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The title of the WSJ article is misleading. An offshore wind farm does not power more than 1 million homes, unless you only want electricity when the wind is bl
by barney54 11y ago
The title of the WSJ article is misleading. An offshore wind farm does not power more than 1 million homes, unless you only want electricity when the wind is blowing.
Offshore wind is one of the most expensive sources of electricity generation--more expensive than every except solar thermal. https://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/electricity_generation.cfm https://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/electricity_generation.cfm Offshore wind is more than twice as expensive as onshore wind.
The fact that the U.K. is pushing offshore wind is one reason why the U.K's electricity rates are much higher than in the U.S. The U.K.'s electricity rates about about $0.22 per kwh [1] compared to an average of $0.13 in the U.S. [2]
[1]http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/File:Half-yearly_electricity_and_gas_prices,_second_half_of_year,_2012%E2%80%9314_(EUR_per_kWh)_YB15.png http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/...
[2] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_5_6_a https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cf...
- macmac 11y agoThe numbers you cite for Offshore wind are US numbers and completely useless as there are no permanent offshore wind farms in the US and only two under construction/planning. The picture for UK/NL/GE/BL etc is very different. The estimated LCOE for recent DK tenders (eg Horns Rev 3) are estimated at 80-90 USD/mwh.
- ascorbic 11y agoThere are only two reasons to have offshore wind power. One is because NIMBYs make it hard to erect onshore turbines. The other reason is that it really pisses off Donald Trump. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-35106581 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shet...
- armenarmen 11y agoThe reason that the US has cheap electricity is that our natural gas is incredibly inexpensive. That being said, yeah offshore wind power is very expensive, and probably not the best choice.
- arm85 11y agoOffshore wind power is also cheaper than tidal generators. Neither of your sources show that the reason our electricity rates are higher than the US rates, is due to offshore wind.
- madaxe_again 11y agoActually, it does, if you're using a chunk of your wind time power to pump water up a mountain for hydro storage generators, as happens here. it's almost always windy off the UK coast - most wind power is concentrated off north Wales, which is no coincidence, as snowdonia has several large capacity pumped storage systems.