Another reason the wind industry is demanding more handouts: Wind turbine failure rates are rising
Unexpected and increasing wind turbine failure rates, largely in newer and bigger models, are savaging the profits of some of the world’s biggest manufacturers, as Siemens Gamesa, GE and Vestas report heavy repair and maintenance losses.
Faulty components created a €472 million ($A28 million) hole in Siemens Gamesa’s December quarter result, making up more than half of the nearly billion-euro loss for the period. Of that total, €187 million was due to a reduction in revenue with the remainder due to warranty provisioning.
The wind turbine maker said a “negative trend” of failure rates from turbines are causing higher than expected maintenance costs and warranty call-outs. It did not specify which components are affected.
Siemens Gamesa ended the year with a quarterly loss of €884 million ($A1.4 billion), more than double that of the same period the prior year, and net debt of €1.9 billion.
Write-downs in goodwill and the inclusion of integration and restructuring costs come as the company prepares to delist and integrate with Siemens Energy.
“The group’s financial performance in Q1 23 was materially impacted by the outcome of the company’s periodic monitoring and technical failure assessment of its installed fleet,” the company said in its quarterly results.
“The expected cash impact during FY23 amounts to a mid-double-digit euro million figure.”
Vestas has added €210 million in warranty provisions for repairs in the December quarter, as rising call outs and higher upgrade costs bite at the Danish company, too.
Vestas also said its lost production factor is rising towards 4 per cent due to the number of “extraordinary” repairs and upgrades.
GE blamed its $US2.2 billion annual loss on rising warranty provisions from its wind division in the September quarter, which contributed to a 17 per cent drop in revenue.
Too big too fast?
Advancements in materials, manufacturing and design techniques, and operations and maintenance tools led to a technical revolution in wind energy, allowing bigger and bigger machines to be installed.
Wind turbines and their blades have rapidly been upsizing, with the average rotor diameter in the US reaching 127.5 metres in 2021, while the largest in the world is a 13.6 megawatt (MW) offshore wind turbine with a rotor diameter of 252 metres.
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Home Depot founder Bernie Marcus warns Americans to 'wake up' after 'woke' Silicon Valley Bank goes bust - because it was 'more concerned about global warming than shareholder returns'
The co-founder of Home Depot, Bernie Marcus, says Americans need to 'wake up' to the reality that the US economy is facing tough times following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.
Marcus also laid some of the blame for the bank's failure with the Biden administration over prioritizing 'global warming' instead of shareholder returns.
He argued that the collapse of the bank shows the US economy is not as strong as President Biden has suggested.
Marcus criticized the bank's officials for selling off their stock before the collapse, and lamented the fact that many Americans lost their money in what he called a 'woke bank.'
'I can't wait for Biden to get on the speech again and talk about how great the economy is and how it's moving forward and getting stronger by the day. And this is an indication that whatever he says is not true.
'And maybe the American people will finally wake up and understand that we're living in very tough times, that, in fact, that a recession may have already started. Who knows? But it doesn't look good,' Marcus said on Fox News, on Saturday.
Marcus blamed the Biden administration for pushing banks to prioritize 'diversity and all of the woke issues' over shareholder returns and suggested that a focus on social policies is now causing banks to be badly run, and failing to protect their shareholders and their own employees.
'I feel bad for all of these people that lost all their money in this woke bank. You know, it was more distressing to hear that the bank officials sold off their stock before this happened. It's depressing to me. Who knows whether the Justice Department would go after them? They're a woke company, so I guess not. And they'll probably get away with it,' he continued.
Marcus then went on to warn how the US economy is in trouble, with the Federal Reserve raising rates and inflation going in the wrong direction.
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KY Wants to Prevent Coal Plant Closures Invited By Net-Zero Policies
As net-zero policies wreak havoc federally, individual states desire to stymie its ruinous consequence.
The Commonwealth of Kentucky wants to implement measures to shield their electric grid from instability wrought by unreliable, costly renewable energy adoption.
The General Assembly is deliberating legislation, Senate Bill 4, to remedy this issue. If passed, the bill would require the Public Service Commission to prove coal plant retirement won’t negatively impact grid reliability and resilience. All the while having no adverse impact on electric utility rate affordability.
As of this writing, the bill passed the state senate by a 25-8 vote. It now awaits a vote in the Kentucky House of Representatives. It currently enjoys popular support from lawmakers and could advance before Wednesday—the final day of the 2023 General Assembly session.
Historically, coal production has kept Kentucky’s energy costs down. Nevertheless, forced transition to unreliable sources like solar and wind has resulted in higher energy bills–as seen elsewhere in the U.S.
Even natural gas, a reliable source unleashed during the Trump administration, can’t fully meet the Commonwealth’s immediate demands.
Kelly Craft, former U.S. Ambassador to Canada and a 2023 Kentucky gubernatorial candidate, discussed this in a major state publication, writing, “As coal power shut down, it has been replaced by natural gas and, while I support an “all of the above” energy policy, natural gas has limitations. Natural gas price volatility drove Kentuckians’ cost of electricity to all-time highs last year.”
Despite coal’s staying power, powerful utility companies operating in the Bluegrass State are actively working to defeat this reasonable measure. This isn’t surprising because investor-owned utilities seek to benefit from adopting a net-zero carbon grid by 2050.
“If this bill passes, we would not be able to close a fossil fuel plant. That isn’t hyperbole,” Rocco D'Ascenzo, deputy general counsel Duke Energy Kentucky, said of SB4.
Louisville Gas and Electric Vice President Kent Blake remarked his company has “every incentive in the world to keep coal-fired generation as long as it’s reasonably possible,” but argued retiring coal-fire plants would ultimately be good for consumers.
“When we bring a case forward that says now is the time to retire a given coal-fired unit, you can believe that now is the time,” he said.
These comments contrast other industry-wide statements opposing the move away from fossil fuels.
In June 2022, the Utilities District of Western Indiana published a Capacity Alert warning about potential rolling blackouts and blamed shortages, in part, “due in part to the closing of coal-fired generation plants across the country.”
Even the Washington Post mused, “The sudden warnings [of rolling outages] have surprised even those who were sounding an alarm. That’s because… the early retirement of fossil fuel plants has accelerated the destabilization of the grid.”
State Senator Robby Mills, a Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee member and sponsor of SB4, says his bill will offer oversight on this issue and give Kentuckians a seat at the table.
“Grid operators like PJM and MISO have been warning that this hasty transition to renewables is putting our electric grid at risk,” Mills said in a statement to Townhall.com. “Kentuckians need a reliable source of energy that will keep the power grid stable and electricity rates affordable. We, as policymakers, owe that to our constituents."
Tucker Davis, a former Interior Department official and current Kentucky Coal Association president, warned Biden’s energy policies will have negative downstream effects on regular Kentuckians already paying exorbitant costs to heat and power their homes.
“The reason electricity rates have been on the rise in Kentucky is because of the Obama/Biden Administration’s “War on Coal.” These reckless federal policies have forced utilities to replace coal with more costly, unreliable alternatives and pass those costs on to ratepayers,” Davis remarked in an email to Townhall.com. “When it comes to the energy security of our Commonwealth, these decisions should be made here in Kentucky, not in a corporate board room.”-
Coal plant retirements undergird the wasteful climate bill known as the Inflation Reduction Act. S&P Global elaborated, “Of the 58.7 GW of coal plant capacity projected for retirement by 2030, about 24.3 GW, or 41.4%, are due to the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, making coal less competitive than other resources…”
As a result, it would be unwise for individual states— including Kentucky–to pursue untenable, net-zero policies.
The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), a regulatory authority tasked with reducing risk to and securing electric grid reliability, warned several years ago that “an accelerated retirement of coal-fired and nuclear plants could lead to power outages, temporary shortfalls in surplus generation, and transmission problems.”
Per the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), coal remains king in the Bluegrass State.
The agency reports, “In 2021, coal-fired power plants supplied 71% of Kentucky's electricity generation, the fourth-largest share among the states after West Virginia, Missouri, and Wyoming. Historically, coal-fired power plants produced more than 90% of Kentucky's net generation.”
“Kentucky still remains among the top five states in the nation in coal-fired generating capacity with about 9,400 megawatts at the beginning of 2022,” it adds.
Energy security need not be jeopardized by entertaining flawed clean energy credits and so-called incentives promising unicorn dreams.
The Commonwealth of Kentucky shouldn’t be ostracized for maintaining its coal plants. Therefore, legislators should be entrusted to protect their constituents’ interests here.
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Loony ‘environmental’ mandates will kill NYC’s middle-class housing
Among the disastrous effects of the folly called Local Law 97, which requires most apartment buildings to change their heating systems to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, is that electric heat – the city’s preference – doesn’t work as well as boilers that burn fossil fuels.
Bob Friedrich, board president of Glen Oaks Village in northeastern Queens, the city’s largest garden-apartment complex, warns that heat pumps for electrical systems “are only efficient for temperatures in the 30s and 40s. Below that they become less efficient to heat a home.”
In other words, he said, “Get out the heavy coat and gloves.”
The law to take effect at the end of the year can only drive more middle- and working-class homeowners owners out of town. Friedrich calls it “insane.”
Residents of Glen Oaks Village and the Bay Terrace Cooperative, both in Queens, face staggering future costs for “environmental” overhauls.
The loony law spells financial ruin for many of the city’s 3,700 co-op and condo buildings, which are home to 800,000 apartments. It requires buildings with more than 25,000 square feet to either switch to electric heat or replace their boilers so as to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions.
Warren Schreiber, board president of Bay Terrace for twenty-five years, said, “I’ve never had an issue that actually kept me awake at night.”
Unlike at rental apartment towers owned by real estate companies with substantial revenue bases, the costs of heating conversions in co-ops and condos will be borne by individual shareholders and owners either as assessments or whopping hikes in monthly maintenance costs.
But do it, the city demands — or face gargantuan fines. The Real Estate Board of New York estimates that affected buildings would face more than $200 million in penalties if they can’t comply with the changes, rising to $900 million by 2030 when emission rules would be even tougher.
Climate change might well be occurring albeit much more slowly than New York Times panic-pushers want us to believe. But that we must freeze our patooties off to stave off a strictly theoretical climatic holocaust belongs to the Sci-Fi Channel.
Building managements, including at the Upper East Side high-rise where I live, are all grappling with the law’s ramifications.
But the most pain will be felt by residents of modestly-priced buildings that do not have large reserve funds or other resources to pay for the “woke” diktats.
At the 200-unit Bay Terrace complex in Bayside, Queens, Schreiber said, “We don’t know how we’re going to pay for this.” He can’t even figure out what steps would put the complex in compliance because the rules are too dense to follow.
To go all-electric would cost Bay Terrace $3 million for heat pumps alone, he said, in addition to myriad other expenses needed for conversion.
Shareholders would pay huge assessments or a 30 percent hike in monthly maintenance. Schreiber noted, “We don’t have million-dollar luxury units like in Manhattan. We are a middle-income and working-class co-op. We have lots of teachers, civil servants, single-parent households and senior citizens.
“Many seniors would have to downsize” to smaller units to afford to stay.
At sprawling Glen Oaks, home to over 10,000 residents in 134 buildings. “We have 96 boilers” that would all have to be replaced, Friedrich said. “We’d have to spend $24.5 million for new boilers we don’t need.
“Even if we put in the most efficient boilers,” he said, the fines would be a little less but “would not go away” entirely because emission-reduction thresholds are impossible to meet without switching to an electric system.
But “switching to electric would cost $35 million and saddle our working-class homeowners with the highest electrical rates in the country,” Friedrich said. He called it “the largest unfunded mandate the city ever imposed on their constituents.”
If Glen Oaks made no changes at all, “We’re facing $1.1 million in fines every year,” Friedrich said.
The law was passed by the City Council and signed by former mayor Bill de Blasio with hoopla on April 22, 2019 — Earth Day. Happily for de Blasio, the two buildings he owns in Brooklyn are too small to require the changes.
While the middle class gets screwed, lower-income housing such as the city’s own slum empire of NYCHA unsurprisingly get big breaks on deadlines and implementation.
A coalition of co-op and condo leaders is suing to block the new law and some Council members introduced a bill to delay it. But get ready to bundle up.
https://nypost.com/2023/03/12/nycs-local-law-97-is-a-threat-to-affordable-housing/
***************************************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)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Jim Hansen and his twin
2 comments:
The U.S. economy IS string but it's NOT idiot-proof and the Biden administration is a proven pack of idiots.
^^^ strong - not string - LOL.
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