Shetland windfarm - Viking Energy

[oddtablet]

Jonathan Wills on Radio Shetland tonight said they had the best legal and financial advice available at the time. Presumably that was the advice that the project was viable despite the high charges?

 

It was hilarious to hear him accuse Billy Fox of "personal attacks" minutes after he had referred to "Sabotage Shetland" What a hypocrite.

 

I totally agree - I was shouting at the radio. Jonathan please don't throw your toys out of the pram.

[merkin]

Ignoring any political manoeuvring that may be behind today’s announcement, one immediate result is that the entire credibility of VE is blown out of the water.

 

At best VE management has been totally inept, at worst they have been completely dishonest with regard to their figures and announcements relating to the transmission charges and viability of the project.

How can the public now have confidence in any of their other part of their proposal? Will Shetland get the £20 m they promise, will there be a fund for affected communities? More importantly just how reliable are their projections for construction costs of the windfarm, converter station and cable. Given the massive price rises in the costs of other cables I would suggest VE projections are no longer realistic. Construction costs are also likely to escalate.

 

Even if transmission charges are reduced; there is still the subsidy level to consider, if this is further reduced then the project again becomes less viable, and any profit will be further diminished.

Despite today’s posturing by JW, the Charitable Trust Trustees need to explain why they were so easily conned into approving the latest £6m for a non-viable project. Obviously there was there no competent independent scrutiny of the figures. Finally they also possibility need to be checking on the legality of putting further money (which is supposedly held in trust) into a project which is known to be not viable.

 

All in all, the VE saga looks more and more like a standard Shetland financial ---k up every day. Time to pull the plug while there is still something left in the Charitable Trust account.

[Ghostrider]

Ignoring any political manoeuvring that may be behind today’s announcement, one immediate result is that the entire credibility of VE is blown out of the water.

 

At best VE management has been totally inept, at worst they have been completely dishonest with regard to their figures and announcements relating to the transmission charges and viability of the project.

How can the public now have confidence in any of their other part of their proposal? Will Shetland get the £20 m they promise, will there be a fund for affected communities? More importantly just how reliable are their projections for construction costs of the windfarm, converter station and cable. Given the massive price rises in the costs of other cables I would suggest VE projections are no longer realistic. Construction costs are also likely to escalate.

 

Even if transmission charges are reduced; there is still the subsidy level to consider, if this is further reduced then the project again becomes less viable, and any profit will be further diminished.

Despite today’s posturing by JW, the Charitable Trust Trustees need to explain why they were so easily conned into approving the latest £6m for a non-viable project. Obviously there was there no competent independent scrutiny of the figures. Finally they also possibility need to be checking on the legality of putting further money (which is supposedly held in trust) into a project which is known to be not viable.

 

All in all, the VE saga looks more and more like a standard Shetland financial ---k up every day. Time to pull the plug while there is still something left in the Charitable Trust account.

 

Been my opinion of VE from Day 1. As long as the SCT have a finiancial committment to support VE, their funds are lost in their entirity, their coffers are empty, we are skint.

[paulb]

At the moment i have to agree no more funding until they provide figures that can be checked.

 

i really hope this is not a bressay bridge event. if so heads must roll. i wonder if the charity folks would be interested. we have ether been lied to or they are trying to spin. which ever it is they should not be doing so with our funds.

 

the pro folks like myself are in favour of a profitable industry not a failure. questions need asking and honest answers given.

[trowie246]

You have to be mindful that the interconnector cable has already been delayed, it was to be completed in 2016, now they're saying 2018. I am skeptical that it will completed in 2018, more likely it will be delayed again.

 

All the time the cost of the Viking Energy project is going up.

[trowie246]

I should say as well, IF the interconnector cable is ever built at all. And it's a pretty big IF at this stage.

[JGHR]

On the subject of transmission charges:

 

As I understand it the current system of transmission charges was set up decades ago, long before climate change and renewable energy was even on the governments radar. The way it was set up was intended to prevent generators locating their stations way out in the sticks, miles away from the cities.

 

Climate change, and the need to do something about it, was on Mrs Thatcher and the tories radar decades ago.

 

http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2013/04/09/3732680.htm

 

Surely it makes sense to locate conventional power stations as close to the load as is possible? I don't understand why the generators would need an incentive to locate closer to the cities?

 

 

Thus, the charges bear no relation to the actual cost of transmitting electricity. (In fact some power stations close to cities actually get subsidised instead of charged for their electricity.)

 

Can you expand a bit more on this, I have no idea what the transmission charging system is, but to my way of thinking the further away from the load the generator is located the higher the transmission costs are going to be and, consequently, the higher the transmission charge needs to be. Is this not, very roughly, the basis of the present charging system?

[stilldellin]

Has anyone else heard the strange noises going on these last couple of nights emanating from a northerly direction ? At first I thought it was one of the rescue helicopters returning to base but it turns out it is a weeping and wailing and grinding and gnashing of teeth from those poor souls who were queuing for the now drastically reduced hand-outs they were expecting. My heart really bleeds for them !

[trowie246]

 

Surely it makes sense to locate conventional power stations as close to the load as is possible? I don't understand why the generators would need an incentive to locate closer to the cities?

 

 

Thus, the charges bear no relation to the actual cost of transmitting electricity. (In fact some power stations close to cities actually get subsidised instead of charged for their electricity.)

 

Can you expand a bit more on this, I have no idea what the transmission charging system is, but to my way of thinking the further away from the load the generator is located the higher the transmission costs are going to be and, consequently, the higher the transmission charge needs to be. Is this not, very roughly, the basis of the present charging system?

 

 

I didn't understand this either. Surely the generator would want to be as near to transmission as possible? To avoid extra physical costs involved and transmission losses?

[crofter]

Maybe they have less scaremongering dickheads slowing things down in Orkney?

 

Looks like the scaremongering dickheads were right - at least with regard to the fantasy financial projections.

[Ghostrider]

Maybe they have less scaremongering dickheads slowing things down in Orkney?

 

Looks like the scaremongering dickheads were right - at least with regard to the fantasy financial projections.

 

[paulb]

patience time will tell. but if its a balls up certain councillors are in the poop big style.

[ArabiaTerra]

Surely it makes sense to locate conventional power stations as close to the load as is possible? I don't understand why the generators would need an incentive to locate closer to the cities?

 

Absolutely, if you're building conventional (ie: fossil fuel based) power stations. But we're (supposedly) trying to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels, and generators like wind and marine need to be built where the wind and water are. You can transport fossil fuels to the traditional power stations, but you can't move the wind or the tidal rips so you have to move the energy as electricity after it has been generated.

 

Edit: Woops, just re-read your question above and you didn't ask quite what I thought you were asking. I'll try again.

 

I have no idea why it was set up that way. Presumably there was a need to encourage centralisation, maybe to do with greenbelt and planning issues? I know that at the time the National grid was set up the powers that be were trying to get power stations moved out of the cities to control pollution (remember the London smogs in the fifties), but they obviously didn't want them moved too far out. This is when the inner city stations like Battersea, and the place where the Tate Modern now is were closed down in favour of gigantic mega-stations like Drax.

 

Thus, the charges bear no relation to the actual cost of transmitting electricity. (In fact some power stations close to cities actually get subsidised instead of charged for their electricity.)

 

Can you expand a bit more on this, I have no idea what the transmission charging system is, but to my way of thinking the further away from the load the generator is located the higher the transmission costs are going to be and, consequently, the higher the transmission charge needs to be. Is this not, very roughly, the basis of the present charging system?

 

Yes, that is the basis of the present system. (As I understand it anyway.)

 

Think of it like the service charge you pay to BT for your phone. This charge is there to generate revenue for the network part of BT to allow them to maintain, expand and upgrade the network, and it is the same for everybody. This is despite the fact that the costs of maintaining Magnie's phone line down a two mile dirt track in Shetland is way bigger than the cost of maintaining Nigel's line which runs 20 metres from his central London exchange.

 

Transmission charges serve a similar purpose, to allow the National Grid to maintain, expand and upgrade the grid. But they are not the same for everybody because when the system was set up there was a good reason to do it that way. That reason is no longer valid. Now the reasoning behind setting up the charging regime is pointing in the opposite direction, it needs to encourage a distributed and intermittent system of power generation where before it was designed to encourage a centralised system.

 

What we need is a system where everyone pays the same based on the amount of power they produce (£/MW) rather than a system based on distance from the market.

 

I didn't understand this either. Surely the generator would want to be as near to transmission as possible? To avoid extra physical costs involved and transmission losses?

 

It all depends on how you define the costs.

 

The ultimate source of fossil fuel based energy is the coal mine or gas/oil well the fuel is extracted from. The market (or point of use) is your home, office or factory etc.

 

You could generate your power at the mine or oil/gas rig and transport it all the way to the market using power cables, or, you could install a small power unit in your basement and transport the fuel right to your doorstep but neither of these options are very efficient.

 

What we actually do is move the fuel halfway, to a centralised point, then turn it into electricity and move it the rest of the way through wires. This means that half the transmission cost (if you think of it as a more generalised "energy", rather than "electricity") is not counted in the transmission charge, but rather is counted under the cost of fuel part of your bill.

 

Now, renewables need no fuel. They get their energy from the environment. But this means they have to be built where the environment is energetic. Which means longer wires to get the power to the market, which means higher transmission costs. On the other hand, no fuel means no fuel cost.

 

The trick is to balance the system of charging to encourage renewables where the environment is energetic so that the capital cost of building the renewables is kept down. Building your windmills in the windiest places ultimately means you need less windmills overall. (Ditto for wave and tidal.)

 

(Oh and BTW, transmission losses over modern HVDC power lines are negligible. The losses over the length of the Interconnector will be on the order of 1 or 2 4 to 6 %*)

 

 

*Just checked that figure, it's a little higher than I thought, but still negligible.

[unlinkedstudent]

Soooo Westminster talking of lowering transmission charges ... err but if Scotland goes independent, it wouldn't be down to them. I think this letter sums it up rather nicely:-

 

http://www.shetnews.co.uk/letters/6790-power-to-the-isles

[paulb]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/features/power-switch/

 

scroll down to the map of the power grids.

 

if the USA and Canada can cope. and the British and the garlic eating surrender monkeys(whoops French to much simpsons) then im sure Scotland and England can share the grid.