Why be angry at scottish power raising energy prices??

grahamc2003 wrote: »

All those windmills most people seem to want have to be paid for, and have a massive subsidy when operating, and even when not operating.

Wind farms get no subsidy when not operating. What you call a 'massive subsidy' is a financial support mechanism set at the right level to make them (just) economic.

Whether you want them or not is a different question; maybe you don't like the look of them or don't think it's the right way to spend money - that's a perfectly reasonable debate. But don't tell lies about the economics to scare people.

magyar wrote: »

Wind farms get no subsidy when not operating.

But don't tell lies about the economics to scare people.

Magyar - I see you have made thousads of posts on this forum. I hope they are not all as odious as the one above. Perhaps you would like to correct your incorrect lies above, and spend more time understanding situations before throwing vila accusations. Just because you are ignorant of the fact that windmills are subsidised even when not generating doesn't mean they aren't ...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/8486449/Wind-farms-paid-900000-to-switch-off-for-one-night.html

Wind farms paid £900,000 to switch off for one night

Wind farms operators were paid £900,000 by the National Grid to disconnect their turbines for one night because the electricity was not needed.



By Victoria Ward
1:04PM BST 01 May 2011
166 Comments


The payments, worth up to 20 times the value of the power they would have produced, raises serious concerns about such subsidies, which are paid for by the customer.

magyar wrote: »

That is not a subsidy, it's the balancing mechanism which all transmission-connected generators participate in.

That same system could ask a coal or gas fired power station to turn itself off and pay them in the same way. And the vast majority of wind farms, which are connected to the distribution system, would not participate.

So I'm afraid it is indeed untrue, although I suppose it's probably not fair to blame you given that the Daily Mail and the Telegraph do make such inaccurate and disingenuous claims.

But thanks for calling me odious. I like the idea... :beer:

Where do you get your very incorrect information from? Do you have a link? It is nothing to do with the balancing mechanism - it is to do with the renewable obligation (a subsidy). Other generators are not paid when instructed to ramp down or turn off, because the grid is not obliged to take the power from them (unlike wind, due to the renewable obligation). The balancing mechanism is acheived by instructed and scheduled reserve, which in effect means conventional stations operating away from its most efficient, in order that they can insytantaneously supply or absorb power to balance the supply with the demand - another hidden subsidy since reserve is necessarily increased for windpower, yet the wind turbine owners are not obliged to pay for the extra reserve they need. So yes, wind is subsidised whether it generates or not.

You have a terrible patronising attitude you know, and what makes it funny is that your are incorrect with your patronising assertions.

magyar wrote: »

I'm afraid it's you that is wrong. Firstly, I get my information from fifteen years in the electricity industry.

Secondly, the renewable obligation is nothing to with being 'obliged to take the power from them' it's to do with suppliers being obliged to either purchase a certain amount of wholesale power from renewable sources or alternatively pay a buy-out.
.

I too get my information from about the same time in the industry (firstly at cerl then, after a break abroad, as a consultant to the National Grid for many years, frequently as the technical expertise in various expert groups set up by the design authority, so not the daily papers (or wikipedia, which is sometimes worse) afterall.

I'd still maintian that windmills are subsidised when not generating - the renewable obligation itself (which I again maintian obliges ngc to accept all the power windmills produce, or offer payments to cancel that obligation) is such a subsidy, even though not a direct subsidy - it favours treatment of renewables (that's its purpose). This is not the case with coal plants - obviously paying nine times the cost of the potential generation to not generate when they could (say 23.5 hours per day) would soon bankrupt the system. there must be very specific circumstances when conventional plant get the payemts discussed made for wind (probably when they have been scheduled to generate, again, unlike wind).

Foir whatever reason, the dice are loaded towards wind generation (otherwise, there wouldn't be any windmills built imo). I'm not scaremongering or lying (and that is the offensive accusation for which you should apologise) when I say that windmills are subsidised whether they generate or not - you are probably assuming direct explicity subsidies where, at the very least, they attract indirect implicit subsidies all the time (eg. the grid infrastructure necessary to bring the power to the existing network, which is paid for partly by shareholders and partly by loadings on customer bills, but not by the windmill owners).

grahamc2003 wrote: »

I too get my information from about the same time in the industry (firstly at cerl then, after a break abroad, as a consultant to the National Grid for many years, frequently as the technical expertise in various expert groups set up by the design authority, so not the daily papers (or wikipedia, which is sometimes worse) afterall.

I'd still maintian that windmills are subsidised when not generating - the renewable obligation itself (which I again maintian obliges ngc to accept all the power windmills produce, or offer payments to cancel that obligation) is such a subsidy, even though not a direct subsidy - it favours treatment of renewables (that's its purpose). This is not the case with coal plants - obviously paying nine times the cost of the potential generation to not generate when they could (say 23.5 hours per day) would soon bankrupt the system. there must be very specific circumstances when conventional plant get the payemts discussed made for wind (probably when they have been scheduled to generate, again, unlike wind).

Foir whatever reason, the dice are loaded towards wind generation (otherwise, there wouldn't be any windmills built imo). I'm not scaremongering or lying (and that is the offensive accusation for which you should apologise) when I say that windmills are subsidised whether they generate or not - you are probably assuming direct explicity subsidies where, at the very least, they attract indirect implicit subsidies all the time (eg. the grid infrastructure necessary to bring the power to the existing network, which is paid for partly by shareholders and partly by loadings on customer bills, but not by the windmill owners).

Well, if you have experience in the industry I can only suggest you update your understanding of it.

Any BMU has the right to participate in the bid/offer system. It doesn't matter if you're a coal station or a nuclear station or a wind farm* If you do not participate then NGET cannot turn you off, again irrespective of whether you're a coal station or a wind farm.

With regards to the RO, you can maintain what you like but you're wrong and I would ask you to present some sort of evidence to back up your claim. It's just wrong. The 'obligation' has nothing to do with either NGET or the generator. The obligation is on each registered supplier in the country to either present ROCs or pay a buyout, nothing more.

With regards to indirect subsidies, again this isn't accurate. If I wish to build a transmission-connected wind farm, I have to apply to NGET and make a grid application. This is treated the same whether I am applying to build a coal fired power station or a wind farm.

I called you a liar because you presented as fact that wind farms get subsidies even when they don't operate. This isn't true. A subsidy is something which favours one technology over another, and this mechanism doesn't.

If you're simply mistaken, then it's not up to me to apologise, it's up to you to apologise for accidentally misleading people.

* and by the way, I'm not sure whether you're using the term 'windmill' perjoratively or just mistakenly, but they're wind turbines, not windmills. Windmills grid corn, i.e. they are mills powered by the wind.