{"id":402334,"date":"2025-09-15T17:09:37","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T15:09:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=402334"},"modified":"2025-09-15T17:09:40","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T15:09:40","slug":"ccc-cling-to-fake-beis-costings-to-justify-their-own-fake-carbon-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=402334","title":{"rendered":"CCC Cling To Fake BEIS Costings To Justify Their Own Fake Carbon\u00a0Budget."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Paul Homewood<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last month Claire Coutinho wrote to the new Chair of the CCC to complain that their costings for offshore wind power used in Carbon Budget 7 were woefully understated:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Topping has now replied with an object lesson in obfuscation, failing to address the issues raised. This is they key part of his response:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Text<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We have known for years that the LCOE costings produced by BEIS in 2023 were highly flawed where wind power was concerned. I won\u2019t go into detail, as it has already been well covered by Andrew Montford and others. Suffice to say, BEIS used impossibly optimistic assumptions about the capital costs and load factors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, they also assumed a 30-year life for offshore wind, with no loss of efficiency. Above all, they worked on a hurdle rate \u2013 i.e. Return on Capital \u2013 of 6.3%. Interest rates when the report was written were still rock bottom, as they had been since the 2008 crash. Since then, they have gradually returned to historic norms. The LCOE measures not just \u201ccosts\u201d but also finance costs\/profit margins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is simply no way that Orsted or anybody else could finance wind farms at 6.3% anymore. That is why they pulled out of Hornsea earlier this year, even with a current price of \u00a385\/MWh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a useful tool on the BEIS website, here,<\/a> in Annex B, which allows you to tweak the model. Their costing for offshore wind worked out at \u00a343.17\/MWh, at 2021 prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Increasing the hurdle rate to 10%, reducing life to 25 years and load factor from 64% to 45% increases that cost to \u00a379.54\/MWh \u2013 equivalent to \u00a3102\/MWh at today\u2019s prices. It is no coincidence that this is the sort of price AR7 will likely end up at.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Example<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Which all goes to show that you can make up pretty much whatever numbers you want! BEIS quite deliberately understated costs. In turn this has allowed successive Ministers and the CCC to gaslight the public and claim that renewables are cheaper than gas power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bottom line, of course, is that if the CCC\u2019s costings really are correct, why is Ed Miliband offering to pay wind farms twice that cost, which already includes their profit margin?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Miliband\u2019s plans go ahead, we will soon be paying for 200 TWh a year of offshore wind, meaning the CCC have understated the cost of Carbon Budget 7 by \u00a37 billion a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last month Claire Coutinho wrote to the new Chair of the CCC to complain that their costings for offshore wind power used in Carbon Budget 7 were woefully understated:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":402342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"Explore the flaws in CCC's offshore wind cost assumptions and their impact on future energy policies. Uncover the truth in this insightful article.","jetpack_seo_html_title":"Offshore Wind Costs: Exposing Flaws in CCC's Carbon Budget","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691837982,691822285,691823159,691831484,691818301,691820753],"class_list":{"0":"post-402334","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-carbon-budget-2","9":"tag-claire-coutinho","10":"tag-climate-change-committee-ccc","11":"tag-energy-secretary-ed-miliband","12":"tag-offshore-wind","13":"tag-orsted","15":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/AQMMGwgtz4oxPzExfw-qW-tWKKiYB7L18bLGTtpgd7Fb7JGRpzzTAAsfkS_k0giJg8a8pR1wUFBgea2fH_u4U3BWXO7TdpjD-seGribej2lrjHb-M6KT_zh_Tg04KW_fsxSlJG68wiFE6Ayb8FZLXAA3Q64iiQ-1.jpeg?fit=1280%2C1280&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1GFg","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":398991,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=398991","url_meta":{"origin":402334,"position":0},"title":"Coutinho Writes To\u00a0CCC","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"31\/08\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Just a pity she did not take the CCC to task when she was in power for doing exactly the same in their previous costings!","rel":"","context":"In \"Carbon Budget 7\"","block_context":{"text":"Carbon Budget 7","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=carbon-budget-7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/ChatGPT-Image-29.-Apr.-2025-19_45_35-1.png?fit=800%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/ChatGPT-Image-29.-Apr.-2025-19_45_35-1.png?fit=800%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/ChatGPT-Image-29.-Apr.-2025-19_45_35-1.png?fit=800%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/ChatGPT-Image-29.-Apr.-2025-19_45_35-1.png?fit=800%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":402292,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=402292","url_meta":{"origin":402334,"position":1},"title":"Climate Change Committee Doubles Down on Unrealistic Net Zero Costs Under New Chair","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"15\/09\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"The new chair of the CCC is now complicit in the Carbon Budget deceit","rel":"","context":"In \"Claire Coutinho\"","block_context":{"text":"Claire Coutinho","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=claire-coutinho"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-273.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-273.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-273.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-273.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-273.png?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":369282,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=369282","url_meta":{"origin":402334,"position":2},"title":"Carbon Budget Misinformation","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"10\/03\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"The Climate Change Committee (CCC) recently released the\u00a07th\u00a0Carbon Budget, setting out what the UK\u2019s greenhouse gas emissions have to be in the period 2038-2042. 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