Shetland windfarm - Viking Energy

[paulb]

and who cares as we are not paying for it. come on pj play fair.

[PJ of Hildisvik]

Are you really sure we won't be paying something ??

 

wer'e not allowed to see what they agreed to at Busta.

Community windfarm my ass.

[Skunnered]

^^I understand that the cable is being laid by a subsidiary of SSE and that VE will pay a charge per unit for exporting electricity through the cable. VE don't have anything to do with the cost of laying the cable.

[paulb]

nowt to do with VE. plain misleading. scottish and southern will own it and pay for it. yes like any other producer they ve have to pay fees to use it a bit like the standing charge.

[Ghostrider]

^^ Seeing as VE is the only currently known interested exporter through said cable, and you can bet your boots that SSE will want to recoup their investment plus a profit from the cable venture, we most certainly will be paying for it, through the charges SSE levies on VE to use it.

[paulb]

we know VE will not be the only user. we are bound to have users from other farms planned. the yell and the one near sandwick plus others yet to appear. then the future tide and wave plans.

[Skunnered]

And the nuclear power station on top of Ronal Hill.

[Ghostrider]

we know VE will not be the only user. we are bound to have users from other farms planned. the yell and the one near sandwick plus others yet to appear. then the future tide and wave plans.

 

That's if any of those materialise, and if they feed in to the cable. Remember SSE have mooted plans to make the local grid capable of handling a larger percentage of wind generated electric than it does now.

 

Maybe I'm missing something, but as I understand it the converter station which feeds the cable is going to be at Kergord, which means that somewhere like Yell or wherever is going to have to lay their own cable from wherever they are to the converter. If any of them have any sense, they'll pressure SSE as much as they can to take the maximum on to the local grid, and hopefully not need to finance that cable. There's nothing been mooted locally yet unless the wave thingy, that's really of a size to make any meaningful dent in what VE will be expected to pay anyway. Its all relatively small ventures, with capacities a small percentage of that of VE.

 

Certainly something like the mooted wave farm will feed in to the cable, if it ever comes to fruition. My personal opinion is, that it is unlikely to, and even if it does, if it survives its first winter on site, the chance of it surviving its second is very, very slim.

 

The fact is, the cable is being laid on the strength that VE are going to use it, therefore it is almost certain they will be its sole customer for an at the moment unestimatable period of time. SSE are a business, if they've just had to shell out Millions on braided copper and a cable boat, they're going to want to get the lion's share of that back ASAP, and they know VE needs that cable. I would suspect that by the time any other source of meaningful size is ready to need to use it too, VE will have already had to pay off a significant, probably majority chunk of the initial investment cost themselves.

[Ghostrider]

And the nuclear power station on top of Ronal Hill.

 

Na, na....pit you him upoa da heichts o' Ander Hill. Den Saundy'll hae his "iconic construction" to sit an glower it aa trow his retiremint, dat he's been anglin efter fur sae lang.

[ArabiaTerra]

Maybe I'm missing something, but as I understand it the converter station which feeds the cable is going to be at Kergord, which means that somewhere like Yell or wherever is going to have to lay their own cable from wherever they are to the converter.

I think if the local grid is connected to the convertor station, then the hypothetical Yell windfarm would only need to connect to the local grid.

[ChristopherWilliamThomson]

Having googled "fossil fuel subsidies", I still fail to see how the fundamental problems with renewable energy economics are being addressed.

 

Renewables are not a panacea for the energy problems ahead. The majority, particularly wind power, are not true 'green' solutions. Trying to substitute fossil fuels with renewables cannot work, will create more complex problems for energy security, and is simply not sustainable.

 

Being pro-renewables, it saddens me to witness the widespread blindness as to their appropriate use, particularly in their still early stage of development. To suggest a poor metaphor: The Viking Energy plans are about as much use to the future energy landscape as an old IBM running MS-DOS is to today's cybernetic environment.

[ArabiaTerra]

^^ Seeing as VE is the only currently known interested exporter through said cable, and you can bet your boots that SSE will want to recoup their investment plus a profit from the cable venture, we most certainly will be paying for it, through the charges SSE levies on VE to use it.

No, I think you're wrong about this one. The cable will be part of the National Grid, so it will be subject to the same charges as the rest of the grid. These charges are currently under review as they are biased against generating sources a long distance from markets, but it's the current charging regime which the revenue calculations have used.

[paulb]

no you would need a new cable but it could tie in with the upgrading of the grid.

[ArabiaTerra]

Having googled "fossil fuel subsidies", I still fail to see how the fundamental problems with renewable energy economics are being addressed.

If you could spell out these fundamental problems, I'll see if I can help.

[ChristopherWilliamThomson]

If you could spell out these fundamental problems, I'll see if I can help.

 

I thought you'd read my letter!

 

At the root of it: Renewable energy is by its very definition, not scarce. Therefore, cannot adhere to the "supply and demand" principles that underpin traditional fuel economics.

 

I am in no position to suggest solutions to this problem, other than to describe renewables as 'intermittent' as opposed to 'scarce', and to suggest that the renewable industry's current dependency on government subsidy is a direct result of this problem.