IS it Legal to charge US for the Windfarm Feed In Tariff?

grahamc2003

magyar wrote: »

I would challenge your point about 'there's nothing green about these companies'. Why would someone invest in wind farms at modest returns when they could invest in far safer options, if they didn't care about being green?

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I'm not sure Dale Vince would agree that his returns from wind subsidies have been modest. Worthless in the early 90s, he's now worth £90m, and his company has received over £22m in subsidies over the last 6 years alone, and he's a small player in the subsidy grab game.

To prove his green credentials, his company is helpfully going to sell a 135mph sports car, 0-60 under 4 seconds, £750k, the development costs, of course, again being subsidised by you and me and our grannies to the tune of almost half a million. It's electric so, errr, eco friendly. So that's all right then.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/greenertransport/8114607/Eco-millionaire-Dale-Vince-and-his-750000-electric-sports-car-part-funded-by-the-taxpayer.html


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/7840036/The-hippy-wind-farm-tycoon-receiving-millions-in-subsidies.html

magyar

grahamc2003 wrote: »

I'm not sure Dale Vince would agree that his returns from wind subsidies have been modest. Worthless in the early 90s, he's now worth £90m, and his company has received over £22m in subsidies over the last 6 years alone, and he's a small player in the subsidy grab game.

The point is that he's received £22m in ROC payments (and indeed payments from LECs and brown power) in return for having invested in the wind farms. It doesn't make it profit.

If I invest £100m into a wind farm, then I will receive in the region of £60m (in real terms) in ROC payments over a 20-year period (plus about another £60m in power sales). I would not make a net profit for about 12 years.

I can't comment on the £90m other than the article says "One high-earners' list estimates his wealth at £90 million." with no reference to this, which is hardly great journalism. In fact I know that Ecotricity is a very highly leveraged company so it's possibly somewhat over-stated. But he's worth what he's worth. I'm not claiming you can't make money from investing in wind farms; I'm just explaining what it is - about 10% return on investment over a twenty-year period.

magyar

Did a bit of Googling:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6968333.ece

The company he created, Ecotricity, has grown rapidly and now incorporates a wind-development arm, which deals with the turbines, and a retail arm, which delivers the energy to customers. In 2007 alone Ecotricity invested £25m in wind energy. In 2007-8 it made a £1.9m profit on £28m sales. It has £37.8m net assets and has been valued at more than £100m. Cautiously, in this difficult climate, we value Vince, 48, at £85m.

Slightly better journalism, but shows what they know about valuation.
So annual profits of £1.9m, how much would you pay for that? At most 10x that figure, i.e. £19m. Add to that the £37.8m net assets and you've got a total of £56m. But he's still not poor, I'll give you that...

MikePrice_2

Interesting views on windfarms, may I add another thought for discussion, as well subsidizing the building of these farms we are charged amazing amounts of money when the power they are producing cannot be used see (can't post link search google for The Reality of Wind Turbines and read the 2nd link cprecornwall)
Also as the power cannot be guaranteed to be available when we need it (wind doesn't always blow at the right time) we still need power stations up and running (no links so search Energy giants want billions for back-up to windfarms these power stations might not be used that much but they still need building and paying for so of course we will have to subsidize this as well, but they will still have to be on tick over negating a substancial part of the saving in green energy that the wind farms were offering to begin with.
I am not against wind power but I do think its time we considered how useful it really is to us before we invest any more of OUR money in it,

magyar

MikePrice wrote: »

Interesting views on windfarms, may I add another thought for discussion, as well subsidizing the building of these farms we are charged amazing amounts of money when the power they are producing cannot be used see (can't post link search google for The Reality of Wind Turbines and read the 2nd link cprecornwall)
Also as the power cannot be guaranteed to be available when we need it (wind doesn't always blow at the right time) we still need power stations up and running (no links so search Energy giants want billions for back-up to windfarms these power stations might not be used that much but they still need building and paying for so of course we will have to subsidize this as well, but they will still have to be on tick over negating a substancial part of the saving in green energy that the wind farms were offering to begin with.
I am not against wind power but I do think its time we considered how useful it really is to us before we invest any more of OUR money in it,

This is the link you referred to
http://cprecornwall.org.uk/Renewable-Energy-Wind/The-Reality-of-Wind-Turbines.html

This does actually just repeat a lot of the points made in other threads recently.

The 'amazing money' being discussed here is simply the result of a mechanism in the industry and nothing special as regards wind farms. (And by the way it's about 1% of the amount paid for them to built.)

I provided links to that mechanism here.
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=44430434&postcount=37

The idea that you have a capacity margin in the system to account for system outages is nothing new, and we have that margin now. We can accommodate easily 20% wind on the system with no concerns whatsoever. And few people are suggesting having more than that.

And finally, it's not your money which is being used to build them. It's private companies' money, and you only pay them through the electricity bill when they actually generate.