Wind Turbine Scam On Steroids

There are times when the stupidity of Her Majesties Government exceeds even the realms of fantasy we normally expect from these buffoons.

Believe me, Monty Python has nothing on what I am about to tell you. Terry Pratchet could
imagine nothing so absurd.

When it comes avarice and greed, Arthur Daly would have blushed at such a scandalously lucrative con.

If I tell you that this involves the current wind turbine fiasco will probably also come as no surprise.

But believe me, my grubby little Englander, this is the wind turbine scam on steroids. If you thought the carpet baggers in the wind turbine cartel were already ripping us all off to the limit of endurance then get used to being screwed some more. (See Spectator Here)

So how does this scam work?

Basically it revolves around the utterly hopeless capability of these absurdly large structures to generate electricity.

If you forget about intermittency, a 125m tall standard 2.0 MW wind turbine actually acts like a piddling 0.5 MW generator (albeit an unreliable and unpredictable one). In other words in England it has a capacity factor (CF) of around 25%.

Most of the time though it is running at significantly less than 25% CF. It relies on occasional and highly unpredictable high wind events to big up the CF to 25%

Now if you reduce the maximum rating of the generator attached to the turbine to less than 2.0MW, but keep the same horrendously large structure, you increase the capacity factor. But you decrease the maximum output as you can no longer exploit the high wind events. So over a year the total amount of electricity generated will be less. Even though the CF has been increased.

And here comes the rub.

If you keep the preposterous size but reduce the generator rating to 0.5 MW your subisdy per MW/hr rises from about £50 to £125.

So whereas nuclear, coal or gas get paid about £45 per MW/hr and a standard 2.0 MW turbine gets paid £95 per MW/hr. A 2.0 MW size turbine crippled to max out at 0.5MW gets paid £175 per MW/hr.

Bear in mind MOST of the time this turbine will be outputting well under 0.5 MW irrespective of whether it has a 2.0 MW generator or a 0.5 MW generator.

It doesn't take a genius to work out that the carpet baggers will be raking in even more subsidy by  running these monsters inefficiently. They don't care about losing even over half of the annual output of the thing, they still get paid more by crippling it

Here is the punch line: Your government is encouraging this. They think this is a "good idea".

Well, all I can say is: What do you expect from a government led by someone who is such a  technical incompetent that he believes you can use windmills to power cars? (See Here)

Regards
Billo