £260-290bn. Assuming 8% cost of capital & 2% operations costs, we can expect our bills to rise by £26-29bn per annum or about £1,000 per household (10/n)
The diminishing returns on extra wind and solar capacity means that to achieve the truly "zero-carbon electricity" promised in their manifesto, Labour will send our electricity bills to infinity and beyond. (11/n)
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By making a dissembling response to Claire Coutinho, the new chair of the CCC has made himself complicit in the Seventh Carbon Budget deceit. A thread 🧵 (1/n)
In her letter to the CCC, Coutinho asked why the CCC were using £38/MWh as a cost for offshore wind in 2030 when Ed Miliband is offering >3X that, or £117/MWh in Allocation Round 7. She urged Topping to correct the costings before Parliament votes on CB7 (2/n)
Topping's response was tendentious drivel, insisting that their LCOE calculations are accurate and CfD strike prices didn't reflect actual costs but rather "a policy-determined revenue guarantee" (3/n)
There's a ticking timebomb in UK offshore wind: massive decommissioning costs that aren't properly funded. Like in "The Big Short," a forensic look reveals developers might be ignoring guidelines, potentially leaving taxpayers on the hook. A thread 🧵 (1/18)
The scale is huge. In 2018, BEIS estimated £1.28-3.64bn for 37 wind farms, costs spiking from 2028. Now, with 16GW installed, my analysis shows ~£4.7bn over 10-15 years—at £293m/GW. More farms mean more costs. (2/18)
I made an FOI request to Government for the latest decommissioning cost estimates, but they won't release as "too commercially sensitive", but most windfarms show provisions in their accounts (3/18)
The prices that Ed Miliband is offering in the forthcoming AR7 auction for new renewables capacity indicate that he is going to blow the £260-290bn budget for his Clean Power 2030 plan. A thread (1/n)
In NESO's CP2030 plan, they assumed onshore wind would cost £73/MWh, offshore £83/MWh and solar £71/MWh. This is well below their estimates for gas-fired generation, but gas costs were inflated by ridiculous carbon taxes (2/n)
Their prices derived from the AR6 auction, but we know the price for offshore wind was too low because the flagship Hornsea 4 project has already been cancelled by Orsted as uneconomic (3/n)
Yesterday the Ofgem price cap went up, but both electricity and gas prices are down since the last price cap. Miliband & ministers lied and blamed fossil fuels for the rise, so now we're paying a moron premium on our energy bills. A thread 🧵 (1/n)
The price cap went up £35 from £1,720 to £1,755 for dual fuel households paying by direct debit (2/n).
Energy Minister Michael Shanks blamed the "fossil fuel penalty" (3/n)
Ed Miliband keeps boasting about creating good jobs in clean renewables and of course, we're supposed to be in the midst of a Green Industrial Revolution. But the truth is, green jobs make us poorer. A thread 🧵 (1/n)
The latest data from the ONS shows 690,900 green jobs in total. Of these 45,200 were employed in green charities (think billionaire funded propaganda units) & 19,400 were employed in “managerial activities of government bodies" (including government propaganda units) (2/n)
Jobs in the renewable power sector jumped massively to 42,600. The increase was led by solar power 20,300 jobs. Offshore and onshore wind had 16,400 and 5,900 jobs respectively (3/n)
Orsted has shocked the market by announcing a £6.9bn rights issue. But investors are not the only ones feeling the pain of offshore wind. Orsted is leaving investors & consumers twisting in the wind. A thread (1/n)
The rights issue announcement sent the share price into a tailspin, closing last week at an all time low, some 85% below the peak in Jan 2021. (2/n)
Although the Danish Government has said it will take up its 50.1% share of the rights, other big shareholders like Equinor (10%) have not yet committed and we do not yet know the offer price (3/n)