Don’t believe the hype from the increasingly desperate renewables industry: solar power has crashed and burned.
Goldman Sachs is predicting a 24 percent drop in solar installations this year. By any measure, that constitutes a major industry slump.
According to Bloomberg:
The pace of global installations will contract by 24 percent in 2018, Goldman analysts led by Brian Lee said in a research note late Wednesday. That’s far more dire than the 3 percent decline forecast by Bloomberg NEF in the bleakest of three scenarios outlined in a report earlier this month. Credit Suisse Group AG is forecasting a 17 percent contraction.
The anticipated slowdown would mark the first time the solar market has shrunk. It comes after China announced in late May it was curbing utility-scale development in the world’s biggest market, pulling the plug on about 20 gigawatts of projects. That will reduce global installations to 75 gigawatts, down from 99 gigawatts in 2017, Lee said in an email.
“Lowering our coverage view to cautious, we believe oversupply is set to continue in the near to-medium term as demand from the largest solar markets remains tepid,” Lee wrote in the research note.
Ref.: https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/07/23/delingpole-global-solar-industry-goes-up-in-flames/
Energy Minister Claire Perry hails success story of offshore wind–(She means more subsidies are needed!)
By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby
Claire Perry announces yet more subsidies for offshore wind:
Meeting staff from the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult today in Newcastle ahead of the meeting of Regional Cabinet, Energy and Clean Growth Minister Claire Perry said:
We are witnessing an unprecedented global transformation to a low carbon economy.
This change creates enormous economic opportunities. Bloomberg New Energy Finance predict that of the $11.5 trillion of investment they expect to be invested in new power generation assets globally out to 2050, 86% is expected to be in low carbon, and 73% to wind and solar.
We want the UK to continue to be a leader in this global transition, and a leading destination for clean investment. Since 1990 the UK has cut emissions by more than 40%, while growing our economy by more than two-thirds, the best performance in the G7.
But cutting carbon and capturing clean growth is an ongoing challenge. Government policies have already led to rapid growth in the deployment of renewables. This has led to substantial investment by offshore wind suppliers into UK-based services and manufacturing, creating thousands of skilled jobs and delivering hundreds of millions of pounds worth of investment.
Offshore wind is a success story for the UK – and we’re the world leader with over 7 gigawatts installed and operational. The scale and breadth of our ambition has driven innovation and evolution through initiatives like this catapult; in partnership with industry.
This in turn has in turn sharply decreased costs. A strike price of £57.50 per megawatt hour for offshore wind was unimaginable a few years ago, rapidly driving down subsidy costs for new projects.
The UK has helped to realise this extraordinary coming of age for the global sector, and are poised to reap the reward in new export markets. And we want to continue to build on our successes at home.
Today we’re announcing that the next auction for Contract for Differences Auction will open by May next year. And we plan to set out the parameters of the next auction later this year.
But we understand that to make meaningful long-term investments, industry needs clarity over years, not months. That is why we are also announcing the intention to run subsequent auctions around every 2 years after that, using the £557 million that we have already announced.
Depending on the auction prices, this could see 1-2 gigawatts of new offshore wind every year in the 2020s – powering millions more homes a year and we will look at ways to manage the auctions to ensure smooth delivery of low carbon generation. In return we expect the offshore wind sector to continue cutting costs and reducing household bills whilst growing UK manufacturing.
In giving companies long-term visibility, we should rightly expect long term commitments from them, and I look forward to working with the sector in the coming months to explore their ambitious plans to invest in the UK supply chain.
In recent years total UK content in the offshore wind sector has increased to 48%. And I am committed to upping the scrutiny of developers and their supply chains and ensure this number keeps growing.
For the last decade the Offshore wind industry has been a great British success story: increasing productivity, raising earnings and improving lives in communities across the UK. Today, the sector gets the certainty it needs to build on this success through the next decade.
Meanwhile, the weather continues to make a nonsense of her strategy:
Offshore wind farms coming on stream this year will still receive obscene subsidies, guaranteed for 15 years:
https://lowcarboncontracts.uk/cfds
And her government’s obsession with climate will cost the country £65bn over the next five years:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2018/04/07/cost-of-green-subsidies-rises-to-11-3bn/
She claims since 1990 the UK has cut emissions by more than 40%, while growing our economy by more than two-thirds, as if the two figures were connected. In fact, I don’t regard GDP growth of 2% pa to be something to be proud of.
She talks of substantial investment and how offshore wind is a success story for the UK – and we’re the world leader with over 7 gigawatts installed and operational. The silly woman does not seem to realise that we are only the world leader because nobody else has been stupid enough to give away such large subsidies.
She talks of costs coming down, but offshore wind is still not able to stand on its own two feet without subsidies.
Because of its intermittency, wind power is intrinsically worth much less than dispatchable power, so quoting figures like £57.50/MWh is meaningless. Even if offshore wind was offered a guaranteed price set at the wholesale rate, it would still be a very generous subsidy.
Yet now she wants to throw even more money at renewables in next year’s CfD auction.
She concludes:
For the last decade the Offshore wind industry has been a great British success story: increasing productivity, raising earnings and improving lives in communities across the UK. Today, the sector gets the certainty it needs to build on this success through the next decade.
She is wrong on every count:
- It has not been a “success story”, but an expensive white elephant, requiring proper capacity to be kept on standby.
- It has not “improved lives”, but has instead helped to increase energy bills
- As for “certainty”, what she really means is subsidies will continue, without which no more capacity will be built.
