It's a day that ends in "Y," so we can count on uncovering another wasteful "green" energy scheme. Not a one of these schemes, wind or solar, has worked as expected; the climate scolds who favor these boondoggles while shrieking about our carbon emissions never seem to want to discuss the one real clean energy option out there: Nuclear power.
The latest example comes to us from Scotland, once the home of Rob Roy, William the Bruce, and William Wallace, and now home to a bunch of green climate scolds who caused one of the biggest wind farms ever to be built off the Scottish coast. And, as we might expect, it's wasting most of its electricity-generating capacity - why? Because the geniuses who planned it didn't take into account that there wasn't enough transmission capacity, and that one can't just drop excess electricity in a tank and store it for later use.
Another day, and another "green" energy Charles Foxtrot.
Scotland’s biggest offshore wind farm wasted three quarters of the energy it produced last year after being paid to switch off its turbines.
The Seagreen wind farm off Scotland’s east coast is squandering vast amounts of its power because there is not enough grid capacity to transport it to areas of the country where it is needed most.
This inability to handle surplus electricity led to 77pc of Seagreen’s total output going to waste last year, new accounts show, from a total of 114 turbines.
There are three main transmission lines from the turbines to land. That's not enough, so Seagreen is being paid, in taxpayer money, to turn the mills off.
These payments are made under a government scheme to encourage renewables, aimed at guaranteeing cash for green power even if it cannot be used.
SSE, which is the lead partner in the Seagreen wind farm, refused to disclose how much it was paid for switching off the turbines.
However, estimates from the Renewable Energy Foundation suggest it could amount to more than £200m for the year.
Scotland claims that almost 60 percent of its electrical generation is from wind power. That's as may be; but how much of that is coming from off-shore wind farms that the government has to pay to shut down when the grid capacity isn't able of taking on the influx?
Read More: Primary Energy Fallacy: The Flawed Math Behind Green Hype
Green Blades of Death: Wind Farms' Massive Eagle Kills About to Be Unveiled
Now, a big part of the problem is due to poor planning; the installation of the huge Seagreen wind farm didn't include enough transmission lines to get the electricity into the main grid.
It (the lines from the wind farm) connects to the UK grid via three dedicated high-voltage cables that reach land at Carnoustie, Angus, and then go underground 13 miles to an upgraded substation at Tealing, north of Dundee.
Bottlenecks on these cables have been blamed for preventing all of Seagreen’s power from heading southwards.
The power flows are managed by the National Energy System Operator, which tells generators to slash output when the lines are reaching capacity.
It also runs the Balancing Mechanism, under which windfarm operators can claim cash for wasted wind. It too refused to comment on the payments to Seagreen.
As of 2024, the most recent year for which figures are available, Scottish consumers pay about 37.4 cents (US) equivalent per kWh (kilowatt/hour), where an average American consumer pays about 18 cents per kWh. The Scots are paying twice what American consumers are paying for electricity, while the United Kingdom's taxpayers are being soaked for the time those windmills are sitting idle. Why? Because the UK's government set this up as a subsidy program, to encourage "green" energy, by subsidizing alternative energy companies to build huge installations and then paying them when they aren't producing.
Look, electricity, like anything else, is a commodity. Supply and demand apply. American electricity costs are still higher than they should be, but the Trump administration is dealing with this by dropping "green" boondoggle subsidies and increasing the capacity of traditional sources, including the development of new nuclear power plant installations. Increasing supply will always reduce the cost, every time; that's Economics 101.
There's hope for the UK, if Nigel Farage's Reform Party gets its chance:
Richard Tice, the Reform UK energy spokesman, said the system had become too complex and too expensive.
He said: “Wind farms are so inefficient and unreliable that some are being paid hundreds of millions per year in constraint subsidies; less than 25pc of output is going to the grid. It shows that renewables are increasing bills.”
Of course, none of this even takes into account the massive cost of building these things: The amounts of petroleum by-products required, the amounts of fossil fuels burned to get these huge mills to where they will be set up, the rare earth elements required; and not one of those windmills will produce enough generation to pay for the cost of production, installation, and removal when they are past their useful life.
Bear in mind: This is what the Democrats would do here. They've already tried it. It doesn't work in Scotland, and it won't work here. And this latest piece out of Scotland serves as yet another warning: The people who push these agendas can't be too bothered with planning. This Seagreen wind farm is failing for that reason, and they are being paid to fail.
That's "green" energy in a nutshell.
