Thursday, May 05, 2022
Delaying tactics by wind industry will cost British consumers hundreds of £ millions
Boris Johnson's promise to reduce consumer electricity prices “in tatters”
London - According to a new analysis, consumers could be hundreds of million pounds worse off due to wind companies' delaying tactics in delivering electricity at fixed prices.
Ministers have promised that a new generation of “low-cost” renewable generators will get bills down, and there are several gigawatts of offshore windfarms, either under construction, or newly completed, in the North Sea. These have all agreed to sell power to the grid at low fixed prices under the government’s “Contracts for Difference” (CfD) scheme.
But since the start of the energy price crisis, newly completed windfarms are delaying taking up their CfDs, most probably because they can earn much higher prices in the open market. Moray East, a huge windfarm off the Scottish coast, recently reached full operational capacity, but then announced that it was delaying taking up its CfD until 2023. As a result, consumers will potentially have to pay this one windfarm an extra half a billion pounds in its first 12 months of operations.
In fact, since energy prices soared last autumn, no new renewables capacity has been added to the CfD scheme, and every renewables generator that was supposed to take up a contract in 2022 has now delayed until next year. There is nothing to stop them putting the date back further after that.
There is no suggestion that anyone is doing anything illegal. CfD contracts allow a great deal of flexibility on start dates, with delays of up to three years possible. The contracts are extraordinarily generous to developers, with all of the risk taken by consumers and none by the windfarms themselves.
“The Government has a chicken and egg problem”, says Net Zero Watch’s Andrew Montford.
“They say that low-bidding CfD windfarms will lower consumer prices, but no windfarm will take up its CfD with market prices so high. The Government’s energy strategy is in tatters”.
Craig Mackinlay MP, the chair of the parliamentary Net Zero Scrutiny Group, said:
"The false promise of cheap renewable energy is in tatters with ineptly agreed heads they win, tails we lose contracts littering UK energy strategy.
"If energy prices are low, CfDs mean consumers pay out to artificially increase energy prices; when energy prices are high these companies hold back to permanently fix high prices for themselves.
"It’s a shameful racket that households are paying for all in the name of the Net Zero con-trick."
Steve Baker MP said: "Pleading for fair play is an admission of massive regulatory failure. We urgently need sensible energy policy based on free market prices, profit and loss, not the present failing tangle of state intervention. Public welfare depends upon it."
Contact Andrew Montford. e: awmontford@gmail.com
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Indian Coal Production Surges 28% In April Amid Strong Demand From Power Sector
India's coal output soared by 28 per cent to 66.1 million tonnes in April amid high demand from thermal power plants as several parts of the country grappled with power shortage.
The overall coal production was at 51.6 million tonnes (MT) in April 2021.
"During the month of April, 2022 India’s total coal production stood at 661.54 lakh tons (66.1 MT)," the coal ministry said in a statement.
While Coal India Ltd (CIL) and its subsidiaries produced 53.4 MT of coal, production by Singareni Colleries Company Ltd (SCCL) stood at 5.3 MT and by captive mines at 7.3 MT during the last month.
According to the provisional data of the Ministry of Coal, while the total offtake of the coal sector was 70.8 MT during the month, the power sector offtake touched 61.7 MT in April. At the same time, coal supplies to the power sector from Coal India alone stood at 49.7 MT.
Coal supplies to the power sector by CIL were 15.6 per cent higher in the last month on yearly basis in the wake of high demand of the dry fuel from electricity generating plants.
The coal ministry stressed that it is planning to augment its dispatches further, especially to power plants in the coming months.
With higher output, CIL is aiming to increase its dispatches further, especially to power plants in the coming months.
Coal India, which accounts for over 80 per cent of domestic coal output, is one of the major suppliers of fossil fuel to the power sector.
On an average, the PSU supplied 1.66 MT of coal per day to power utilities in April which increased to 1.73 MT during last week. Average supply per day is at par with what was programmed by CIL for this sector during the first quarter of FY23.
The coal production by the PSU also rose 27.6 per cent to 53.5 MT last month over 41.9 MT in April 2021.
CIL's total offtake rose sharply to 57.5 MT in April, registering 6 per cent growth compared to 54.2 MT of same month last year.
The government had earlier said that the current power crisis is mainly on account of the sharp decline in electricity generation from different fuel sources and not due to the non-availability of domestic coal.
Coal Secretary A K Jain had attributed the low coal stocks at power plants to several factors such as heightened power demand due to the boom in the economy post-COVID-19, early arrival of summer, rise in the price of gas and imported coal and sharp fall in electricity generation by coastal thermal power plants.
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UK: Low-cost power pledge is blown away by the wily wind farmers
THE Government’s strategy to deal with the energy price crisis has already failed.
Ministers promised that a new generation of ‘low-cost’ wind farms would get bills down, and there are indeed several gigawatts of offshore wind farms, either under construction, or newly completed, in the North Sea. These have all agreed to sell power to the grid at low fixed prices under the Government’s Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme.
But there’s a problem. Since the start of the energy price crisis, newly-completed wind farms are delaying taking up their CfDs, probably because they can earn much higher prices on the open market.
Moray East, a huge wind farm off the Scottish coast, recently reached full operational capacity, but then announced that it was delaying taking up its CfD until 2023. As a result, consumers will potentially have to pay this one wind farm an extra half a billion pounds in its first 12 months of operations.
In fact, since energy prices soared last autumn, no new renewables capacity has been added to the CfD scheme; every renewables generator that was supposed to take up a contract in 2022 has now delayed until next year.
There is no suggestion that anyone is doing anything illegal. CfD contracts allow a great deal of flexibility on start dates, with delays of up to three years possible. The contracts are therefore extraordinarily generous to developers, with all of the risk taken by consumers and none by the wind farms themselves.
In terms of the Government’s strategy to reduce electricity prices, there is a chicken and egg problem. Low-priced CfD wind farms are supposed to lower consumer prices, but no wind farm will take up its CfD with market prices so high.
When Darren Grimes broke the story on GB News yesterday afternoon, he poked fun at ministers and officials, whose feeble response was to plead for the industry to play fair with the public.
As Steve Baker MP put it, it amounted to an admission of another extraordinary regulatory failure. There are more to come.
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German Regulator Shelves ESG Rules After Russia Energy Fears
Germany’s financial regulator has shelved planned rules for classifying investment funds as sustainable, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent shockwaves through global energy markets.
“Against the backdrop of the dynamic situation in regulation, energy and geopolitics, we have decided to put our planned directive for sustainable investment funds on hold,” BaFin President Mark Branson said Tuesday at a press conference in Frankfurt. “The environment isn’t stable enough for permanent regulation.”
Bafin’s announcement indicates just how much Russia’s war and the associated energy crunch has unsettled the investment industry’s shift toward green energy. Bafin’s move comes as governments seek to remove threats to energy security amid looming restrictions on oil and gas trade with Russia.
But the German regulator’s move may be a setback for asset managers who have been clamoring for regulatory clarity on sustainable investing to avoid a backlash if they inadvertently break the as-yet fuzzy rules. The industry was jolted last year when U.S. and German regulators including Bafin launched probes into Deutsche Bank AG’s asset manager DWS, over allegations it overstated its sustainability credentials.
Branson sought to reassure the industry and said in his prepared remarks that “fund managers can of course still set up and market sustainable investments.” He said the watchdog will apply “some of the principles in practice that we consulted on,” namely the need for ESG funds to be 75% invested in sustainable assets.
“Through these stricter practices we will protect investors from greenwashing,” Branson said.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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