From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t Ian Magness

Poor AEP’s head must be spinning. After years of condemning fossil fuels to the Net Zero bin, the chance of a global shortage has made him realise how much we need them!

From the Telegraph:

But, right now, we are halfway between the old and the new energy order. That leaves us in an uncomfortable position – neither molecule fish nor electron fowl – as Gulf War III hurls another oil and gas shock our way.

The UK has a chronic balance of payments deficit. It is leaking wealth on fuel imports at a pace of nearly 2pc of GDP a year, even in good times. The sane economic choice is to exploit everything we can from our one outstanding energy resource: the North Sea.

That means capturing the superb wind conditions on the Dogger Bank and the Hornsea cluster with a capacity factor reaching 50pc to 60pc. It also means extracting as much oil and gas as the free market will deliver from the remaining – highly depleted – hydrocarbon fields.

Full story here.

Thanks for the advice about North Sea oil, Ambrose. But a ten-year old could have told me that!

Actually I have no objection to anybody building wind farms in the North Sea, but don’t expect us to subsidise it. They should also have to pay an Intermittency Tax for every unit of electricity generated, to cover the system costs imposed by their intermittency.

But he still does not get it!

He talks about “50% to 60% capacity factor”, as if this has any meaning where a wind farm is concerned. He gives the impression this is regular power, in the same way that a CCGT plant might produce at 85% capacity over the year.

If we take his example of Hornsea, the monthly load percentage from Phase 1 regularly fluctuates from the 20s to the 70s:

Daily variations are, inevitably, much more acute, ranging from virtually nothing to 99% of capacity.

Phase 1 of Hornsea 1, with capacity of 400 MW and 9600 MWh a day, has generated less than 1000 MWh a day for 15% of the time since it became operational. For a third of the time, it runs at less than a third of capacity.

Low Carbon Contracts Company

What does AEP suggest we do when the wind does not blow?