Reports in newspapers this week revealed that Britain’s domestic production of energy has reached a new record low. The news comes from trade group, Offshore Energies U.K. (OEUK), whose analysis, far from unexpected, details the pressures on investment in conventional energy production, such as the windfall tax on oil and gas companies. Since the turn of the century, U.K. production of energy has fallen by two thirds, whereas consumption has fallen by a third. The difference has been met by an increased dependence on imports. Yet neither the report itself, which is at best agnostic about renewables, nor the stories that cover it, seem to have taken seriously the harm that Net Zero and adjacent agendas have done to our industries, businesses and economy – and are set to do worse.
The U.K. ceased being a net energy exporter in 2004, amid a flurry of green policymaking, culminating in the Climate Change Act 2008, and its increased ‘Net Zero’ target adopted in 2019. Over the duration, coal-fired power stations were demolished, but not replaced with equivalent (i.e. reliable) generating capacity, shale gas exploration was abolished before it had even started. Energy investors in the U.K. and across the continent, lured to attractive guaranteed profits by subsidy regimes, and dissuaded from conventional energy by rising costs of capital, lost interest in oil and gas. Despite promises of ‘green jobs’, a ‘green industrial revolution’ and ‘green economic growth’ and lower prices being the constant chorus of energy ministers of all governments and their so-called ‘opposition’ counterparts, domestic energy prices tripled. So if these new data on Britain’s energy production do not prove the expensive and dangerous folly of more than two decades of U.K. climate policy, what could?
It is as if the entire political establishment had at once decided to forget that there exists a relationship between scarcity and price. Yet, the effect of abolishing coal is just that: it creates scarcity. So too, do policies that either restrict the exploration of oil and gas, or increase the cost of capital, create scarcity. Politicians, lobbied by green billionaires’ ersatz ‘civil society’ organisations who pump false claims into the public sphere, then claim that the problem all along was ‘dependence’ on oil and gas. Green energy will lower prices and diminish the power of dictators, who turn energy into a ‘weapon’ that terrorises Europe, they claim. So successful are they in their policymaking that, since 2019, the Government has capped energy prices – a policy they stole from Ed Miliband in 2017, before taking us into Net Zero. If ‘green’ means anything at all, it means acute cognitive dissonance.
At stake, argues the OEUK report, is immense value that could be unleashed from the North Sea. But investment is being held back by policies, “having big impacts on the profitability of U.K. offshore energy”’ worth one trillion pounds of exports and £450 billion domestically “within the next 15 years”. However, though the bulk of that potential lies in oil and gas, the report includes in its analysis, wind power, CCS and hydrogen. Even oil and gas executives, it seems, have swallowed the green Kool-Aid. And that is a missed opportunity to reflect on the failures of the green agenda, as well as a disappointing failure of an industry to properly stick up for itself, and to defend industry in principle.
And it needs defending. The fig leaf that has concealed Britain’s shameful industrial decline, and blinding politicians to reality in recent years has been the notion that green policies have successfully caused GDP growth to ‘decouple’ from fossil fuel use. However, this conceit requires us to believe, in turn, that the 79% increase in GDP that coincided with the halving of emissions over the same period was not driven by funny money, tricksy policies and analytical sleights of hand, and that the deindustrialisation underpinning it has left us better off. Does anybody, other than green energy hustlers, actually feel better off? Who? How?! What better position can we claim to be in, now that we know that we produce less and import more at a higher price? How much of that ‘growth’ is just higher prices?
The embrace of green economics, at the expense of established economic orthodoxy, leads to regressive disdain for industry. It seems not to have bothered many that we are less capable of producing things and sustaining ourselves – an issue which would have once sent a modern government into a tailspin. It is as if using less energy was a ‘good thing’ in itself, not a reflection of rising prices and stagnant (or worse) productivity. As if to make my point for me, following OEUK’s report, the half-truthfully named Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and the obedient press put a different spin on the matter. “The U.K. recorded the highest ever share of electricity generation by renewables last year”, declared the Standard.
As greens rejoice our production of less for more, U.K. energy market regulator, Ofgem, announced its “discussion on the future of the price cap”, which is “so customers remain protected as the energy market evolves to a smarter, more flexible system”. Why would customers need ‘protection’ from a ‘smarter, more flexible system’? It is, of course, doublespeak. The ‘dynamic price cap’ is time-of-day pricing, more honestly known as rationing. And ‘flexibility’ means using prices to force customers to organise their lives around the ‘smarter’ system, rather than the energy market meeting people’s needs. And it is made necessary by the scarcity created by green energy policy and green ideology.
It would be all for the better if regulators, industry associations and, of course, politicians simply admitted that they have made a catastrophic mess of the very industries that were pioneered in this country. Putting green political ambitions before any other practical consideration has made us poorer, and is going to create a problem far worse than climate change.
Subscribe to Ben Pile’s The Net Zero Scandal Substack here.
While electrical data centers and clean technology facilities have increased rapidly within the United States, it appears the country is still running short on time to find a solution to its decreasing power grid, according to a new report.
Multiple states across the U.S. have now set off alarms due to concerns as their industrial power struggles to keep up with demands, according to The Washington Post. In Georgia, the anticipated electricity usage over the next decade is expected to surge to 17 times its recent levels, reaching an all-time high demand. The largest utility in Arizona has also projected that by the end of the decade, its transmission capacity will be exceeded if major upgrades are not performed, the outlet reported.
“When you look at the numbers, it is staggering,” chairman of the Georgia Public Service Commission Jason Shaw told the outlet. “It makes you scratch your head and wonder how we ended up in this situation. How were the projections that far off? This has created a challenge like we have never seen before.”
While clean energy appears to be at odds with the power grid, the Biden Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has implemented strict regulations that have significantly shaped the country’s power grid. The EPA previously attempted to propose a requirement that would have required existing coal-fired power plants to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2024. Additionally, new and existing natural gas power plants would be required to make cuts to their greenhouse gas emissions depending on their size and usage.
However, the EPA recently adjusted their proposal in order to decrease their scope, as several officials previously warned President Joe Biden that the aggressive regulations had serious practical and legal flaws. Concerns regarding the suggested plans questioned the regulations to natural gas power plants that would mandate expensive technologies such as carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) and blended hydrogen.
Many have issued warnings to the Biden Administration regarding its intense push to transition the electrical grid to complete clean energy. Last June, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Commissioner Mark Christie spoke to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce about the consequences America’s power grid could face if the U.S. continued to phase out fossil fuel infrastructure
“I think we’re heading for potentially very dire consequences, potentially catastrophic consequences in the United States in terms of the reliability of our grid, and I think that the basic reason is that we’re facing a shortfall of power supply,” Christie stated.
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Energinet is the Danish national transmission system operator for electricity and natural gas. It is tasked with ensuring the efficient operation and development of the Danish electricity and gas infrastructure, and therefore may loosely be compared with National Grid ESO and National Gas in the UK. Energinet’s Annual Magazine for 2023 (a very slick and glossy production) is now available online and it makes interesting, albeit rather alarming, reading.
Of course, the object of the magazine is to reassure readers that their energy system is in safe hands, that everything is under control, and that they are marching hand in hand towards the sunlit (and – if they are lucky -windy) uplands of a future gloriously, efficiently, and carbon neutrally powered by renewable energy. At the end of the back page of the publication, it sets out what the ambition is, in language that is very reminiscent of that used by the authorities in the UK (who also seem to believe that mutually contradictory objectives can be achieved together):
We are working towards a green transition of the energy systems, so that citizens and businesses can use renewable energy for everything, with a high level of security of supply and at an affordable price.
The reality, as set out in the magazine, offers a disturbing view of the future awaiting what are (for now) developed countries if the net zero nightmare comes to pass. The irony, of course, is that the magazine is intended to send out a positive message, yet one doesn’t even have to read between the lines (the lines themselves tell us) to be very nervous about what is heading our way. Let’s take a look at what it has to say, utilising the headings adopted within the magazine.
Energy Crisis
If all was going well, there really shouldn’t be an energy crisis, but there is. And we’re told that it’s not over yet. There is also an admission that the energy crisis had taken hold in Europe before (my emphasis) Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Low stocks in gas storage facilities, French nuclear reactors off-line, and low water levels (both in reservoirs, and for cooling power stations) combined to create a perfect storm when the problem of major cutbacks in imports of Russian gas was added to the mix. Concerns that power cuts might have been necessary last winter (2022/23) were – in the end – not justified, because the weather Gods saved the day for renewables: it was mild, windy and wet. Also LNG has been imported in large quantities. Also consumers used much less gas and electricity in Denmark. One can’t help wondering if Danes ended up being colder last winter as a result, and whether Danish industry’s output plummeted, given that trade and industry and small businesses used much less gas and also less electricity than in the same period a year earlier. Energinet’s Vice-President might or might not have intended the pun when he said:
We are [now] in a more solid position, but there is still uncertainty: how much water will there be in the Nordic hydroelectric power stations? how windy will it be? and how long and cold will the winter be? We are sailing closer to the wind in our energy systems in Europe. We therefore continue to watch the electricity and gas supply closely.
What if?
Those words (that one might not expect to see in the magazine of an organisation dedicated to “a high level of security of supply”) appear on page 7. We learn that a country that has “taken the ready supply of electricity and gas for granted for many years” is now “more aware of terms like ‘brown out’ and ‘non-protected customers’”.
We are told that the option has always existed to shut down consumption in the event of serious problems. Traditionally, that might have meant something like a pipeline being cut during excavation work or high-voltage pylons being blown down by a hurricane. This has never happened to date. But now the risk of a supply crisis has increased, and the potential lack of supply isn’t going to be because of an excavator or a storm. Tables are helpfully supplied to explain what the nature of the supply crisis might be and what actions would then be taken. In the case of electricity, a week-long problem might result “[i]f very cold and windless weather is forecast for the coming days, and there is a risk of insufficient electricity generation.” In that case “[t]he Danish Energy Agency and Energinet will inform Danes of the higher risk of controlled power outages. Danes will be urged to save energy.” Shorter outages are anticipated, in which case 10 – 20% of customers might be cut off for a time (a maximum of two hours, we are told). After two hours, customers will be re-connected, and other customers will be cut off. The rolling brown out will continue until electricity generation can again meet electricity consumption.
Hydrogen exports can support green transition
You’ve just got to love optimists. Or have you? Personally, when it comes to messing around with reliable energy generation, I find them to be very worrying. Does this sort of thing sound familiar?
It will take a lot of solar cells and wind turbines to meet Denmark’s total electricity consumption using green power. Eventually, this will mean that we have more renewable energy than we can use directly at times. Electricity and hydrogen will therefore become close allies, because the green power can be converted into hydrogen, which can be exported.
Denmark is well underway with the green transition. The goal is a future with 100% green electricity flowing in the grid, and if Denmark exploits its great renewable energy potential to reach this goal, we will end up with a lot of wind turbines and solar cells.
They don’t seem to have much need for hydrogen themselves (or perhaps they recognise the problems associated with its use) and so they are keen on “hydrogen motorways”, which are allegedly “coming soon”:
At European level, Energinet and 30 other energy infrastructure operators from 28 countries are looking at the possibility of building a ‘European Hydrogen Backbone’. The initiative could encompass 53,000 kilometres of hydrogen pipes in Europe by 2040. Over 60 per cent will be based on existing gas pipelines being converted to hydrogen.
They reckon that Germany needs hydrogen, and it’s obvious that they hope to make money from this.
Countries like the Netherlands and Germany are obvious potential export markets. Denmark is a small country with large territorial waters, and the Danish North Sea region is shallow – an ideal place to erect wind turbines. Germany does not have the same opportunities to produce plentiful wind power, but with more than 80 million inhabitants, it has a greater need for hydrogen in industry than we do.
They say that “this is from a source – wind – that does not run out”. Obviously they haven’t heard of wind droughts, such as the one that caused such problems in 2021.
Energy Figures 2022
In Denmark, they say, electricity produced by solar and wind increased from 40% in 2015 to 59.6% in 2022. They claim that “[i]n 2030, 100% of our electricity consumption is expected to be met by solar and wind power.” Maybe they have a better plan than I can see, but basic numbers don’t seem to add up. In seven years they have increased the proportion by less than 20%, but in the following seven years they expect to double that proportion to 40% – and in the face of what will inevitably be rising demand for electricity, as they adopt the same net zero madness that the UK is following. It’s a short section, and they don’t explain how this is to be achieved.
On 4th February 2021 the Guardian reported on plans by Denmark to build a “clean energy hub” by building a new artificial island 50 miles offshore in the North Sea. The island is to be the size of 18 football pitches…
…Apparently this sort of thing is “green”. Nowhere does the article discuss the possible environmental problems that might be associated with this plan. The article contains only the briefest reference, near the end, to the need to carry out environmental impact assessments on the sea bed…
And then I compared the enthusiasm for such environmental degradation with criticism of similar, but non-”green” projects, elsewhere:
…in 2009, the greenprophet website complained that Dubai’s artificial islands project was causing environmental damage. As recently as March 2019, the Guardian reported in critical terms on the Hong Kong government’s plans to build one of the world’s largest artificial islands, discussing claims that the island could damage the environment and marine life. In 2016 the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague, as well as rejecting China’s sovereignty claims in the South China Sea, ruled that China’s building of artificial islands there had caused environmental damage.
But you’ll look in vain for environmental criticism of any artificial islands constructed for the purposes of supplying “renewable” energy. The BBC’s article on the subject of Denmark’s “energy island”, published on its website on 4th February 2021 made no mention of possible environmental issues, and (like the Guardian) is gushing in its general tone. The Euronews online article (which invited me to sign up for its green newsletter) was similar in tone and content. The same is true of Forbes, DW (Deutsche Welle), the Independent, and pretty much any news website that has reported on the story.
Certainly the Energinet magazine has no environmental doubts. It talks breathlessly of these “enormous constructions” and refers in awestruck terms to “the spectacular feat it will be to build artificial islands hundreds of kilometres from shore”:
The energy islands in Denmark will be an artificial island 100 kilometres off the west coast of Jutland in the North Sea, and Bornholm in the middle of the Baltic Sea. From the early 2030s, these will together collect 6 GW of offshore wind power and connect Denmark with Germany and Belgium via new interconnections. The energy island in the North Sea will later be expanded to at least 10 GW. On Bornholm, Energinet, the Technical University of Denmark, the Municipality of Bornholm and several other parties have joined forces in Baltic Energy Island – an international meeting place for the development of energy islands and green energy.
All this is necessary, in part at least, because of the difficulty of harnessing offshore wind on a large scale:
…the task is to create a power grid at sea that is meshed, and thus flexibly connects production and consumption, just like the power grid on land. But when you connect wind turbines and the power grids of several countries, the power must flow as direct current over very large distances, before connecting to the power grid in a given country using a converter station…
…Direct current does not produce reactive power in cables, and can therefore be transported over very long distances without significant energy losses. The meshed power grid at sea therefore needs to be made of DC cables, but these present other challenges. Put very simply, the challenges with direct current can be reduced to two things: An offshore DC grid will require highly complicated control systems, and it is far more difficult to decouple direct current at high voltage levels than it is to decouple alternating current…
…“The challenge with direct current is that the current never drops to zero, so if you try to cut off the current, an arc or spark will result, and burn at several thousand degrees. We do not have materials that can withstand this, so there is a risk of explosion and hazard to the surroundings and security of supply.” A set of contacts that can decouple direct current at a very high voltage level – a DC circuit breaker – is not currently in operation anywhere in Europe. They are being developed, and some manufacturers are taking orders. But it is immature technology, even though some are in operation in China. As the offshore DC grid grows larger, DC circuit breakers will become vitally important. Without them, it will not be possible to isolate faults in parts of the grid from the rest of the grid, and the system therefore cannot be operated safely.
I am not an engineer, and I can see that they are all too aware of the difficulties. But are they putting the cart before the horse? And of course they wouldn’t have these difficulties if they weren’t so obsessed with “decarbonisation”.
A Huge Task to Ensure Energy in Time
Here I will offer up a few quotes from the magazine under this heading, demonstrating the gargantuan scale of this folly:
Energinet is expanding the electricity grid all over Denmark. 3300 km of new electricity connections are in the pipeline. Excavators are already digging in places, and soon to start in others. Seventy high-voltage substations will be either expanded or newly built, so that new solar cell farms, wind turbines and large electricity consumers, such as hydrogen plants, can be connected. There is activity everywhere. But this is just the beginning. Much more will be coming in the years ahead. Between 2023 and 2026, we will invest DKK 41 billion in the electricity transmission system. In many ways, the future will turn the whole power system upside down. Power will be generated in parts of Denmark that lack both the local consumption to use it and power connections with enough capacity to transmit it elsewhere. Electricity generation and consumption will also be multiplied, as we acquire electric vehicles and heat pumps, and need green electricity for things like green fuels for planes, ships and industry. In order to meet the Folketing’s ambitious 2030 goal, all parts of society will have to pull together in the right direction, and quickly…
We are building ahead and expanding the electricity grid. In North Jutland, two new 1100 MW high-voltage substations are on the way, even though ‘only’ 700 MW and 850 MW of solar cell projects are currently planned around these…
We have outsourced projects with a total cost of DKK 10 billion to companies that will supply turnkey power lines and high-voltage substations…
There is a large increase in electricity generation facilities (typically solar cells and large consumers) seeking connection to the electricity transmission grid: 2020: 10 plants, 2021: 25 plants, 2022: 47 plants…
Due to the dramatic acceleration in the expansion of green energy towards 2030, we are bringing forward projects in the long-term development plan. Many of the plants that quite recent analyses predicted had to be ready by 2040, must now be ready by 2030. Plans are in place for the future power grid, but they are being executed more quickly…
Solar cell farms with as much capacity as a large power station, and new electricity consumers that will double Denmark’s electricity consumption. Enormous amounts of consumption and generation are to be added to the electricity transmission grid: 2020: 1.8 GW (1.6 GW generation, 0.2 GW consumption), 2021: 7 GW (3.7 GW generation, 3.3 GW consumption), 2022: 9.1 GW (6.7 GW generation, 2.4 GW consumption). For comparison: Denmark’s maximum consumption in 2022: 6.4 GW.
Electricity generation will be multiplied and will often fluctuate as the wind blows, and consumption will grow markedly. This will create much larger imbalances. Secure supply requires balance between production and consumption. We are therefore looking for new, flexible market participants – from electric vehicle owners to large hydrogen factories – who can provide the reserve power and ancillary services for the future power system.
New Plants Boost Danish Biogas
Money and practicality are no object, it seems. Seven new plants, at a total cost of around DKK 773 million, will allow Denmark to establish what they call “a completely green gas system” at “record pace” in the coming years. This involves “turning the entire gas system upside down” (their words, not mine). Apparently they have to do this because the plan is that “in just a few years” biogas has to completely replace natural gas in the Danish system. I love this paragraph:
Until the new plants come online in 2024-2026, Energinet and Evida – the public enterprise responsible for the Danish gas distribution grid – are working on temporary solutions to prevent excess gas arising in local biogas pockets in the short term, which could have to be flared.
It’s one problem after another:
Locally produced biogas not only needs to be raised to higher pressure in order to move from the gas distribution grids into the gas transmission grid. It is also necessary to remove the odorant that is added before the gas reaches consumers. The gas itself is odourless, and the odorant enables consumers to detect gas leaks. Odorant is currently added when natural gas moves from the transmission grid into the local distribution networks, or at the biogas plants. When gas from the distribution systems is to be injected into the transmission system, the odorant must be filtered out, as it might otherwise cause problems.
The Danish gas system is directly connected to Poland and Germany, which do not want odorant in the transmission systems, as it can affect valves, measuring equipment and gas storage facilities. It is therefore necessary to remove the odorant when gas from the local gas distribution systems is fed into the gas transmission system, for export reasons also.
There are other problems too…
The Green Power System’s Enormous Challenge: How Do We Maintain Balance?
If the above isn’t enough to make one a little bit sceptical, I think this is the point where it’s reasonable to question the sanity of those who comprise western Europe’s establishment, and who are imposing the whole “net zero” project on us without much, if any, meaningful discussion of the implications, and certainly without allowing anything so inconvenient as a democratic vote on it.
I couldn’t express the problem any more clearly than the way it is set out in the opening paragraph of the article under the above heading in the Energinet magazine:
The green transition, green energy and green hydrogen production all sound so good. But the green transition also entails the huge and potentially expensive challenge of balancing the future power grid. Because as we get more electricity from fluctuating sources such as wind and solar power, it may be necessary to purchase lots of reserve power and flexibility.
Specifically:
The employees involved in balancing the electricity system work each day to solve one of the most difficult aspects of the green transition: The fact that green energy is more unstable, with a risk of many large imbalances.
The relationship between power generation and consumption is constantly under threat from imbalances and potential technical faults, that could result in grid outages. In these situations, the purchased reserves (ancillary services) are activated – in a few seconds or a few minutes – to make adjustments, up or down, and restore balance in the gird.
Ancillary services can take the form of reserve capacity that is constantly available, eg from large batteries – or a power station that is standing by to supply more energy.
This whole balancing act is difficult enough already. But it will become even more challenging in just a few years when the power system is to run purely on renewable energy:
“From a balancing perspective, having fewer thermal power stations involved makes things difficult, because they are good at providing ancillary services. They are easy to ramp up and down. At the same time as we are losing some of the traditional providers, we have to buy more because the need is increasing. This is because electrification means generally higher electricity consumption, and because our energy sources will fluctuate more, creating more and larger imbalances,” says Kia Marie Jerichau.
She also mentions the obvious challenge in a system based on a lot of wind and solar energy: What happens when there is no wind or sunshine? Who is going to be standing by as reserve and balance the system?
Good question. Indeed, these are the points that we sceptics have been making for years. Until now I thought that nobody had been paying any attention. And as we frequently point out, not only is the technological challenge immense (and perhaps impossible), it’s also hugely expensive:
All this means that even more ancillary services may have to be purchased. Many more. And that could be expensive. Or rather – even more expensive than today. Because the cost of ancillary services in Denmark has already almost doubled in just one year, from DKK 1.4 billion in 2021 to DKK 2.7 billion in 2022.
New Technology in Old Power Systems Can Help Balance the Power System
Apparently, a new energy storage technology, whereby heat from green electricity is stored in molten salt, can also provide ancillary services as a side benefit:
“We exploit the fact that we can use electricity to heat salt to very high temperatures, thereby storing energy. When the need arises, we can extract the energy and use it to drive a steam turbine – the classic method for generating electricity in CHP plants,” explains Nis Benn, Commercial Director at Hyme Energy.
Or we could just use the old technology…
The New Energy System Calls For New Payment Model
A new green energy system will cost a lot of money, but can become needlessly expensive and inefficient if we fail to ensure that the changes are accompanied by new frameworks and conditions, which make it attractive to electricity consumers and producers alike to give the green transition a helping hand. And which lead to a fair distribution of the costs of operating and expanding the power grid.
Hmm. Sounds a bit like all the claptrap endlessly parroted in the UK about a “just transition” that never seems to materialise. It seems that flexibility is the key – obviously a euphemism for forcing consumers to consume when power is avaliable, but not when it isn’t. Even if it isn’t available when consumers would otherwise prefer it to be. And so power will be cheaper when it’s available but possibly not much wanted, and more expensive when there’s not much of it available, but lots of people would like to use it. Or, in management-speak, since the new shiny energy system is inadequately flexible, consumers will have to be flexible (or malleable) instead, and it may cost them quite a lot of money if they’re not prepared to use energy only when it’s abundant:
The tariffs date from a time when power generation could be quickly adjusted to match consumer demand. They do not take into account whether consumers use electricity when the grid is under least load, or how much available capacity they want. We are moving rapidly towards a power system where electricity generation depends on wind and solar power, and is thus much less flexible. Consumption therefore has to be flexible instead. We have therefore decided to change the way we set tariffs.
Imagine
I’d like to imagine a world where common sense was once more in vogue. However, that’s not what the Energinet magazine invites us to imagine. Instead we have to:
Imagine a digital platform that connects the electricity and gas motorways in a single Danish energy system, and makes it possible to control and transport energy from all offshore wind farms, gas storage facilities, international connections, power stations, solar cells, biogas plants and onshore wind turbines. Picture Denmark’s control centres for electricity and gas, which draw on all this data every minute, in combination with weather forecasts for solar and wind power and international market predictions for electricity and gas consumption. And consider also the rising cyber threat from hackers around the world. If you picture all these elements, you will have a general idea of the task Energinet has began to undertake at a fast pace, in one of its largest IT investments to date.
I touched on all this from the UK point of view in Fingers in the Pie.As in the UK, so it is in Denmark (and vice versa):
We have to be able to transmit and share an unprecedented amount of data, because the future green energy system will be made up of far more units than today, which supply or draw on the system. The increasing complexity of the energy supply also demands intelligent and automated control in our control centres. In other words, everything has to communicate if we are to ensure a stable energy supply in Denmark in the future…
…The recent war and supply chain crisis in Europe has shown us, more than ever before, that energy supply is a critical nerve in society, which can unfortunately also become a target. An extremely high level of security is therefore essential for supply-critical data and IT systems.
Conclusion
Not surprisingly the good folks at Energinet are very pleased with all the hard work they are doing to try to ensure that Denmark has a functioning energy system, despite the rather…shall we say… mad demands of their political masters. Because they are at the sharp end, they are painfully aware of the costs and problems involved in the “transition”, and they set them out very fully in their magazine. I suppose they have no choice other than to say that they are a challenge that can be met, and that all the many problems can be solved. Also that it’s essential to do all this.
Standing on the outside looking in, I am far from convinced.Indeed, from here it looks like a kind of madness; regrettably, a kind of madness that is also being pursued by the UK establishment. Meanwhile, much of the rest of the world looks on in a mixture of bemusement and delight.
Germany’s Blackout News here reports on how Germany’s move into renewable energies has gone from “a boom to crisis”.
The policies of (worst ever) Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Green Party) are leading the German economy to disaster. Photo: public domain.
It wasn’t long ago, when interest rates and inflation were low, and the economy and the business of renewable energies in Germany were booming.
But now, Blackout News reports how “the outlook for the renewable energy sector has deteriorated drastically” and affordable raw materials have become hard to get. Manufacturers are now reeling. “The renewable energy sector is facing the abyss” and is “on the brink.”
“The S&P Global Clean Energy Index, which monitors the performance of the sector, has fallen by 32% in the last 12 months, while the global stock markets have risen by 11%,” writes Blackout News. “These losses on the stock market not only affect the companies themselves, but also the investors and shareholders who have invested in renewable energies.”
Blackout News also reports how the German economy in general, the biggest in Europe, is crumbling at its foundation. For example, construction equipment manufacturer Liebherr “is putting 1000 employees on short-time working for 9 months.”
Also Stiehl, Gardena and Hansgrohe, are “opting for short-time working and job cuts.”
Other famous German companies planning cuts include textile group Groz-Beckert in Albstadt-Ebingen, and chainsaw manufacturer Stihl,
“Rising inflation and the construction crisis are two of the main reasons for the current economic uncertainty. Rising inflation is putting a strain on households,” reports Blackout News.
The major driver of inflation and all the German economic misery? The rising cost of energy caused by the government’s incompetent energy policies.
Global delegates heading to the annual United Nations climate change summit are circulating a letter calling for the U.S. and other Western nations to immediately ban new natural gas infrastructure projects.
According to the letter obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital, Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., is among the lead architects of the effort in addition to Lisa Badum, a member of the German Parliament who is leading her nation’s delegation at the summit, and Canadian Sen. Rosa Galvez. Markey, Badum and Galvez sent the letter to other U.S. lawmakers and global representatives ahead of the COP28 climate conference, which kicks off Thursday in Dubai.
“At COP26, the United States — along with 39 governments and institutions — signed the Glasgow Statement, pledging to prioritize the clean energy transition and end new direct public support for the international fossil fuel sector by 2022,” the letter states. “This is the very least we can do, considering that even existing production capacities already exceed the limits set by the Paris Agreement.”
“Despite this, the United States is hurtling towards a massively harmful expansion of Liquefied Natural Gas infrastructure,” it continues. “Regrettably, there exist similar plans in many other countries — including in Germany, the U.S., and Canada.”
The letter further argues that while liquefied natural gas (LNG) — natural gas that has been cooled to enable easier transport — was originally looked to as a means to “tackle the consequences of the global energy crisis,” additional LNG capacity is “not needed.” Climate advocates have long opposed LNG and natural gas production since, when burned for power production, it produces greenhouse gas emissions.
However, natural gas has widely been looked to as a replacement for coal production since it is a source of reliable power and produces roughly 40% less carbon dioxide. U.S. carbon emissions have declined nearly 20% since 2005, driven in large part by a transition from coal to natural gas generation in the power sector.
“The U.S. has led in the production of affordable, reliable, clean energy, in large part due to our vast fossil fuel resources,” Rep. John Curtis, R-Utah, who chairs the Conservative Climate Caucus and is attending COP28, told Fox News Digital.
“Republicans need a presence at COP to push back on bad ideas and show how innovation can leave our world more prosperous and better than we found it,” he said. “The goal at COP should be to reduce global emissions, not energy choices.”
Curtis is among the U.S. lawmakers attending COP28 who received the letter from Markey, Badum and Galvez.
The letter has received the support of additional lawmakers from the U.S., Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K., and the European Union. It will be published during COP28 as part of the ongoing “Global Parliamentary Inquiry on the Progress of the Fossil Fuel Phase-out.”
And, on Wednesday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee hosted a hearing about America’s energy and environmental leadership on the world stage. The hearing focused on emissions reductions made possible by greater natural gas production and reliance.
“This Shale Revolution and the affordable and reliable natural gas that American workers are now producing has also enabled America to reduce emissions more than any other nation, and we have the capacity to continue helping countries reduce their emissions even further,” Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., remarked during the hearing.
“We should instead be working to build on our remarkable legacy, which has transformed the human condition, helped lift people out of poverty, and raised the standard of living,” she added. “The best way to do that is with a strong energy mix that takes advantage of the resources we have here at home, lowers costs for Americans, and prevents us from becoming reliant on China for our energy needs.”
According to federal data, in 2005, coal generated 50% of total U.S. power across the power, industrial, commercial and residential sectors, while natural gas generated just 19%. In 2022, by comparison, coal generated less than 20% of the nation’s power and natural gas generated 40%, making it by far the largest power source in the country.
Markey and Badum didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Net Zero electricity taxes and levies are set to cost British consumers almost £100 billion over the next six years, according to the latest official figures from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). The ‘environmental levies’ total includes a variety of green rackets from paying suppliers to produce uneconomic energy to persuading consumers to install inferior technologies. As the insane dash towards Net Zero continues in elite political circles, the costs have started to spiral out of control.
Almost all green technologies seem to require huge amounts of public subsidy with no end in sight to constant demands for cash. Recently, offshore wind generators refused to take further Government licences in the North Sea unless the U.K. Government complied with their demands for higher guaranteed prices. In real terms the Government is now prepared to pay over £100 per megawatt hour, a price more than the current estimated cost of gas-powered electricity.
The investigative climate journalist Paul Homewood has been digging into the figures for years, and notes the offshore wind business is already being subsided to the annual tune of £4.8 billion. This despite the fact that we have been promised ‘rapidly falling’ wind power costs that would bring our bills tumbling down. “Now we know that was always a lie,” observes Homewood. Looking at the financial accounts, Homewood concludes that there is “no prospect” that costs will decline in future. On the contrary, he continues, they are likely to continue increasing as supply chain and manufacturing problems mount.
“We are therefore now locked into permanently high electricity prices, with contract prices guaranteed for 15 years,” he notes.
Homewood has produced the table below from the latest figures from the OBR. In total it shows how all the ‘environmental levies’ surrounding the production of electricity are set to provide hard-pressed U.K. consumers with an entirely unnecessary collective bill for £95 billion over the next six years. As Homewood notes, the figures below show the cost added to energy bills by the various assortment of renewable subsidies, capacity market payments and the climate change levy.
Homewood has added in three relevant costs to the OBR table. The feed-in tariffs scheme was recently excluded, but in Homewood’s view it is wrongly left out since it increases energy bills. The Climate Change Levy on productive business is noted elsewhere in the OBR report, but Homewood has “taken the liberty” of adding it to his table. It need hardly be added that this does not involve all the cost of runaway Net Zero fiscal madness. Homewood notes, for instance, that there is no mention of the costs of electricity grid upgrades, system balancing cost and constraint payments – all the direct result of increased renewable generation. And, of course, one can take it out even wider to include the cost of keeping vast amounts of gas capacity idle, waiting to fire up when the wind stops blowing, often for days at a time.
But it might be asked, what is £100 billion when an almost complete dismantling of modern economic society is being planned? A mere down payment on wealth destruction on an unimaginable scale. At a time when the political will to control immigration has withered, massive deindustrialisation is being planned in Europe, with unimaginable effects on the less affluent members of society. On the basis of an unproven hypothesis that human-produced carbon dioxide controls a climate headed for disaster – now deemed ‘settled’ and beyond debate – small, well-funded elite groups in society are planning to remove 85% of the world energy supply within less than 30 years. How far they will get in this madcap, nightmarish scheme before being repelled by gathering rational and democratic forces, only time will tell.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’sEnvironment Editor.
South Africa will miss its binding 2030 carbon emissions targets under the Paris climate agreement, three senior government officials confirmed, as the country plans to run eight coal-fired power plants for longer than planned.
Three senior South African government officials told Reuters on Thursday that South Africa will miss its climate change targets under the Paris Agreement because shutting down the country’s eight coal-fired power plants would cause a massive energy crisis.
South Africa’s big miss is no small matter for the climate change movement because, as Reuters pointed out, it is “the world’s 11th biggest greenhouse gas emitter and has one of the world’s highest per capita emissions.”
The original plan called for South Africa to shut down six of its coal-fired power plants by 2030 and two more by 2034. The officials who spoke to Reuters said those goals are now considered “unrealistic,” although the government might set a “new decommissioning target for 2035.”
The South African environmental ministry issued a statement saying it was “too early” to conclude the Paris Agreement targets for 2030 cannot be met.
South Africa is already in the midst of a major energy crisis, even with all those coal plants puffing away. The World Bank announced in mid-October that talks were underway for a billion-dollar loan to help South Africa recover from rolling blackouts that have put a major crimp on economic growth.
The World Bank already loaned South Africa’s state utility company, Eskom, $497 million in 2022 to decommission one of its coal power plants. The plant, an aging facility located near the city of Komati east of Johannesburg, was shuttered last October, but the “transition to cleaner energy” was a disaster.
The South African government did not consult with the 1,600 local workers employed by the Komati plant or help them find new jobs. Energy officials fretted the loss of the plant would jeopardize the power grid, sowing panic, confusion, and vain hopes the Komati plant might reopen.
Eskom estimates that roughly 80 percent of South Africa’s power comes from its coal-fired plants, which are becoming unreliable due to mismanagement and corruption. Instead of “transitioning” to green energy, South Africa is leaning on its coal plants harder than ever as it experiences the worst blackouts in its history.
The South African government has said it would need about $80 billion to finance a proper transition to green energy, a sum that seems very unlikely to be forthcoming.
The United Nations published a report on Wednesday that said governments around the world planned to exceed the Paris Agreement’s limits on fossil fuels by over 110 percent by 2030. Meeting the Paris Agreement limits would require the almost total worldwide shutdown of coal power plants by 2040 – but the heaviest coal users, China and India, are still increasingtheir coal-fired generator capacity.
From today’s [1993] vantage point, the energy-policy lesson has been half-learned. It is widely known that major command-and-control regulations do not work. The lessons of the 1970s energy crises have not been forgotten, and another energy crisis cannot be expected without price and allocations regulations.
In October 1993, I published a pamphlet in Studies in Market-Based Energy Policy (#3) with the above title. On its thirtieth anniversary, I excerpt its major parts. So how does it read today–and compare to other writings of its time that were critical of fossil fuels? I report: you decide.
“From today’s [1993] vantage point, the energy-policy lesson has been half-learned. It is widely known that major command-and-control regulations do not work. The lessons of the 1970s energy crises have not been forgotten, and another energy crisis cannot be expected without price and allocations regulations.”
Executive Summary (pp. 1–2)
This primer on energy choices and market decision making has direct implications for energy policy. If voluntary choices in a free-market setting result in efficient outcomes, many current energy policies based on taxation, subsidies, and regulation can be critically questioned. Such a re-examination is undertaken in this booklet….
Thorough-going free-market reliance remains a viable and unappreciated policy package for the U.S. energy market. The lessons of history strongly support relying on market processes and minimizing government intervention. While none of the present government energy policies or programs–even the frontal assault on domestic oil drilling–will produce another “energy crisis,” they do uniformly restrict supply and thus raise prices for consumers and/or require taxpayer funding. As part of a broad-based economic recovery and deficit-reduction program, a laissez-faire energy policy of deregulation, privatization, tax reduction and repeal, and de-subsidization should be seriously considered.
The Lessons of History (pp. 3–4)
Eight major conclusions can be gleaned from the long and storied U.S. energy experience:
The free market has reliably served U.S. energy consumers since inception. Energy choices based on market prices and profit-and-loss entrepreneurship have resulted in improved product quality, increasing supply, and falling prices for over a century. Central-planning episodes during World War I, World War II, and the 1970s energy crisis have proven the opposite point: government energy management distorts the market’s inherent order and creates supply and price problems.
From the beginning, crude oil has been more competitive than its synthetic counterpart, coal oil; manufactured gas (coal gas) was eclipsed with the availability of natural gas. Private and government attempts to make synthetic fuels economic have failed.
The conventional fuels (oil, gas, and coal) are characteristically and typically in “oversupply.” Transient fossil-fuel shortages were directly related to government regulation rather than market realities.
Consumers and the general economy have benefited from “the process of creative destruction” as new energies displaced existing ones. Coal displaced fuel wood as the dominant energy source in the 1750–1800 period. Coal oil and whale oil were replaced by crude oil; manufactured gas was displaced by natural gas. Electricity displaced kerosene illumination, while the later development of the internal combustion engine redirected petroleum to a more urgent use. Change also affected regions. At the turn of the century, the Appalachian area (Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, West Virginia, and Kentucky) was the center of the U.S. petroleum industry; two decades later the Southwest–Texas and Oklahoma, in particular–claimed this title. Changing technology–often unforeseen–will change energy fortunes in the future as it has in the past. The process of creative destruction continues to run its course.
Nonrenewable energies, such as oil and gas, have remained more competitive than politically favored renewable energies, such as solar and wind in electrical generation. While the cost differential has narrowed, it is still significant. The development of wind and solar has been largely the result of government and ratepayer subsidies.
Alternative motor fuels to gasoline and diesel are economic only in limited applications and with government favor. The natural gas-vehicle market benefits from a motor-fuel tax exemption and conversion and infrastructure subsidies from utility ratepayers.
Mandatory conservation is unwarranted and inefficient compared to market-oriented conservation because of the innate abundance of energy and the technological ability to control emissions from traditionally polluting sources.
The cleanest of the fossil fuels, natural gas, has been the most disadvantaged by regulation in decades past, while less environmentally preferred fuels–petroleum, coal, and nuclear energy–have been relatively advantaged. This irony illustrates a major theme of political economy: the unintended effects of government intervention. The Clean Air Act of 1990 and the Energy Policy Act of 1992, however, position natural gas as the politically favored fuel of the 1990s and beyond.
These lessons point toward a more fundamental one: the reliability of decentralized market prices and the dangers of centralized energy management through government agencies and edicts.
Conclusion (pp. 36–37)
From today’s [1993] vantage point, the energy-policy lesson has been half-learned. It is widely known that major command-and-control regulations do not work. The lessons of the 1970s energy crises have not been forgotten, and another energy crisis cannot be expected without price and allocations regulations. But with a multitude of smaller regulations, subsidies, and taxes, the sovereignty of the energy consumer has not been respected.
Imagined market failures have given rise to government micromanagement of the energy choices of individuals. If energy consumers can be recognized as forward-looking and intelligent, activist policies can be rescinded and the supply of energies can rise and its prices fall.
In such a world, there would be no place for a Department of Energy or its state corollaries such as the California Energy Commission….
Germany and Australia share delusional obsessions with wind and solar power; but they also share a desperate demand for reliable coal-fired power. Hidden from sight, both Germany and Australia have recognised (albeit a little too late) that the only way of delivering 24 x 365 power, whatever the weather at prices everyone can afford is by using coal-fired power plants.
As to Germany, Bridget Ryder take a look at moves by Germany’s RWE to demolish wind turbines to allow it to access more of Germany’s brown coal. That move doesn’t sit with the narrative about Germany transitioning to an all wind and sun powered future.
Nor does the next story from The Australian. Where reality is pressing upon those who claim that Australia is already well on its way to running on nothing but sunshine and breezes.
China and Germany: Firing Up Coal Power While Wind Takes a Back Seat The European Conservative Bridget Ryder 9 September 2023
Germany is dismantling a wind farm to make way for more coal mining, while China is on a spree to open new coal mines.
So goes the global push for renewable energy and decarbonisation, another sign of the reality check facing the proposed energy transition away from fossil fuels to ‘renewable’ energy such as wind.
The German energy giant RWE announced in October 2022 that it was removing a wind farm to expand its open lignite mine in the region of North Rhine-Westphalia. The first wind turbine has already been felled, and another seven are slated to be removed. The company will then have room to excavate some 15-20 million tonnes of lignite.
Lignite, also called brown coal, is the least efficient and therefore the most carbon-emitting form of coal. But it’s also abundant in western Germany, and according to the German government, it’s needed now more than ever.
The German government and RWE brokered the expansion of the lignite mine last fall because of the energy crisis engendered by the war in Ukraine and Germany’s subsequent loss of the Russian gas and oil it had relied on.
In exchange for permission from the German government to expand lignite mining for the moment, the company promised to ultimately phase out coal in 2030, eight years before the previous deadline.
With that caveat, the German government touted the deal as “a good day for climate protection,” though it seems there is little reason to believe that it wouldn’t once again prolong coal mining in 2030 should the need remain.
In fact, Germany’s attempt at switching to wind-sourced energy has proven a disaster. It is already far behind on its goals while facing increasing resistance from local communities to the installation of wind parks.
In another example of the schizophrenic tension between environmental rhetoric and political-economic reality, China has also abandoned its pledges to cut back on coal and has instead embarked on a coal burning spree.
In raw numbers, in the first six months of 2023, China approved 52 gigawatt (GW) of new coal power, began construction on 37 GW of new coal power, announced 41 GW of new projects, and revived 8 GW of previously shelved projects. About half of the plants permitted in 2022 had started construction by summer. One gigawatt of energy is equivalent to one large coal-fired power plant.
While not as ambitious as the EU, China has pledged to level off CO2 emissions by 2030 and reach net zero in carbon emissions by 2061.
Ironically, China is both the world’s largest producer of renewable energy, including wind, solar, and hydroelectricity, and simultaneously the world’s biggest carbon emitter, pumping out almost a third of the world’s carbon emissions in 2020. It’s not surprising, as in many regions, the Chinese infrastructure to store and distribute wind and solar energy has not kept pace with the production of these ‘renewable’ energies, meaning the electricity produced can’t be integrated into the grid and used. At the same time, for example, the fabrication of wind turbines, in which China is also a global leader, is heavily dependent on coal-fired power plants.
But most tellingly, according to analysts, the coal-powered projects are largely being approved where there is already excess coal-fired power. This indicates that China is prioritising economic recovery and energy security over ecology.
“There is more development than there is need for development,” Cory Combs, an analyst at Trivium China, said. “When we look at it from an energy security perspective, they [provincial-level governments] are putting an extremely high premium on short-term energy security. I don’t mean systemic issues; [I mean] even making sure there’s not even a two-hour power shortage. That’s taken over everything else, including the financials, but certainly decarbonisation.” The European Conservative
Australia must slow coal exits to safeguard affordability Alinta Energy CEO urges The Australian Colin Packham 15 September 2023
Australia must slow the closures of coal power stations to prevent surging power bills damaging households and businesses already battling a cost of living crisis, the head of the country’s fourth largest electricity and gas retailer has urged.
Australia has set an ambitious target of having renewable energy generate more than 80 per cent of the country’s power needs by 2030, a central pillar in the country’s plan to be net zero by 2050.
In comments that will intensify debate about the cost of the energy transition, Jeff Dimery – chief executive of Alinta Energy – said slowing the closures of coal power stations must be prioritised or households will endure more and more pain.
“I think we must slow down the pace of closing existing coal power stations a little bit. We are very good at taking higher emitting baseload generation out of the system but not so great at replacing it, and the economic signal is not strong enough at this time,” Mr Dimery told The Australian.
“Let’s not increase the burden on the consumer because prices are rising.”
Australia is battling a cost of living crisis that is weighing on support for the federal Labor government, but there is growing pressure on the country to achieve its net zero aspirations.
Mr Dimery said Alinta shares the government‘s ambitions but said there is undeniable evidence of the economic toll of rising prices.
“We have millions of people relying on subsidies and support to pay their energy bills, and I agree we had to do it but we can‘t be subsidising forever,” said Mr Dimery.
The Australian Energy Regulator in June revealed the number of households on hardship payment plans to repay electricity bills surged by 19 per cent during the first quarter of 2023, underscoring the impact of recent increases in bills.
The surge came before many households endured an increase of more than 20 per cent, the second such rise in as many years.
The comments came as Mr Dimery shared the stage with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at News Corp’s Future Energy event in Sydney.
Coal is still the dominant source of electricity in Australia, with the 20GW of capacity accounting for about 60 per cent of the country’s power. To replace coal, however, Australia will need to build significantly more capacity than the amount of coal already in the system due to the intermittent source of renewable energy.
The government believes the transition to renewable energy can be accelerated by building new transmission lines.
About 10,000km of new lines must be built before 2030, but their development has been hampered by funding constraints and community opposition.
The federal government has said its $20bn Rewiring the Nation, which offers cheap loans and concessional finance to transmission developers, will break the bottleneck.
Mr Dimery, however, said Alinta supports the build for transmission lines, but the costs will eventually flow through to consumers – and when comparing new renewable energy projects – it must be done on a like-for-like basis. The Australian
In Hot Off The Press I reported on a Guardian article that appeared on 30th May this year, seeking to spin a survey on heat pumps. To my mind, the survey was much more equivocal regarding satisfaction with heat pumps than the Guardian piece suggested. Well, now they’re at it again, with another article, with the heading “Heat pumps twice as efficient as fossil fuel systems in cold weather, study finds” and sub-heading “Doubts about whether heat pumps work well in subzero conditions shown to be unfounded, say researchers”. The article is based on a study with the title “Coming in from the cold: Heat pump efficiency at low temperatures”.
The article claims that research shows heat pumps to be more than twice as efficient as fossil fuels at low temperatures, out-performing oil and gas heating systems even at temperatures as low as -30C. The UK is falling behind with regard to the heat pump roll-out (you can say that again), and it’s because people have been scared by false information regarding their efficacy at low temperatures. We are also told:
The UK government is consulting on proposals for incentives to households to take up heat pumps, which at about £7,000 or more can cost two or three times as much up front as gas boilers. Boiler companies are also to be penalised if they fail to sell enough heat pumps, under a “market-based mechanism” that will require them to sell a certain quota of heat pumps or pay a penalty.
Some proponents of gas boilers have railed against the quota, which they claim will add costs to consumers, and at least one boiler company has responded by telling customers that the price of new gas boilers is likely to go up as a result of this green measure.
The second of those two paragraphs is more than a little strange, carrying with it the implication that the proponents of gas boilers and “at least one boiler company” are somehow behaving badly in making such claims, since it’s abundantly obvious that the “claims” (note the loaded language) are clearly correct.
Be that as it may, we should look at the survey which provided the hook on which the Guardian hangs yet another heat pump article. It was published on 11th September 2023, and has four co-authors. The first named are Duncan Gibb, “a senior advisor at the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP), a global team of highly skilled energy experts with a focus on heat decarbonization policy”, and Jan Rosenow, also of RAP. RAP, according to its website is “an independent, global, non-governmental organization advancing policy innovation and thought leadership within the energy community.” Independent, perhaps, but with a very definite interest in pushing things like heat pumps:
For more than three decades, RAP has been a leader in developing solutions to the world’s most pressing power sector challenges. In the next five years RAP will focus on key policy areas to drive a more efficient and equitable decarbonized energy future and to ensure a sustainable and just transition: Accelerate electrification of buildings and transportation; accelerate the phaseout of gas infrastructure; remove barriers to distributed energy resources; and decarbonize the electric grid.
The two other authors are Dr Richard Lowes (also of RAP) and Professor Neil Hewitt, Head of School at the Belfast School of Architecture and Built Environment at Ulster University.
All four gentlemen are highly qualified and knowledgeable about heat pumps. I think it’s probably also fair to say that they are all rather keen on decarbonisation generally, and heat pumps specifically. Not that this in any way invalidates their research and findings, but when analysing their study, I think it’s worth bearing in mind that they may start with a predisposition to encourage heat pump take-up.
As the introductory paragraph makes clear, the object of the study is to analyse “field studies with real-world performance data of air-source heat pumps” with a view to responding to the suggestion “that heat pumps cannot deliver useful efficiencies at lower temperatures.” Perhaps I am being unkind, but it seems to me that the starting-point is to seek evidence that will help to debunk criticism of the efficacy of heat pumps when the temperature is very low (i.e. precisely when a good heating system is most needed). In the words of the authors, their “commentary responds to this question”. And this is the conclusion:
It finds that well below 0°C, heat pump efficiency is still significantly higher than fossil fuel and electric resistive heating systems at an appliance level. The standard heat pumps investigated in this commentary demonstrate suitable coefficients of performance for providing efficient heating during cold winters where temperatures rarely fall below −10°C, i.e., most of Europe.
I accept that finding at face value, of course. However, there are issues that suggest that notwithstanding the findings, heat pumps really are not the answer for many UK householders, though the study does not mention these, or at least, insofar as it does, it doesn’t draw that conclusion. The first issue is with regard to the price of gas and electricity for UK domestic consumers. A quick visit to a price comparison website suggests that electricity in the UK currently costs domestic consumers somewhere between 26.6p and 28.67p per Kwh, with an across-the-board daily standing charge of 42p. For gas, the daily standard charge is set at two-thirds that level, at 28p. However, the Kwh charge is much cheaper, with prices ranging from 6.46p to 7.21p. Roughly speaking then, electricity is around four times as expensive as gas to use, with a daily charge that is 50% higher. Ignoring the costs of changing a gas boiler for a heat pump (though in the real world, such a cost is all too relevant), installing a heat pump would seem to make sense for most householders only if a heat pump’s efficiency was four times greater than the efficiency of a gas boiler (all other things being equal). Does the study find this to be the case? This is the finding:
Heat pump efficiency is measured by the device’s coefficient of performance (COP), the ratio of the useful heat outputted to energy consumed. Typical COP values for heat pumps lie in the range of 3–6, indicating that 3 to 6 units of heat are created from each unit of electricity used. A year-round average COP of 3–4 is common for household applications.
If I understand it correctly, the COP of a standard gas boiler is around 0.9 (see, e.g. here). And so, all things being equal (except that they’re not), at first blush the heat pump might seem to pass that test. But even then there’s a problem:
The temperature difference between a heat pump’s source (the outside air) and sink (heating supply location) plays a determining role in the COP and, therefore, its overall performance. If the source temperature dips and the sink temperature is maintained, the COP falls. Around freezing temperatures, air-source heat pumps also can experience a reduction in COP due to the defrosting of external components.
That “year-round average COP of 3–4” for heat pumps is just that – a year-round average. In warm summer weather (when the heat pump is little-used, if it is used at all), the COP will be above that figure. And in cold winter weather (when the heating source is most urgently required) the COP will be below that figure – and the colder it gets, the lower the COP will be. In fact, we are told:
When the outside temperature was between 5°C and −10°C, the mean COP across all systems was 2.74 and the median was 2.62, sufficient to meet heating loads at much higher efficiency than fossil heating and electric resistance heat alternatives.
Also:
Below 0°C, the COP maintains a level well above 2 in all cases, meaning that an air-source heat pump would operate at more than twice the efficiency of combustion or resistive electric heating technology.
Thus, even though heat pumps do “demonstrate suitable coefficients of performance for providing efficient heating during cold winters”, and even though they may be wonders of efficiency, they will still be significantly more expensive than gas boilers to use in winter for the average UK householder (up to twice as expensive).
The study seeks to justify the underlying theme that heat pumps are fine in cold countries, by including statistics demonstrating high heat pump penetration in Estonia and in Scandinavian countries. But we are told nothing about energy pricing in those countries, and the authors go on to concede that “[t]he data do not provide insights about the achieved efficiency of those heat pumps” while nevertheless optimistically inferring that “the large share of household installations suggests that heat pumps can effectively provide heating in colder climates.”
Perhaps the optimistic inference is justified, but in order to establish that, we would need to know much more about the nature of the housing stock in those countries compared to the state of the UK’s housing stock. Surprisingly perhaps, I can see scarcely any attention paid to this issue at all. Instead, there is an almost throwaway remark to the effect that:
In any case, to mitigate the impact of peak heating loads on energy systems, efforts can be made toward improving the performance of the building stock to minimize load and level off heating demand peaks, as well as encourage demand response.
And as to the claim that “that heat pumps can be successfully installed in these conditions without concerns over performance or the need for back-up heating capacity”, that is subject to this rather important, but casually mentioned caveat:
This is subject to thorough heating system design and a high-quality installation in a building.
Further, as I mentioned above, all things are not equal when comparing heat pumps with gas boilers. Much of the UK’s housing stock is old and badly insulated. Much of it would need expensive works to be implemented before heat pumps could be installed and provide adequate heating. As the Homebuilding website I referred to above says:
Ultimately, if you opt for a heat pump rather than a gas boiler, you will need to size the radiators and/or UFH pipe lengths very precisely.You will also need to be able to control the speed of the water in the circuit as well as the delivery of heat to the circuit. The balance is critical and certainly not always possible in older or ‘energy hungry’ properties.
So, if you ask yourself ‘should I swap my gas boiler for a heat pump?’, you need to be aware that you’ll likely need to update your existing radiators and pipework, as well as your heat source, in an existing home.
The study concludes with a statement that the authors declare no competing interests, but also with an acknowledgement that “[t]his work was funded by a grant by the Crux Alliance.” Of course, the source of funding doesn’t invalidate the study’s findings, but it’s perhaps worth noting that the Crux Alliance (as its website puts it) is:
…a group of globally recognized, technically expert organizations that are laser-focused on advancing policies—unbiased, pragmatic, and localized—to generate powerful action in the countries and sectors that matter most for carbon reduction. The members of the Crux Alliance, known as Crux Policy Centers (CPCs), support policymakers around the world working to retire polluting power plants and to replace polluting vehicles, factories, and buildings with low-carbon alternatives—and to grow these alternatives at speed and scale. The Crux Alliance is all about getting climate policy right, right now.
In other words, it might not be too unfair to say that it has a policy position that is probably keen to encourage (among other things) the uptake of heat pumps.
As I see it, the study makes the case that heat pumps can work in cold temperatures, and that in some countries with cold winters they are widely used. It does not go on to make the case that it makes financial (or any other) sense to encourage a large-scale swapping of gas boilers for heat pumps in the UK, with its often inappropriate housing stock, expensive electricity (compared to the price of domestic gas) and high up-front costs. I see nothing in it to justify the tenor of the Guardian article reporting on it, to the effect that the UK should “bring in new measures to roll them [heat pumps] out as rapidly as possible.”
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Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
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Textvorschlag: Wenn du einen Kommentar auf unserer Website schreibst, kann das eine Einwilligung sein, deinen Namen, E-Mail-Adresse und Website in Cookies zu speichern. Dies ist eine Komfortfunktion, damit du nicht, wenn du einen weiteren Kommentar schreibst, all diese Daten erneut eingeben musst. Diese Cookies werden ein Jahr lang gespeichert.
Falls du ein Konto hast und dich auf dieser Website anmeldest, werden wir ein temporäres Cookie setzen, um festzustellen, ob dein Browser Cookies akzeptiert. Dieses Cookie enthält keine personenbezogenen Daten und wird verworfen, wenn du deinen Browser schließt.
Wenn du dich anmeldest, werden wir einige Cookies einrichten, um deine Anmeldeinformationen und Anzeigeoptionen zu speichern. Anmelde-Cookies verfallen nach zwei Tagen und Cookies für die Anzeigeoptionen nach einem Jahr. Falls du bei der Anmeldung „Angemeldet bleiben“ auswählst, wird deine Anmeldung zwei Wochen lang aufrechterhalten. Mit der Abmeldung aus deinem Konto werden die Anmelde-Cookies gelöscht.
Wenn du einen Artikel bearbeitest oder veröffentlichst, wird ein zusätzlicher Cookie in deinem Browser gespeichert. Dieser Cookie enthält keine personenbezogenen Daten und verweist nur auf die Beitrags-ID des Artikels, den du gerade bearbeitet hast. Der Cookie verfällt nach einem Tag.
Eingebettete Inhalte von anderen Websites
Textvorschlag: Beiträge auf dieser Website können eingebettete Inhalte beinhalten (z. B. Videos, Bilder, Beiträge etc.). Eingebettete Inhalte von anderen Websites verhalten sich exakt so, als ob der Besucher die andere Website besucht hätte.
Diese Websites können Daten über dich sammeln, Cookies benutzen, zusätzliche Tracking-Dienste von Dritten einbetten und deine Interaktion mit diesem eingebetteten Inhalt aufzeichnen, inklusive deiner Interaktion mit dem eingebetteten Inhalt, falls du ein Konto hast und auf dieser Website angemeldet bist.
Mit wem wir deine Daten teilen
Textvorschlag: Wenn du eine Zurücksetzung des Passworts beantragst, wird deine IP-Adresse in der E-Mail zur Zurücksetzung enthalten sein.
Wie lange wir deine Daten speichern
Textvorschlag: Wenn du einen Kommentar schreibst, wird dieser inklusive Metadaten zeitlich unbegrenzt gespeichert. Auf diese Art können wir Folgekommentare automatisch erkennen und freigeben, anstatt sie in einer Moderations-Warteschlange festzuhalten.
Für Benutzer, die sich auf unserer Website registrieren, speichern wir zusätzlich die persönlichen Informationen, die sie in ihren Benutzerprofilen angeben. Alle Benutzer können jederzeit ihre persönlichen Informationen einsehen, verändern oder löschen (der Benutzername kann nicht verändert werden). Administratoren der Website können diese Informationen ebenfalls einsehen und verändern.
Welche Rechte du an deinen Daten hast
Textvorschlag: Wenn du ein Konto auf dieser Website besitzt oder Kommentare geschrieben hast, kannst du einen Export deiner personenbezogenen Daten bei uns anfordern, inklusive aller Daten, die du uns mitgeteilt hast. Darüber hinaus kannst du die Löschung aller personenbezogenen Daten, die wir von dir gespeichert haben, anfordern. Dies umfasst nicht die Daten, die wir aufgrund administrativer, rechtlicher oder sicherheitsrelevanter Notwendigkeiten aufbewahren müssen.
Wohin deine Daten gesendet werden
Textvorschlag: Besucher-Kommentare könnten von einem automatisierten Dienst zur Spam-Erkennung untersucht werden.
