These answers reveal a worry about discussing the magnitude of special payments to renewable generators, and confirms that there are too many days when wind produces little electricity, leaving us dependent on gas, coal and biomass.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (112033):
Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how much was spent on National Grid constraint payments to wind generators in 2022. (112033)
Tabled on: 16 December 2022
Answer:
Graham Stuart:
The National Grid Electricity System Operator publishes data on the costs and volumes of electricity system balancing services monthly. This includes a breakdown of constraint costs by fuel type, including wind farms. The total amount paid to wind generators for 2022 has not yet been finalised. Further detail on wind farm payments paid in October can be found in The National Grid Electricity System Operatorâs monthly Balancing Services Summary.
The following documents were submitted as part of the answer and are appended to this email:
- File name: Monthly Balancing Services-october-2022.pdf
Description: Monthly Balancing Services Summary 2022/23 October
The answer was submitted on 28 Dec 2022 at 10:24.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (112032):
Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how much has been paid to wind generators in subsidies in 2022. (112032)
Tabled on: 16 December 2022
Answer:
Graham Stuart:
The Government supports wind generators through a number of schemes. Finalised data for total payments made in 2022 are not yet available.
The answer was submitted on 28 Dec 2022 at 10:26.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (112031):
Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, on how many days did wind power provide less than 10 per cent of UK electricity output in 2022. (112031)
Tabled on: 16 December 2022
Answer:
Graham Stuart:
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy does not hold daily electricity generation data. However, for the Public Distribution System in Great Britain only, Elexonâs figures show that up to 20th December, there were 64 days in 2022 where generation from wind provided less than 10 per cent of total generation. This excludes net imports from interconnectors.
Source: Elexon half-hourly balancing mechanism reports, available at: https://www2.bmreports.com/bmrs/?q=generation/fueltype
The answer was submitted on 28 Dec 2022 at 10:28.
January 6, 2023
Keeping holding the Department’s feet to the fire on this important issue, Sir J.
January 6, 2023
They obviously don’t want you to know especially as they exclude imports from interconnectors.
As these can be up to 15% of demand it would mean the number if days probably doubles for total demand.
When there’s no wind and a shortage of imports we are dangerously exposed.
January 6, 2023
I totally agree.
I also went on the suggested website and was unable to find the answer to the question which you, Sir John, asked.
January 6, 2023
You’ve fallen for the old False Binary yet again.
No one ever claimed that home-sourced renewables would replace fossil fuels 100% for 100% of the time.
So the fact that they do not is in no way a failure.
January 6, 2023
ââThe governmentâs British Energy Security Strategy sets out how Great Britain will accelerate the deployment of wind, new nuclear, solar and hydrogen, whilst supporting the production of domestic oil and gas in the nearer term â which could see 95% of electricity by 2030 being low carbon.ââ https://www.gov.uk/government/news/major-acceleration-of-homegrown-power-in-britains-plan-for-greater-energy-independence
THATâS IN JUST SEVEN (7) YEARS
January 6, 2023
If the wind does not blow the govt uses STOR- diesel generators!! Buying twice the amount of US fracked gas but stopped fracking here! Barmy. The ministers are barmy and the Tory party MPs useless. Sitting and watching.
How many questions are not answered before you realise you are ignored?
January 13, 2023
It maddens me that the ignorant historian Skidmore has laid out how we are to achieve Net
Zero without spelling out costs, China, windmill hopelessness (read Matt Ridley in the Spectator), what about aviation, shipping, road transport, construction? Hereâs the blasphemy. Modern science tells us that CO2 had very little effect on global temperature (noticed our present eight year pause in warming? The BBC hides it from you). And gradually warming globe has no effect on weather. Do check out the facts, there is no climate crisis
January 6, 2023
Good morning.
We need to know if these wind farms work and can be self sufficient. No point in creating the worlds largest wind farm (Doggerbank) If most of the money is just going to divided between a UK company which is also registered in Switzerland. Plus two foreign companies, one from Norway and the other from Germany.
If a project is so good commercially why do you need taxpayers money in the first place ?
Hmm ! People thinking of post their political careers as consultants, directors or chairman methinks đ
If our kind host allows :
https://doggerbank.com/
Does not matter how big it is, if its power source (the wind) does not blow them generators do not turn.
January 6, 2023
+1
âwill be CAPABLEâ of doesnât mean much does it?
Govt. and all these desperate con artists should try harnessing their own hot air.
But surely, the initial push for energy was based on needing it for manufacture?
They donât want us making stuff any more so why not just leave us with wood burners and candles?
OhâŠno subsidies! Silly me.
January 6, 2023
@Mark B. +1 âif it is such a good project and to the benefit of the UKâ, agreed it doesnât need the taxpayer. Then again if the taxpayer is the investor surely they should also be the owner. After 12 years we have found the Conservatives chasing the headline âsound-bitâ primarily by âgivingâ money to foreign domiciled entities all at the neglect of the UKâs safety, security and resilience.
January 6, 2023
UK should not be reliant on or have inter connectors with EU. We should have independent energy security! We voted leave. Energy linked to fishing rights!
Your govt has adopted we know what is best for syndrome against loud requests for the opposite.
January 6, 2023
Unlike fossil fuel energy, renewable & wind power energy will require taxpayer subsidy throughout their entire life cycle and beyond âŠwe need to be honest about the costs of net-zero, household energy bills are only going to rise
January 6, 2023
The answers you’re getting from your Government prove beyond any doubt how disingenuous, lying, cunning scheming fools they are. We need independent, cheap energy. Not hidden relience on foreign powers. We voted out of EU. What better instructions does your Party need to ensure compliance with our instructions? Just go. We want patriotic Government. The Consocialists don’t understand that term and arrogantly think they know best.
January 6, 2023
The Tory government and the Tory party is working to get us back in-line with the EU. They will say we are not members but in practise we will be. They are not going to change the EU laws under which we still operate and it now proposes new trade union relationships laws which makes us the same as operated in Europe.
The usual deceits. And no matter how closely tied we are Sir John will remain a loyal Tory. The party is more important to him than the people and principle.
Reply The idea of comments is to provide your views, not to deliberately misrepresent my position. My prime loyalty is to my constituents and to the wider country, not to my party. I do intend to keep my word which was given at the election to be a Conservative MP for the Parliament, and to seek to implement the Manifesto I put to my electors which was clearly based on the national Conservative one. I have most chance of doing that by keeping the Conservative whip and working with Conservative Ministers.
January 6, 2023
reply to reply…but if you really think following the recent few years’ national Conservative policies is doing the best for me – one of your constituents, you are wildly mistaken. It certainly isn’t best for the country, and will prove to decimate the Party’s standing in H of C in due course.
January 6, 2023
and we were constituents of Wokingham when Mr van Straubenzee was our MP., back when it was rather easier to choose between Conservatives and others.
January 6, 2023
Dear Sir John,
Excellent work, well done and thank you.
Please keep scrutinising the Government on this, and then please gather support for an ammendment to any future energy bill to taper off constraint payments for wind, and make wind providers responsible for ensuring that at least when the wind IS blowing, their power is available, or no money. This will ensure almost immediate investment in pumped hydro and other storage methods.
This is the sort of commonsense rebellion that could save some Tory MPs from the imminent rishipocalypse.
SR
January 6, 2023
Mark B
If the wind blows too hard they are shut down and in icy weather conditions and they work in reverse taking power back from the grid to enable them to slowly turn to prevent icing and the subsequent ice throw.
January 6, 2023
Yes Mark. No taxpayers money and no sub when there is no wind! The project must stand on its own feet and be profitable to survive.
However I suspect it will never stand on its own!
January 6, 2023
”If a project is so good commercially why do you need taxpayers money in the first place ?”
Same with EVs …if they’re so good and everybody is buying them (record year on year sales) why oh why the need for taxpayer subsidy
January 6, 2023
If fact, if this Tory government had any faith in market forces, capitalism and freedom of choice theyâd rescind their forthcoming ICE ban 2030 and allow the people to decide
January 6, 2023
So they blighted ( without so much as a by your leave ) our open spaces and seascapes with ugly metal excrescences.
For why?
Did they predict windier weather or a different sort of wind?
January 6, 2023
It helps China manufacturing and put a stranglehold on the world in future, a bit like Russia with EU at the moment. Trump warn3d they laughed at him. Stop being reliant on China for solar and wind machines. In fact all goods.
January 6, 2023
+1
I believe that what you say was the idea all along.
Remember that emerging (but stifled) scandal re links with China?
January 6, 2023
I support you proposal Hope! We must use the power of our finance and starve the reds of progress!
January 6, 2023
BBC reporting today that ââGreat Britain (not the UK) produced a record amount of wind-powered electricity in 2022ââ â maybe thatâs because under this government weâve closed coal fired power stations, have little nuclear and rely upon interconnectors providing electricity from europe
January 6, 2023
Glen
Agreed no figures given, so it just means “more than ever before” thus could be from 1% to 2%.
They all avoid figures for a reason, and to suit and support the narrative at the time.
January 6, 2023
Do your find pylons as objectionable? The whole country has them.
National Grid built in 3 years – 1932 to 1935.
Canât imagine in ever getting built nowadays with people like you complaining about the ugly pylons.
January 6, 2023
Pylons donât generate electricity. Pylons carry cables.
We need them whatever unless the supply is buried underground.
Ugly, horrible old windmills need them to take away their feeble contributions of power ( when the wind blows⊠but not too hard).
And actually Iâve always rather liked pylons.
January 6, 2023
+1
January 6, 2023
or put a smaller wind-turbine on every pylon in the UK
January 7, 2023
If you want to supply the grid with wind you will need many more pylons. For example the East Anglia Green project:
East Angliaâs 400 kV electricity transmission network was built in the 1960s. It was built to supply regional demand, centred around Norwich and Ipswich. With the growth in new energy generation from offshore wind, nuclear power and interconnection with other countries, there will be more electricity connected in East Anglia than the network can currently accommodate.
The existing network in East Anglia currently carries around 3,200 megawatts (MW) of electricity generation. Over the next decade we expect more than 15,000 MW of new generation and 4,500 MW of new interconnection to connect in the region.
So they need 20.5GW of transmission in place of 3.2GW – more than SIX times as much.
January 6, 2023
The wind farm scam and people pay tax to finance this arrogant, politically driven abuse of public funds. This abuse will explode under the real progressives, Labour
January 6, 2023
+1
OMG
Can you imagine?
A world made entirely of fairy dust, unicorns and fluffy bunnies.
And the death penalty for denying it all.
All brought to us by 12 years of fakery.
January 6, 2023
Recently I have seen commentators saying that Con Party was infiltrated by Labour.
I had always thought Marxism but maybe Labour more realistic?
Why on earth didnât they check credentials of candidates? Why even let former Lib Dems in when any previous membership of so called âfar rightâ totally proscribed?
Especially considering the âTurnip Talibanâ debacle.
January 6, 2023
Edward Heath allowed the National Liberals to join the party way, way back. Google it. You’d be surprised by some of the names đ
January 6, 2023
+many
Thanks. I didnât know that.
Very interesting. Will Google.
January 6, 2023
A daughter’s fluffy delightful female bunny just died, the RSPCA can’t offer a neglected unicorn as a replacement.
January 6, 2023
Oh dear. I do hope that is just a Micky take?
January 6, 2023
The return on investment is between 15-30 years (depending on what report you read â thereâs a lot of smoke & mirrors on actual figures) âŠthe estimated working life of a wind-turbine is less than 20 years
Thatâs the return on taxpayer money â this government pays the provider up front, theyâre still making huge profits
January 6, 2023
The govt dept is lying. All these numbers are readily available. John do track Paul Homewoodâs NOTALOTOFPEOPLEKNOWTHAT website. Recently showed that we will have paid ÂŁ138 BILLION in windmill subsidies by 2028. And check Matt Ridley in last weekâs Spectator. Devasting analysis of windmills. Do keep up.
January 6, 2023
Agree – Just look at those huge renewable subsidies …and local council can only afford to collect bins every two weeks and have to increase road parking charges etc, due to small deceits of ÂŁ20-50 million
This governments priorities are all wrong
January 6, 2023
you know about Wokingham, then!
January 6, 2023
Pickles was going to sort out bin collection once a week! Another failed promise.
January 6, 2023
Guy. Or Dr John Constable from the Renewable Energy Foundation who also gives out the numbers and exposes wind energy for what it really is.
January 6, 2023
That means through our electricity bills we subsidise/pay for 64 days of near non generation. How more useless can you get.
Government subsidy, tax payers money, never works and as for the answers to your questions! Another absolutely incompetent and useless department.
January 6, 2023
Not forgetting that all the time they are working there are fossil fuel generators operating on tickover to compensate for drops or too much increase in wind speeds How many days did wind and solar provide 100% of our energy requirements?
The whole wind power industry is a massive con and just a licence to print money.
Wait for the costs and environmental problems with decommissioning them, then the sticky smelly stuff will hit the fan.
January 6, 2023
‘A single wind turbine can contain up to 4.7 tons of copper’ https://www.copper.org/environment/sustainable-energy/renewables/
Where and how much earth do you have to dig up to make 4.7 tons of copper
January 6, 2023
There were no days when that happened. The maximum contribution was 64% and the minimum 3%. In fact there weren’t even induvidual low demand hours where that happened, because you can’t turn off nuclear and there has to be sufficient other capacity running to ensure grid stability.
January 6, 2023
The whole renewables sector is a scam. None of it is truly renewable. We are forced to pay for two systems because renewables are not reliable. Operating a two tier system is expensive and achieves nothing in CO2 reduction as gas stations have to be constantly ramped up and down. Those making wind turbines to all those landowners and inbetweenies to the forging owners are making a fortune and the poorest in society are being ripped off. The rare earth elements are in many cases being mined using child labour. Where are the human rights lawyers? No John, it’s about time these figures were brought to light so we can see just how corrupt the whole scam really is.
January 6, 2023
FES
Sounds a bit like running a hybrid car, you pay upfront for two sources of power, then can only use one for a short period, then the other source of power is needed to finish the journey, but because it is carrying the extra weight of out of charge batteries, it works less efficiently, than if it was the simple single source of power.
Perhaps many politicians need some maths lessons !
January 6, 2023
Why do we never hear the Greens and Environmental Organisations being called out or challanged when these organisation’s are poisoning the minds of pupils in schools and universities and legally challenging the new coal mining project?
January 6, 2023
… and when they don’t have any political mandate with only having one green MP
January 6, 2023
The answer to 112032 was evasive; the department could have given their forecast spend and the budgeted amount.
January 6, 2023
We need energy efficiency, yet Govt is inefficient.
January 6, 2023
But their answer is that they have to achieve the net-zero targets of the UN âŠand screw the people â Iâve no doubt that they believe theyâre doing a splendid job
January 6, 2023
Sir John, I trust you will re-table these questions in a few weeks so they CAN provide the figures for 2022.
Although, judging on past performance, they’ll still not answer your question since the results will be too embarrassing.
January 6, 2023
Sir John, has anyone costed the real value to the consumer of wind power. Hundreds of turbines in salt water must have a definitive life span. How much does each turbine cost to build, service and replace. I assume the carcasses are not recyclable. There must be a limit to the number we can install. Why do we continue to subsidise, will subsidies ever end.
January 6, 2023
Barrie Emmett :
Empirical analysis of wind turbine companies’ accounts show offshore wind to cost at least ÂŁ120/MWhr. But this cost does not include the costs of bringing the electricity onshore or the costs of intermittency which requires fossil fuel back-up if we do not want rolling blackouts.
Until Net Zero and ESG started to restrict gas exploration/drilling/fracking, followed by the war in Ukraine, the wholesale cost of electricity from gas generation was around ÂŁ50/MWhr.
The CEO of Rolls Royce quoted for their SMRs at a HoL Industry & Regulators Committee ÂŁ60/MWhr for CfD contracts and ÂŁ40/MWhr for RAB funding with deliveries to begin in the early 2030s.
Why Rolls Royce have as yet no contracts to supply the only affordable and reliable low carbon source of electricity existing is a mystery.
January 6, 2023
How dare you! Asking the Management(The Government) about how much of the taxpayers money is âgivenâ to outsiders predominately foreign and in a lot of cases foreign Governments to cover the costs of their own nationalised Industries in their home territory. The temerity of such an insulting question. We the Government spend you the taxpayer pays.
January 6, 2023
To bring it right out into the open time has to be allocated in the parliamentary diary for a complete debate on the decommissioning and environmentally safe disposal of all the various components of a wind farm installation from the bases to the blades and who is paying the enormous costs involved.
A law should be passed that it is the original builders, operators and land owners responsibility as companies have a habit of selling of their older sites to smaller companies which then operate them for maybe five years and then become insolvent when it comes to decommissioning. In that law there should be penalties if all the works are not completed within set time scales to protect those residents in the surrounding areas regarding heavy traffic and plant movement necessary for such a big operation.
January 6, 2023
Foreign owners not forging owners. Sorry.
January 6, 2023
perhaps you were right the first time?
January 6, 2023
There should be a guarantee of supply condition imposed on those companies permitted to connect to the Grid. Without that condition sharp business practice is encourage with intermittent suppliers being given an advantage over those who have to keep the lights on when ‘renewbles’ fail.
JF
January 6, 2023
Perhaps you should have asked the payments made for 2021. I wonder if they have finalised payments for that year, or are they still working it out.
January 6, 2023
the data will have been erased!
January 6, 2023
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy seem incapable of answering basic questions and would seem to have no interest in monitoring activities under their watch. Unfit for purpose seems a good description of that department. Meanwhile, consumers and taxpayers are fleeced in pursuit of a climate crisis scam designed to impoverish the many and enrich the few.
January 6, 2023
Its called contempt âŠcontempt for the people, democracy and our system of government
January 6, 2023
Unfortunately for the nation (and the national debt, which has more than doubled from ÂŁ1.2 trilion to ÂŁ2.4 trillion over the past 13 years) investment in more wind generation has been killed dead by Truss, Sunak and Kwarteng. They imposed a windfall tax on the fossil fuel industry, to be offset by tax breaks for investment. They have also imposed a windfall profits tax on the renewable generators – but without giving them the investment tax break. As a result of this moving of the goalposts, the renewable industry is now reviewing their investment plans for further renewable energy industry
January 6, 2023
Sakara. Lets hope they don’t erect anymore here and blight our landscapes and kill our wildlife and make people’s lives a misery while taking from the poorer in society and clearing off abroad with their gains.
January 6, 2023
Graham Stuart needs his arse kicking for accepting such verbal fog from his scribes and being so stupid as to publish it. He may as well have said , I have no control over this department, you ask them.
January 6, 2023
Put another way, you ask valid quesfions about wind and get back flatulance.
January 6, 2023
Oh Dear – and we are supposed to be cutting our emmissions too! đ
January 6, 2023
Oh dear! If it wasnât so serious weâd all be rolling around laughing at the insanity of it all!
Can you imagine how a conversation would go between the Two Ronnies in the pubâŠ
â I hear the government are thinking of doing away with gas and electricity⊠gonna use wind and solar instead.â
â But Britain isnât very windy or sunnyâŠwhy would they do that?â
âThey want to cut all carbon emissions. Sâokay, theyâll use gas or diesel generators to fuel them up when itâs not windy!â
âYeah, I thought you must be joking, want another pint?â
January 6, 2023
The fastest way to reduce the absolutely humungous subsidies currently being paid directly to the fossil fuel industry – which are going to rapidly bankrupt the nation – is to quickly build more onshore and offshore windfarms and new solar parks. These could be brought online in 2-3 years, unlike the 20years+ for your new fossil fuel developments in the N Sea
If we had another 10million EV’s being charged up overnight, thus storing the surplus wind farm energy, there would be no need for curtailment payments. However, Kwarteng scrapped all the incentives to buy EV’s and imposed a 20% VAT rate on public chargers, thus bringing the cost per mile to close of that for an ICE car
January 6, 2023
If the UK was becalmed with a blocking high pressure there would be no EVs charged up overnight.
January 6, 2023
I didn’t know fossil fuels were subsidised. I googled and it says ÂŁ13.6bn Since Paris climate accord in 2015.
Subsidies are tax breaks, or production subsidies in the form of direct payments.
And Consumption subsidies, energy price cuts for consumers.
17 Jan 2022 â The UK does not give any subsidies to fossil fuels, and follows the approach of the International Energy Agency, which defines fossil fuel subsidies as measures that reduce the effective price of fossil fuels below world market prices.
https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/oil-and-gas-industry-outside-interests/
January 6, 2023
You live in a fantasy world Sa.kara
January 6, 2023
How would you provide the electricity for your 10 million EVs? If you want to do it in wind then in fact you will create bigger surpluses and bigger deficits than we have now. Demand for recharging is going to be fairly even across the year judging from weekly petrol and diesel sales, but wind production is much more variable, and you will be scaling it up. Trying to use car batteries as storage is really not going to solve that. It will prove much less popular once people begin to discover the impact on battery life, so the volumes will be limited – not that they are large to begin with. If purpose built grid batteries don’t do the job car batteries won’t either.
January 6, 2023
Sakara Gold :
As you well know, the issue with wind and solar is that their supply of energy is not reliable but intermittent and non-fossil fuel grid-scale electricity storage is certainly uneconomic and perhaps even unachievable.
Before evs can be discharged overnight to support the grid there needs to be “excess” electricity available during the day and the time for owners to charge their vehicles – doh!
Would you be happy for your vehicle to have no charge in the morning BTW if the wind doesn’t start blowing in the night?
January 6, 2023
I note that today wind is again generating 50% of our electricity needs – about 15GW – and has generated over 45% of our needs every day this year. We have had NO power cuts this winter. We have, however, paid a direct subsidy to the fossil fuel industry approaching ÂŁ30 billion – and rising. If we had invested this sum in grid-sized energy storage schemes, we would be able to regenerate heavy industry in the UK with a massive competitive advantage over countries still dependent on the fossil fuel industry.
The N Sea windfarms have saved the nation from freezing to death this winter. FACT
Reply Nonsense. When we had a cold windless snap before Xmas wind power fell as low as 1% of total electricity so we just got through with max use of coal, gas and biomass
January 6, 2023
When we drove to Scotland via M6 and M74 last March 2,3,4 no arm-waving windmills turned, we joked about power cuts…..ha ha. That first evening in hotel just south of Glasgow we did indeed have a 2 hour powercut, no lights no restaurant food…I wrote about it on this blog!
January 6, 2023
Brave New World …introduced by the Tory party, and soon to be continued by the Labour party
January 6, 2023
What sort of grid-size energy storage systems did you have in mind? How much energy would they waste and what would they cost? Please do some homework and learn some physics. The best, most efficient and fairly cheap Grid size storage system is a pile of coal, a tank of diesel or a store of natural gas.
January 6, 2023
45% everyday this year? Ha, ha. If you mean this year we’re only on day 6. If you mean 2022 then what your saying is piffle.
January 6, 2023
Sakara Gold :
Total nonsense.
According to the BEIS Energy Brief 2022 wind provided 21% of our electricity over the year and we well know that it often provides next to zero power, especially when we have a really cold snap.
BEIS also shows the average energy produced by wind turbines to be only 30% of the installed capacity which means that a hydrogen based grid-scale storage system would require the installed capacity to be 8.5 times the required average power. A battery storage system would cost ÂŁtrillions even if sufficient minerals could be mined.
Wind turbines would not exist at all if Professor Dieter Helmâs suggestion that renewables contracts should guarantee a minimum power output. They only exist because of existing fossil fuel back-up systems.
January 6, 2023
We have paid no subsidies to fossil fuels. In fact, we have increased the taxes on them. Bill payers have had to be subsidised to pay those taxes.
We have of course had a number of power cuts, with compensation paid to those suffering them. It’s called Demand Side Response, and is only activated where shortages are foreseen. That is on top of rationing by price that has hit industry in particular very hard.
January 6, 2023
Donât understand why you need this information. Wind provided over 25% of our electricity last year, second only to gas. Obviously on the days it âdoesnât blow, that figure goes to zero so on good days the contribution must be considerably more. How high does it go?
And from that, what is the ultimate target and how many more turbines are needed and where. Is turbine technology at its max or can output now be improved. Do offshore or onshore contribute more per unit.
On shore turbines are eyesores and should be resisted. We need to ensure the politicians have asked all the questions because their record is not a good one.
Nightingale hospitals for Covid were announced with a great fanfare, unfortunately Matt Hancock didnât make certain someone had asked if the NHS had the staff to resource them.
The result. No they hadnât little used and 500 hundred million wasted.
January 6, 2023
Nig1 they had 750,000 volunteers to work at the Nightingales under medical supervision from St Johns Ambulance people to airline crews, recently retired medical staff under the Royal Voluntary Service.
January 6, 2023
Yeah but this Tory government isnât selling the virtues of wind-power as an auxiliary but the mainstay of our countryâs energy generation âŠhow can an intermittent power source ever provide certainty, cheap & reliable energy security
January 6, 2023
Oh how desperately sad that a simple question is not answered in a simple manner, with a simple answer, but instead look for yourself, here is the link for a clue.
All rather like many University courses now, here’s the internet link, look and learn yourself, Oh and do not forget to pay us ÂŁ9,000 (or more) a year for the privilege.
January 6, 2023
“This excludes net imports from interconnectors.” Does anyone else find this ambiguous?
January 6, 2023
In other words, without sun, wind and power from other countries we are going to sit in the dark and get cold.
Is that a problem?
January 6, 2023
It gives a misleading picture. Where we import it goes to help meet our demand, just as running another CCGT station does. Where we export it is meeting the demand of other countries, but we have to run additional capacity to meet that demand. Very clearly that has resulted in increased gas generation, and also it has allowed more wind that would otherwise be curtailed on windy days – but the sting in the tail is that is usually associated with low and even negative prices for exports, which are being subsidised by UK consumers.
January 6, 2023
John Redwood
@johnredwood
·
2h
“The media should explain the aims of the 20 House Republicans . They want to reverse all the undemocratic changes outgoing Speaker Pelosi made. She stopped individual Reps moving amendments, tabling confidence motions, removing spending items so they cannot do their job”
Quite right. The media have let us down as usual, including Farage on GB News who chaired a really shallow discussion on this last night. To the media it is just a jolly good joke.
January 6, 2023
This group is very much like the ERG in the Commons- donât care about the people, just look after our own and those who fund us. The very opposite of democracy- the joke is they are alienating their own side by voting against one of their own.
January 6, 2023
Far far too much of our money is wasted by spendthrift government. They act like four year olds do with their pocket money!
January 6, 2023
These are outrageously obscure responses from a Government Minister and Conservative colleague. I really do despair at the lack of transparency by Ministers at BEIS. Surely they are supposed to be serving the tax paying public.
January 6, 2023
Michael Saxton : “Surely they are supposed to be serving the tax paying public.”
No, they’re implementin their unilateral Net Zero Strategy to zero our 1% contribution to global emissions of CO2 in order to save all life on the planet from extinction.
January 6, 2023
A yesterday experience of the NHS at work solving a simple problem. A bite from a cat that didn’t want its nails cut at the Vets. Bite in finger turning visibly infectious and spreading. Patient allergic to penicillyn so needed an alternative.
Visit pharmacist for unconnected prescription, but she was shown the problem. Sympathetic but could do nothing but suggest visiting patient’s GP practice of about 15 doctors plus nurses next door. GPs receptionist told patient to visit a small injuries clinic ten miles by car away. Visited SIC and was dealt with swiftly and sympathetically by a nurse, confirming the need for a none penicillyn antibiotic which the clinic did not have. Nurse phoned GP at patient’s GP practise to request a prescription. Drive another ten miles home and within 30 minutes get a phone call from patient’s GP saying he had sent a prescription to patients local pharmacy for collection.
I do not make any complaint of the medical response, it was swift and friendly. They acted as anticipated. However it does illustrate what a grossly inefficient system the medics are forced to work within. My only medical experience is two years in mountain rescue sixty years ago. So I ask why cannot a highly educated pharmacist, who can give me a flu injection, not prescribe a drug at their discretion. Why cannot a GP practice overflowing with docters nurses and its own pharmacist take one look at a simple problem and deal with it. The waiting room was empty at the time. Why send the patient on a twenty mile journey to take up the time of a nurse in a SIC. only to come back to square one at the GP practice. I do not criticise the junior receptionist with no medical training and acting according to managerial instruction.
If you want to know where and how money is wasted in the NHS , multiply this experience by the number of day patients seen in 365 days. It is grotesquely lacking in productivity, but you will never get that by asking a question of a minister.
January 6, 2023
best solution, get rid of cat?
January 7, 2023
She is 22 years old and had a bad start in life in human cat terms, so we cut her a bit of slack. Index finger inflamation broke, now on the mend.
January 6, 2023
Proves my suspicions, they are very good at anti-dissemination but excellent at waffle?
January 6, 2023
Indeedy.
Less than 10 per cent of total generation is too low a figure but even that shows how flawed our energy production is.
The data shown in the link is typical of how statistics are used to hide the real picture. I didn’t see a way to get historical data, just the first week of 2023. The graphs used certainly make wind look good for this period.
It’s good that such data is available but it does require a thorough inspection by someone who knows all the terms to get an accurate assessment.
January 6, 2023
Obfuscation as usual with this govt. They don’t want us to know how we are ripped off. He should have undertaken to provide the figures when available, but of course he didn’t and won’t. The whole thing is a giant scam on the public, supported by your own government.
January 6, 2023
The energy wind generator is a load of hot air ; it cannot be relied upon as a continuing source – better to invest and explore hydrogen .
January 6, 2023
Or stick with coal, oil, gas and shale gas ….problem solved
January 6, 2023
Bert Young :
Hydrogen is not a source of energy. It has to be produced by other primary sources such as coal, oil, gas, nuclear, hydroelectric, geothermal or even wind and sunshine.
January 6, 2023
I think the answer to energy supply is from variable sources but also from tidal power, we have tidal streams right now running right around the coast high in energy going non stop 24/7 – all good clean energy that is a lot stronger during spring tides granted but running all the same. I fail to see why this this type of energy is not harnessed as a priority.
January 6, 2023
I guess you must have missed the times when I have explained here why tidal energy is in practice not practical (particularly because it is intermittent with big gaps with little to no output, even when you use all the major estuaries together, requiring 100% backup and very variable over the lunar monthly cycle) and expensive. That is why it has never been developed (and there are only a handful of small sites anywhere in the world), although the technology has been available for decades, going back to La Rance, which benefits from being in the neck of an estuary, with the financial case boosted by its role as a bridge between St Malo and Dinard.
January 6, 2023
I am staggered by the paucity of replies to your questions. More evidence that this government is just drifting along. In view of the importance of our energy supply, you would think any competent Minister would have all these numbers on their desk daily. Why is no MP asking the question why are we building two energy systems, one unreliable based on wind/solar, why not just focus on building one reliable one?
When will the government & media wake up to the fact that net zero is a scam? There are plenty of books published by highly qualified people proving that. Ten or fifteen years ago, you could accept it because it was hard to find information about it. Today no MP or decent journalist has any excuse for accepting & believing the nonsense of net zero.
January 6, 2023
The Renewable Energy Foundation seems to know how to dig out the figures better than BEIS. They are reporting total wind constraint payments in 2022 of ÂŁ227,048,475. That is not itself a record, because the wind farms that did not take up their CFDs are willing to bid more aggressively to get constraint income when balancing mechanism prices are low or negative. The total volume of constraints is a new record, eclipsing 2020 when demand was low, at almost 3.9TWh, or almost 6% of wind generation. That despite the increase in interconnector capacity, which has allowed much more export of surplus wind, often at low or even negative prices while being heavily subsidised by UK consumers. This is a major scandal, with subsidies of the full strike price of up to ÂŁ187.47/MWh on CFDs and over ÂŁ200/MWh for floating wind on ROCs for the benefit of other countries.
January 6, 2023
Do you have a link to the article with those points please? Many thanks.
Sir John, it appears that I was wrong to state that ditching constraint payments would lead to wind providers investing in storage, because apparently constraint payments are only compensation for lost subsidy, not lost payment for power, which is paid automatically anyway. It would still be a huge boon to the taxpayer/billpayer though.
January 7, 2023
The REF data on constraint volumes and payments can be found here
https://www.ref.org.uk/constraints/indextotals.php
Click on Year for the annual totals.
The current values of CFDs (except for the most recent AR4 round, which only shows 2012 base prices until it gets updated in March) can be found here
https://www.lowcarboncontracts.uk/cfd-register/
You can filter by strike prices over ÂŁ150 to find several wind farms at the price I quoted quickly. You need to read the detailed standard terms of CFD contracts to confirm that the whole strike price is paid out when reference prices dip to zero or below.
REF has data on ROCs for individual projects
https://www.ref.org.uk/ref-blog/370-offshore-wind-subsidies-per-mwh-generated-continue-to-rise
The final value of an ROC including recycle value can be found at OFGEM by adding the recycle value
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/renewables-obligation-late-payment-distribution-2021-2022
To the buyout price. Needless to say OFGEM obfuscate by not providing the details in one place.
January 6, 2023
The BEIS âUK ENERGY IN BRIEF 2022â gives the total energy supplied by wind (offshore and onshore) for 2021 as 65 TWhrs (P33).
With an installed capacity of 25GW, this means that the total energy supplied was 30% of the installed capacity, the 70% reduction through lack or wind or too much wind etc.. as National Grid always gives priority to renewables to minimise CO2 emissions.
If hydrogen is proposed as a store of energy using âexcessâ wind capacity through electrolysis -> hydrogen compression/storage -> electricity generation then as the overall efficiency of this process is only 31% it will be necessary to build 8.5 times the installed wind capacity for any given quantity of dispatchable power.
This is unaffordable which is why we are constantly fed false stories of catastrophic global warming to frighten us into accepting a life of meagre quantities of expensive and intermittent energy through rationing controlled by smart meters and the electrification of heating and transport.
January 6, 2023
Very good JR article in Telegraph.
âFalling public sector productivity is the real national crisis.â
Could/should have been written over 20 years ago.
Proliferation of desktop technology and management theory in the public sector, leading in turn to the creation of pointless non-jobs, pointless meetings, pointless emails and pointless projects. A vast amount of expenditure of time and money for no discernible net benefit to the taxpayer.
And now nothing works. How to destroy a nation!
January 6, 2023
Good questions, useless answers.
January 6, 2023
For biomass read imported wood chips from the USA as a substitute for coal in order to save the planet. Let’s not use obscurantism to hide Tory idiocy.
January 6, 2023
Correct
January 6, 2023
forthurst :
The one very good point about Drax converting from coal to wood pellets in order to save the planet was that it prevented the president of COP26 explosively demolishing it as he did the Ferrybridge Power Station in 2021 as seen in this official SSE video :
https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1429456184902393858/pu/vid/720×720/JwPnpycxEiyBmqVJ.mp4?tag=12
January 6, 2023
all the while chucking diesel marine engime fumes across the atlantic.
January 6, 2023
Industrial Strategy
They have never had one, period.
What are they being employed for?
January 6, 2023
Tory Industrial Strategy = fracking bad, fracking good, fracking bad, fracking good, fracking bad
January 6, 2023
At lunch time I put the TV on and went to make myself a cup of tea, I could still hear the BBC news interviewing Miliband, he was going on about the spend in the NHS and the UK growth, blah blah blah, just the same old meaningless rhetoric
âŠ.to my surprise, when I returned to my living room, its wasnât Miliband it was Sunak
January 6, 2023
I know what you mean, Glenn. As I listened to Sunak answering journalists’ questions, I wondered how it would look if some clever IT person managed to synchronise a video of Blair giving a speech, with the Sunak soundtrack superimposed. I fancied it would sound really authentic. Of course you’d have to synchronise the lip movements with the voiceover, but I gather there are smart people out there who could do that.
January 6, 2023
Sky News has a daily energy consumption by generation type display board. Wind generated energy varies between 2% and 50%. Therefore, the obvious question is: how good is our National Grid at storing and distributing electricity? Is there room for improvement?
January 6, 2023
Lindsay McDougall :
Economic grid-scale electricity storage does not exist which is why renewables are parasitic energy requiring a full back-up of fossil fuels/nuclear to even exist.
Both batteries and hydrogen are totally uneconomic and if the CCC/The Civil Service required contracts for renewables to guarantee a minimum supply of electrical power at all times, as suggested by Professor Dieter Helm in his âCost of Energy Reviewâ for BEIS in 2017, there wouldn’t have been a single wind or solar panel farm built.
January 6, 2023
Don’t know how any honourable soldier can admit to killing twenty five people just like that.. I ask yself was it necessary to write about this atvthis time, was it just as a filler for his book? I don’t know.. I personally just cannot see the point in talking about the killing of human beings like this.. irrespective ov yhe circumstances.. reminds me of how the Raj in India a hundred years ago must have behaved when they boasted about how many tigers they bagged. Something very wrong here.
January 6, 2023
Dehumanising the enemy is quite common, Jason, and was especially practised by the troops whose uniform that young man once dressed up in. At others’ instigation, or so he now claims. In the end he’s just saying he was a good soldier, he killed the enemy, and to do that let’s not forget he put himself in harm’s way for months at a time. Well, that’s what our soldiers are there for, so fair enough perhaps. But then we probably don’t need soldiers to write books as well.
January 6, 2023
I have never come across, nor heard of, another serviceman who talked about this. For very good reason.
January 6, 2023
We have view this business of wind energy from a European wide perspective ie. We have to understand that the wind will not be blowing everywhere the same so during light winds here we take energy from Spain or France or somewhere else. Likewise when gales are blowing in Britain we can export to the European grid. This way it’ll all balance out.
January 6, 2023
OK in theory, but what heppens when France, for example, decides they won’t pass on surplus power to UK, shutting down other generators instead? Who says ‘it ain’t fair, I’ll tell mummy!’
January 7, 2023
How can you be sure that somewhere else will have surplus energy to export to us if they are also relying heavily on wind and solar? The problem is that the same season affects the whole of Europe, and all too often so do the same weather patterns. Particularly cold blocking highs that can last for weeks at a time in winter, when solar is minimal and winds are slight. It is a myth that the wind is always blowing enough somewhere else. Try monitoring global weather maps of wind speeds for a while and you will see that for yourself.
January 7, 2023
A recent example of the global picture when windy areas were few and remote on land globally – Greenland and the steppes of Central Asia for example – or in the deep ocean, far beyond what would be feasible for offshore wind. Switch to temperature and you will see the massive extent of cold in the Northern hemisphere.
https://www.ventusky.com/?p=27;-105;0&l=wind-10m&t=20221210/0900
January 6, 2023
Sir JR
According to the OECD an average family in Slovenia is now better off than the average family in the UK.
This is a disgrace and a disaster and Brexit is part to blame.
January 6, 2023
No other country has gold plated net zero; no other EU country gold plated EU directives; no other developed country is putting up tax going into a needlessly manufactured recession.
In previous years it was the EU which held us back, destroying our fishing industry, damaging our farming, tearing up our orchards, disadvantaging our manufacturing or sending it to the accession countries; keeping our services out of the single market while trying to destroy the City; hobbling us with superfluous and often damaging or dangerous unscrutinised directives; driving down wages and conditions through sending us its surplus population, and driving up housing costs etc, while inhibiting investment and innovation. Overflowing our prisons too.
The EU did us no good at all and it is a tragedy that the political class won’t let us escape six years after voting to do so. The EU still has N Ireland, still has the fish and is still devastating our fishing grounds. We are still paying the EU; we are still fully aligned, to our continuing detriment; we have even signed up for their anti NATO army.
The excuse for all this self destructiveness on our part was that the EU kept the peace. Well, they are stirring up civil war in N Ireland as a punishment for our “leaving” and they have upset the balance of peace in Europe, exactly as Kissinger warned them not to do. Their overweening conquest of so much of Europe, which shows no sign of slowing up, was bound to alarm other countries which did not want to be conquered. So much for the Treaty of Lisbon, article 8, which saysthe EU must foster peace and prosperity on its borders.
January 8, 2023
Rose
I could of course write a counter arguments raised. But you are so persuaded about the ills of the EU there is no point.
But on NATO Jens Stoltenberg the EU initiative is good.
I believe you still have a lot to learn about the history of Europe and the EU
January 8, 2023
Rose,
The latest figures from CER shows a GDP of 5.5pt less due to Brexit and 11 PT less investments by second quarter 2022.
So, what have you got to say to that?
January 8, 2023
I say Net Zero, shutting down the country for the pandemic, in tandem with other countries having done the same, thus disrupting supply lines, putting up tax across the board, failing to get rid of the EU’s anti growth restrictions, creating double digit inflation, the sanctions against the Russians and the rest of the backwash from the war. There is no way you can even measure the effect of Brexit when it hasn’t properly taken place, let alone had time to fructify.
January 8, 2023
Rose
You have given no facts and proof from contradicting the facts that I have presented which have been confirmed by other sources like the BoE.
So I am afraid I will have to contradict your conclusion and you have presented nothing to contradict the conclusion.
January 7, 2023
Brexit is to blame, Bill? Would that be because of the net contributions we made to the EU budget, while Slovenia got a lot of support from EU funds, and so overtook us in standard-of living terms?
January 8, 2023
Bill B
You know just as well as I we are very good at creating our own problems
January 6, 2023
People wake up. JR and other MPs can spout platitudes but nothing will change until the whole system of our government is changed. We do not have a US Constitution which states …We the People…… Your government does not care about YOU. The Globalist WEF UK Establishment run the show and have done for many many, years and YOU are irrelevant regardless of which party is supposedly in office.
January 6, 2023
SirJ could you ask BEIS how much of taxpayers money theyâre spending on the âsmart-meterâ TV ads
Reply I have requested a pause in roll out to save ÂŁ1 bn a year overall
January 7, 2023
Readers may be interested to see this chart I produced showing daily averages of generation by source, interconnectors flows, demand, net imports and day ahead prices.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b3bc5303509f66a63714e9dc70cd5d6510fa10824390b7962c198d0f343bdbe9.png
Careful perusal reveals many of the features of relying on renewables – although the most extreme prices and supply balances for shortage and surplus are hidden by daily averages. Gas is seen to be essential for balancing wind and solar. It also provided most of the exported power for France. The major price spikes were driven by Gazprom shutting down Nordstream in August (the sabotage at the end of September only produced a brief and more muted spike), and by the cold spell Dunkelflaute in December which saw CCGT running at maximum, coal cranked up, and high bids for imports.
January 7, 2023
The Department appears to be fr more successful at providing wind than any generator.
January 8, 2023
Perhaps we should charge a minimum price for export electricity being the higher of a) market price, b) cost of production plus carbon taxes avoided c) average cfd guarantee’s.
This restriction should not apply within the Great Britain, ( NI having been surrendered to EU control).
This will encourage the incentive to build facilities. Being Hydro,battery, or energy stored in high/low temp materials or by other means. Grants should be made available to enable cable infrastructure at landing points close and or close to use.
This will also incent security of supply and the building of locally needed infrastructure in the UK and the EU.
This would also reduce the strategic defense threat to our power infrastructures. After all someone was blowing up gas pipelines.
Its appears almost that HMG government ( That is the permanent elite EU remainer controllers) must find paths to funnel UK cash into the EU.