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[Nickbat]

I must be making a basic error.

As a result of reading something elsewhere, I decided to to a little investigatory work.

During the last 24 hours, electricity generated from wind farms across the UK has totalled 2885 MWh
I have estimated the average wholesale price for the last four days (hi + lo /2) to be £59 per MWh.

http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp_home.htm

That means that the total value of wind-generated electricity in the last 24 hours was £170,215.

There are 2896 turbines connected to the grid. This means, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that the each turbine produced, on average, £58 worth of electricity.

This surely can't be right? I must be getting my numbers wrong.

The average cost of a wind farm formed by 5 turbines of 2 MW each is £10,320,000, so each turbine costs around £2,064,000

£2m to produce £58 of electricity per day?

Nope, I must be wrong. It would be utter madness to spend so much on turbines with so little return.

Please can someone find fault with my calculations.   

[Varche]

I can't check the maths but it would also be interesting to see the same calculation for a nuclear power station too, especially when you factor in the decommissioning costs and toxic waste.

[Marks DTM Calib]

Thast easy.

Lets consider Sizewell B which is not a large station

it knocks out 1.2 GW (1200MW)

So based on Nickbats £59 per MWh

We get £70,800 per hour, £1.7M per day, £11.9M per week and £618M per year.

Lets assume it has a life of 30 years.

Thats £18.5 Billion quids worth of energy

Lets say we spend 60% of that on fuel and running costs, £1.2B to decommision (based on Sizewell A which, although smaller is a much dirtier design to sort), £2.5B to build and for good measure lets lower the energy output by 5% for down time and maintenance.

We get

Baseline: £18.5 Billion
Reality: £17.575 Billion

Subtract
Costs of 60%:  £10.545 Billion
Build Costs:  £2.5 Billion
Decommision costs:  £1.2 Billion

Profit: £3.3 Billion (17.8% profit)

So yes, all in a nice little earner

[Marks DTM Calib]

I must be making a basic error.

As a result of reading something elsewhere, I decided to to a little investigatory work.

During the last 24 hours, electricity generated from wind farms across the UK has totalled 2885 MWh
I have estimated the average wholesale price for the last four days (hi + lo /2) to be £59 per MWh.

http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp_home.htm

That means that the total value of wind-generated electricity in the last 24 hours was £170,215.

There are 2896 turbines connected to the grid. This means, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that the each turbine produced, on average, £58 worth of electricity.

This surely can't be right? I must be getting my numbers wrong.

The average cost of a wind farm formed by 5 turbines of 2 MW each is £10,320,000, so each turbine costs around £2,064,000

£2m to produce £58 of electricity per day?

Nope, I must be wrong. It would be utter madness to spend so much on turbines with so little return.

Please can someone find fault with my calculations.   

Just as a pointer Nickbat, I was reading in an IET magazine that windfarms sadly rarely attract top dollar price for the juice due to 2 things:

1) There output fluctuates a lot
2) When they are outputing the price drops due to the fact they are actualy outputing 

[Marks DTM Calib]

I should also add that most of these type of stations are outputing on a 18 month on 1 month off basis hence the 5% is a little conservative but, the life of the plants is typicaly 40 years, not 30 with some working for upto 60 years!

[Nickbat]

Yes, Mark, and I understand that turbines also use [grid] electricity before they reach their cut-in speed of 4m/second. Plus, of course, they automatically shut down at high wind speeds of 25m/second +.

All that bother for £58 of leccy per day? Sheesh!  

[Dishevelled Den]

It's a laudable enough idea I suppose but, for me, it very much smacks of the practical being swept to one side by the theoretical and this doe eyed approach to energy security.

The fact that our current (Ha-Ha) Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change seems to think that turbines are the best thing since sliced bread says it all really.

As a realistic source of sustainable energy, turbines get a big [smiley=thumbdown.gif] [smiley=thumbdown.gif] from me.

[Mr Skrunts]

Are there sums based on every day being a windy day.   

[Vamps]

There is a wind farm quite near to us, has about 9 turbines but only some are ever turning, never them all even with a bit of wind, no idea why I think they are a blot on the landscape anyway, for what they can do...

[tidla]

im no great wind turbine specialist ( honest) pretty sure that wind hits the coast and disipates further inland you go.

whats with plans for installations in locations inland??

[jereboam]

I must be making a basic error.

As a result of reading something elsewhere, I decided to to a little investigatory work.

During the last 24 hours, electricity generated from wind farms across the UK has totalled 2885 MWh
I have estimated the average wholesale price for the last four days (hi + lo /2) to be £59 per MWh.
http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp_home.htm

That means that the total value of wind-generated electricity in the last 24 hours was £170,215.

There are 2896 turbines connected to the grid. This means, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that the each turbine produced, on average, £58 worth of electricity.

This surely can't be right? I must be getting my numbers wrong.

The average cost of a wind farm formed by 5 turbines of 2 MW each is £10,320,000, so each turbine costs around £2,064,000

£2m to produce £58 of electricity per day?

Nope, I must be wrong. It would be utter madness to spend so much on turbines with so little return.

Please can someone find fault with my calculations.   

As a one-time mathematician (40 years ago, didn't get my degree) I'm sorry to tell you that I don't think the average price can't be computed that way. 

You are covering a period of 96 hours.  Suppose that for 95 of those 96 hours, the cost had been £100/MWh and for the remaining hour it had been £50/MWh, your approach would give an average of £75pMWh.  This is clearly not right. 

I think that you would need lots of data, and possibly a bit of calculus to come up with a sensible figure.  This is totally beyond me these days.

Why not use a "worst case scenario" approach?  Your link takes me to a table which gives 4 daily maximum and minimum prices.  Worst case would be to use the maximum buy price.  You can produce an average by adding the 4 prices and dividing by 4 - it gives a figure of approximately £82/MWh. 

I think this will serve just as well to prove your point, and the maths is a little bit more justifiable.

And since there are 24 hours in a day, 24*£82 = £1968 worth of electricity per day would be the correct figure since the pricing is by Megawatt hour. 

It's still pretty pathetic.

[Del Boy]

Thast easy.

Lets consider Sizewell B which is not a large station

it knocks out 1.2 GW (1200MW)

So based on Nickbats £59 per MWh

We get £70,800 per hour, £1.7M per day, £11.9M per week and £618M per year.

Lets assume it has a life of 30 years.

Thats £18.5 Billion quids worth of energy

Lets say we spend 60% of that on fuel and running costs, £1.2B to decommision (based on Sizewell A which, although smaller is a much dirtier design to sort), £2.5B to build and for good measure lets lower the energy output by 5% for down time and maintenance.

We get

Baseline: £18.5 Billion
Reality: £17.575 Billion

Subtract
Costs of 60%:  £10.545 Billion
Build Costs:  £2.5 Billion
Decommision costs:  £1.2 Billion

Profit: £3.3 Billion (17.8% profit)

So yes, all in a nice little earner

Mmmmmmm, yes, I agree with this 

[Nickbat]

Nuclear?

Nah, not while that cheatin' Huhne has a say:

"Cuts announced last week to finance castings needed for nuclear reactors were deeply revealing of the Coalition’s priorities"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7840618/Being-green-will-not-get-us-out-of-the-red.html

 

[Nickbat]

"Energy firms will receive thousands of pounds a day per wind farm to turn off their turbines because the National Grid cannot use the power they are producing...

...The first successful test shut down of wind farms took place three weeks ago. Scottish Power received £13,000 for closing down two farms for a little over an hour on 30 May at about five in the morning.

Whereas coal and gas power stations often pay the National Grid £15 to £20 per megawatt hour they do not supply, Scottish Power was paid £180 per megawatt hour during the test to switch off its turbines."

It raises the prospect of hugely profitable electricity suppliers receiving large sums of money from the National Grid just for switching off wind turbines."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/7840035/Firms-paid-to-shut-down-wind-farms-when-the-wind-is-blowing.html


 

Blood pressure, blood pressure,must think of the blood pressure.....

To hell with it: 

[Dishevelled Den]

It seems that nuclear power may yet enjoy a renaissance in some Scandinavian and European countries.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, June 18 (UPI) -- In a significant policy change, Swedish parliamentarians this week reversed a 30-year-old ban on building new nuclear reactors.


Read more here;
http://www.upi.com/Science_News/Resource-Wars/2010/06/18/Sweden-to-build-new-nuclear-reactors/UPI-37361276881955/