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Chris Norbury, CEO of E.ON UK said: "Some of the modelling we have suggests that you could get to a position by 2030 where if the wholesale price was zero, bil

Chris Norbury, CEO of E.ON UK said: "Some of the modelling we have suggests that you could get to a position by 2030 where if the wholesale price was zero, bills would still be the same as where they are today because of the increase in non-commodity costs." Fixed costs are enormous and are increasingly driven by paying for the CFDs that back up the economics of wind. The CFD scheme allows wind producers to de-risk from market prices by locking in a fixed price with the government who then recover this from bills. So, yes you get to enjoy low variable costs when it's windy, but you pay for the priviledge year round. I do think that wind has a part to play in the UKs long term energy mix, but by this point I'm happy to call the current scale-up a complete false economy. Household and industrial electricity bills are double what they were in real terms 15 years ago.

youngtaff 6mo ago
> I do think that wind has a part to play in the UKs long term energy mix, but by this point I'm happy to call the current scale-up a complete false economy. Household and industrial electricity bills are double what they were in real terms 15 years ago. The CfDs set a floor price when there’s lots electricity being generated by renewables but they also contribute to bills when the market price is over the strike price Electricity bills are higher because we’ve had two fossils fuel shocks in the last 5 years and the costs for decarbonisation are added to electricity bills rather than gas ones
- gendal 6mo ago
  The amount wind farms in the UK have contributed back over the last ten years is a rounding error compared to how much they have received. It's not even close: https://x.com/7Kiwi/status/2031657347433603581 https://x.com/7Kiwi/status/2031657347433603581 And the scary thing: the wind farms aren't even making that much money! Some projects have been cancelled and others had to re-bid in subsequent auctions to get a higher CFD price than they originally received because they couldn't make the economics work. Worse, there are reasons to believe they're not even fully provisioning for their end-of-life decommissioning costs. The UK's energy policy is unbelievably destructive :(
  - youngtaff 6mo ago
    Where’s his methodology? How does he separate the CfD price from the market price that’s being set by renewables? Where’s his evidence that using gas would be cheaper than renewables?
    - gendal 6mo ago
      He explains on his website where he gets his data from. He gets it from The Low Carbon Contracts Company... y'know: the firm who is the actual counterparty to the CFDs and so should probably know the actual sums of cash being moved - and in which direction. His January article: https://davidturver.substack.com/p/record-january-cfd-subsidies-in-2026 https://davidturver.substack.com/p/record-january-cfd-subsid... LCCC's relevant data page: https://dp.lowcarboncontracts.uk/dataset/actual-cfd-generation-and-avoided-ghg-emissions https://dp.lowcarboncontracts.uk/dataset/actual-cfd-generati... The actual spreadsheet: https://dp.lowcarboncontracts.uk/dataset/8e8ca0d5-c774-4dc8-a079-347f1c180c0f/resource/5279a55d-4996-4b1e-ba07-f411d8fd31f0/download/actual_cfd_generation_and_avoided_ghg_emissions.csv https://dp.lowcarboncontracts.uk/dataset/8e8ca0d5-c774-4dc8-... And note: even when gas is more expensive than the CFDs, the huge fixed and/or policy costs (network build-out, capacity market, curtailment, etc) are devastating. The story would be completely different if wind farms were actually cheap to build and run... the problem is they're just not. I wish it were not so... it would be great if we had a path to being free of dependence on hydrocarbons. But in a battle between wishful thinking and physical and economic reality, reality usually wins. So we're faced with a choice as a nation: continue to pour tens of billions of pounds down this drain... or call time on the experiment and free up all that money for something productive?
      - youngtaff 6mo ago
        Thanks… I’ll have a read through though I’m highly skeptical of anyone who’s a member of Toby Young’s Free Speech Union… it says a lot about their political leanings
        gendal 6mo ago

youngtaff 6mo ago

> I do think that wind has a part to play in the UKs long term energy mix, but by this point I'm happy to call the current scale-up a complete false economy. Household and industrial electricity bills are double what they were in real terms 15 years ago. The CfDs set a floor price when there’s lots electricity being generated by renewables but they also contribute to bills when the market price is over the strike price Electricity bills are higher because we’ve had two fossils fuel shocks in the last 5 years and the costs for decarbonisation are added to electricity bills rather than gas ones

gendal 6mo ago
The amount wind farms in the UK have contributed back over the last ten years is a rounding error compared to how much they have received. It's not even close: https://x.com/7Kiwi/status/2031657347433603581 https://x.com/7Kiwi/status/2031657347433603581 And the scary thing: the wind farms aren't even making that much money! Some projects have been cancelled and others had to re-bid in subsequent auctions to get a higher CFD price than they originally received because they couldn't make the economics work. Worse, there are reasons to believe they're not even fully provisioning for their end-of-life decommissioning costs. The UK's energy policy is unbelievably destructive :(
- youngtaff 6mo ago
  Where’s his methodology? How does he separate the CfD price from the market price that’s being set by renewables? Where’s his evidence that using gas would be cheaper than renewables?
  - gendal 6mo ago
    He explains on his website where he gets his data from. He gets it from The Low Carbon Contracts Company... y'know: the firm who is the actual counterparty to the CFDs and so should probably know the actual sums of cash being moved - and in which direction. His January article: https://davidturver.substack.com/p/record-january-cfd-subsidies-in-2026 https://davidturver.substack.com/p/record-january-cfd-subsid... LCCC's relevant data page: https://dp.lowcarboncontracts.uk/dataset/actual-cfd-generation-and-avoided-ghg-emissions https://dp.lowcarboncontracts.uk/dataset/actual-cfd-generati... The actual spreadsheet: https://dp.lowcarboncontracts.uk/dataset/8e8ca0d5-c774-4dc8-a079-347f1c180c0f/resource/5279a55d-4996-4b1e-ba07-f411d8fd31f0/download/actual_cfd_generation_and_avoided_ghg_emissions.csv https://dp.lowcarboncontracts.uk/dataset/8e8ca0d5-c774-4dc8-... And note: even when gas is more expensive than the CFDs, the huge fixed and/or policy costs (network build-out, capacity market, curtailment, etc) are devastating. The story would be completely different if wind farms were actually cheap to build and run... the problem is they're just not. I wish it were not so... it would be great if we had a path to being free of dependence on hydrocarbons. But in a battle between wishful thinking and physical and economic reality, reality usually wins. So we're faced with a choice as a nation: continue to pour tens of billions of pounds down this drain... or call time on the experiment and free up all that money for something productive?
    - youngtaff 6mo ago
      Thanks… I’ll have a read through though I’m highly skeptical of anyone who’s a member of Toby Young’s Free Speech Union… it says a lot about their political leanings
      - gendal 6mo ago