Cost of Thanet

Windfarm will cost more or less the same as a nuclear power station yielding 13 times the electricity

There has been little publicity of the fact that the world’s biggest wind farm, opened off the coast of Thanet, Kent in September, will cost British taxpayers a total of £1.2bn in subsidies – more or less the same price as a nuclear power station yielding 13 times the electricity, more reliably.  

Figures released by the Department of Energy and Climate Change show that offshore UK wind turbines had an average load factor of just 26% of their headline capacity. Translated to the new offshore wind farm developed by Sweden’s Vattenfall, and instead of providing 300MW, the wind farm will produce closer to 78MW. 

The cost to UK taxpayers is illustrated by the large subsidy that Vattenfall will receive for building it. As opined in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper: “Wind energy is subsidised through the system of renewables obligation certificates (ROCs), unwittingly paid for by all of us through our electricity bills. Our electricity supply companies are obliged to buy offshore wind energy at three times its normal price, so that each megawatt hour of electricity receives a 200% subsidy of £100.”

This means that if Thanet produces an average of 78 MW then Vattenfall will receive subsidies of £60m a year, on top of the £30m-£40m cost of the electricity itself. This is guaranteed for the turbines’ estimated working life of at least 20 years, which means that the total subsidy over the next two decades will be some £1.2 billion. Based on the costings of the current French nuclear programme, that would buy one gigawatt of carbon-free nuclear generating capacity, reliably available up to 24 hours a day – more than 13 times the average output of the wind farm.

Adapted from article by Sarah O’Toole in Global Energy Magazine on 26 September 2010.

Ted Maley