Offshore wind farms no longer interest investors

[Biloute]

An interesting article this morning in Le Figaro:
https://archive.ph/p6LxO
Apparently, maritime wind electricity no longer interests investors!
Well, me, the birds and the fishermen are not going to complain about it... But let's take a closer look at why:
In the article, we read that installing 1 GWatts costs 4 billion euros
Annual production: 365 days x 24 hours x 1 GW = 8,760 GWh, i.e.:
8,760,000,000 kWh per year
The "spot price" (wholesale price of the European standard market) is today 0.02195 € / kWh
(well, we pay 0.18755 as end users, but it's another story)
A 1 GW wind farm therefore produces:
8,760,000,000 x 0.02195 = €192,282,000 of electricity at wholesale price per year
How long before you get your money back:
4,000,000,000 / 192,282,000 = 20.8 years
And that's without taking into account that there may be days without wind, stops for troubleshooting or maintenance, corrosion which will damage wind turbines, etc...
No wonder investors aren't enthusiastic...
Note that installing 1 GW of nuclear power “only” costs €1.5 billion. Better to invest in nucs of the future which can be fueled by the waste of the old ones and maybe in fusion in the long term...

[niemeyjt]

Stop it! You're talking common sense again - you must not confuse the facts with the rhetoric

[MAD87]

Hasn't there been polemic about the viability of wind farms for ages? I seem to recall loads of wind production corporations going to the wall. Or was that solar companies?
Donkey's years ago, I read an article about individual German roof-top wind turbines which produced current but very little noise. Never heard further about them though.

[Blaze]

Agreed, Niemeyjt and Biloute !

The parc in the Baie de Saint-Brieuc is fairly close to home and is a cause of contention all along the north Breton coast. According to the article, it will be up and running in 2024 but will take 12 years to be viable. What about the cost of maintenance, and the fact that it will only provide 9% of the electricity to the area ?

The Usine Marémotrice de la Rance produces about 550 Gw of electricity a year. But it's not without disadvantages : the effects on marine, animal and vegetation life in the area and the silting up on the landward side of the barrage. Not everywhere is suitable for this way of producing electricity (it mixes sea and fresh water unlike freshwater hydro power in Scotland) as tides vary along the coast. It's also expensive to produce ....

@Mad - I came across someone who lives in a remote area but it gets a lot of wind. His electricity is powered by a "windmill" which powers a huge bank of batteries and he manages to run a large gite, hold wedding banquets etc (yes, they use gas as well). The only noise came from the hum of the batteries.

[L Austin France]

My BIL on Orkney had the 'full works' of off grid 'leccy stuff installed a year or so ago.
Air-air heat pumps plus battery storage fed by solar panels & wind turbine.
Seems to be working OK except the first really strong gales blew the turbine over.

[niemeyjt]

Yes. Wind turbines seem to have issues when it is too windy. And when there is no wind.

[Biloute]

The Usine Marémotrice de la Rance produces about 550 Gw of electricity a year. But it's not without disadvantages : the effects on marine, animal and vegetation life in the area and the silting up on the landward side of the barrage.

The Rance tidal power plant produces 550 GWh per year. The total power of the turbines is 240 MW, which means that it only produces 2,292 hours per year (550,000 / 240), or 26% of the time (a year is 8,760 hours). That is, on average, 6 hours per day. On the other hand, the problems it creates are 24 hours a day!

[Blaze]

That is, on average, 6 hours per day.

Not surprising, Biloute - Saint Malo has one of the biggest tidal ranges in the world !!
I feel sorry for people that have to use the barrage every day ....

[niemeyjt]

I am not sure the above figures include rental of site for the turbines and the cost of related infrastructure.

[RobertArthur]

@ Blaze, Wind turbines are considered environmentally friendly - but offshore installations have a dark side. According to SPIEGEL, an article from 2015, the steel towers release tonnes of metal compounds into the sea. The reason for this is the use of so-called sacrificial anodes. They are intended to prevent the steel foundations of the wind farms from rusting. The sacrificial anodes, which consist mainly of aluminium, but also zinc and heavy metals, gradually dissolve in the water.

Also other vulnerabilities and interests at stake, to quote a source from The Netherlands: ' It is just about summer when the Admiral Vladimirsky enters our waters off Haarlem. At around 8 p.m. on 29 June, the Russian research vessel, usually deployed to study the seabed near Antarctica, lies motionless in the North Sea. Right by wind energy area Hollandse Kust West Lot VII, construction of which started this year. What exactly the Vladimirsky is doing there nobody knows. Although the ship is shadowed for 10 days by two Dutch navy warships as it floats off our coast, it can still pass over data cables, important gas pipelines and past wind farms undisturbed. This is because the navy ships are not allowed to stop the Vladimirsky, nor do they have the ability to control what it does.