I think problem in wind energy is the same as in nuclear energy. Most cost reductions are from vertical scaling (i.e. bigger blades). Just like in nuclear you will go on with vertical scaling up untill the point logistics get so massively complicated that it gets close to unbuildable. We are hitting the S-curve on vertical scaling (especially on land). I would say: one advantage of offshore wind is that you can keep on vertically scaling for longer, due to logistics (you can't transport truly MASSIVE blades on land, but you can over sea). Also: interest rates arent that low anymore – that's a major source of cost. https://decorrespondent.nl/15355/kernenergie-niet-nodig-niet-slim-en-niet-te-betalen/a95a368a-57e8-0a02-3771-a37846ed2fba This is quite different from solar energy.
Some more notes: Netherlands is also paying for the connection to the grid (which is different in UK I think?). This is quite expensive for offshore infrastructure. It's also a bit of a mess, because the users of Dutch wind energy are also foreign, while grid cost are payed by domestic users.
Dutch power prices are extremely low during large part of the summer due to massive solar roof expansion. It's quite difficult to make money for wind developers with low or negative prices during much of the summer. Wind is negatively correlated with solar energy (more in winter than in summer), so the business case might improve if heating demand gets electrified.
I think we should be bullish on solar energy, but the fact is that the Northern-Europeean countries without hydro are not very well suited to the cheapest technologies with most energy demand in the winter. Countries like Spain or states like Texas are.
All very interesting points, and agreed on the unique problems with solar in northern Europe.
I don't think the nuclear skepticism is justified, though. The current cost of nuclear are high mostly because we accepted extremely gold-plated standards (ALARA) that make it de facto illegal for nuclear to be cost competitive (ALARA obliges power plant developers to do every possible radiation mitigation investment that doesn't drive them bankrupt). When the French built 40 nuclear plants in the 1980s (pre-ALARA), they did so for the cost of a gas plant today ($1000/KW), with a tiny fraction of the future operating costs. Nuclear has the added advantage of not being intermittent, of course.
The economic case for intermittent power would be much stronger if we had cost-effective ways of using excess capacity to make useful things during periods of low demand, such as batteries, chemical synthesis, data analysis, or CO2 removal. Most processes are optimized for continuous operation so we can't just put a smelter next to a wind turbine.
I don't see the alternative to Wind for Europe. Overbuilding solar to such a degree that you still produce enough energy in the Winter is completely unrealistic any time soon, and battery storage doesn't store energy long enough to use excess generation from the summer in the winter. Coal and Nuclear energy work as a base load but become way too expensive if you are turning them off for most of the year due to high solar generation, there isn't a lot of untapped potential for Hydropower, and we want to reduce our dependency on imported fossil fuels, because we would be dependent on at least one of Russia, the US and the Gulf, and all of them are at best unreliable allies that are willing to coerce us with this dependence and at worst actively hostile to us.
Wind energy is relatively complimentary to solar and I don't see any alternative for Europe for electricity generation in the winter that doesn't have worse problems.
The kind of wind being built by the Dutch, Germans, or English is far beyond what you would build if you were complementing solar.
Even if you do have a good solar and wind mix, you’re still stuck with the windless, cloudy days between November and March, so you’ll still need some baseload and LDS.
My sense is that nuclear could easily be cost-competitive if we got rid of the post-1980s goldplating, especially the ALARA rules. The French built 40 reactors for <80$/MWh.
I think that electricity demand is going to rise significantly over the next decades due to the electrification of transportation and other sectors, so I don't think that the current build up of wind is going far beyond what's needed.
When it comes to windless, cloudy days my guess would be that the combination of a Pan-European electricity grid and the battery storage that is already being build to support solar in the summer would allow you to smooth over most problems with that, but I haven't looked into it.
I find it difficult to see nuclear as a better alternative, because I expect solar plus batteries to dominate during the summer and adjacent months, so you would have a massive nuclear fleet that would be idle for half of the year, and the combination of having the initial capital expenditure being spread over less production and having to maintain the fleet and pay its workforce for doing nothing for big parts of the year would make nuclear so expensive that it doesn't make sense.
If you need year around electricity then it doesn't matter if you think solar plus batteries will dominate in the summer. If you need the nuclear in winter you might as well just use your nuclear plant in the summer as the marginal cost of the fuel is negligible. Switching a nuclear plant down is either a failure of market design or you are France and nuclear penetration is >70%.
We already have the evidence that you can build a nuclear plant cheaply in some countries and in some time periods. The actual plants are not substantively different across both time and distance.
Furthermore those cheap plants built in Asia today or in the West in the 60's and 70's were hardly the leading edge of where you can get to in any measure of potential cost efficiency. Light water reactors are not a mature technology, development was cut off in the 70's, they are stagnant technology.
Compare and contrast the difference in configurations and layouts of nuclear plants available today, it looks like civil airliners in the 50-70's where you had all sorts of different engine and wing configurations. Whereas today in civil airliners every plane has twin high by-pass engines, slung under a low wing (with some form of end treatment) with a conventional tail. Continuous development resulted in evolutionary convergence.
Yet even with the configuration freeze they still get an average of 1% more efficient every year due to incremental improvements. That is despite being much closer to the cutting edge of engineering and materials science than a nuclear plant and being in a highly regulated industry.
As a Finn, this is hard to understand. We have the cheapest energy in Europe, averaging 4 c / kwh. Wind power is built without any subsidies, and it's profitable
We're getting a lot of investments to district heating water boilers and other technologies which make use of the almost free electricity when it's windy
Obviously they go up. It's quite rare since we're well connected to other countries electric grids. When it's calm here, it's probably windy somewhere else. Also hydro plants thrive on these prices.
We're currently experiencing a windless period, and it's -20 celcius, so lots of need for heating. All ok. Energy price has been 30 c/kwh avg for the past week, but soon it will be almost free again.
I don't know the details of the Dutch policy. Generally, it is my impression that it is useful to have wind as a back-up, in particular in areas where the sun doesn't shine much in the Winter. I would have thought that Denmark's energy situation is strengthened by wind power - while they of course should scale up solar.
Again, not arguing that the extent of investments make sense. But better to have some wind power, than none?
It's not really a "wind energy" problem - it's a generalized cost of energy problem.
Comparing the cost of NEW wind energy to the cost of legacy gas generation is an apples to oranges comparison.
New CCG gas plants in the UK are estimated at £115 per MW LCOE - which is £20 MORE expensive than fixed bottom offshore. The UK newest nuclear plant is going to be at least £200 per MW.
The mega-trend is that wind has become significantly cheaper per MW over the last twenty five years. Turbines have become substantially less material-intensive per MW, and capacity factors have increased from 30% to 48%. Non-turbine costs have also decreased due to scale economies in maintenance fleets and better operating experience.
The last three years cost escalations are due to increased labor and materials costs - driven by cost increases in energy inputs and general inflation, as well as much increased interest rates.
We're not going to see £40 per MW offshore wind anytime soon. But we're not going to see £50 per MW gas generation either.
The regulation around building new nuclear and gas are very gold-plated. European countries (France) delivered new nuclear for $77/MWh in the pre-ALARA age. It seems a bit unfair to take a kind of generation, consciously make it expensive, and then to argue that it's not competitive due to high costs.
This is not even getting into the comparisons with solar and onshore wind (which are unfavorable for offshore), and into the problems with intermittency.
Offshore wind has similar, arguably higher, regulatory cost burdens. The amount of hoops that offshore developers have to jump through here in Ireland means that not a single offshore wind farm planned in the last decade is operating yet.
And yes, France was able to build cheap nuclear in the 80's but that looks like it was anomalous because the estimates of LCOE for next generation new nuclear are similar to the UK numbers.
If you're interested in learning more about offshore wind scaling here is a good bibliography. Santhakumar (2021) is particularly good I think.
Dismukes, D.E. and Upton Jr, G.B., 2015. Economies of scale, learning effects and offshore wind development costs. Renewable Energy, 83, pp.61-66.
Dykes, K., Veers, P., Lantz, E., Holttinen, H., Carlson, O., Tuohy, A., Sempreviva, A.M., Clifton, A., Rodrigo, J.S., Berry, D. and Laird, D., 2019. Results of IEA Wind TCP workshop on a grand vision for wind energy technology. Available Online
Elia, A., Taylor, M., Gallachóir, B.Ó. and Rogan, F., 2020. Wind turbine cost reduction: A detailed bottom-up analysis of innovation drivers. Energy Policy, 147, p.111912.
GWEC, 2024. Global Offshore Wind Report 2024. Available Online.
Lazard, 2024. Levelized Cost of Electricity Report June 2024. Available Online.
LBNL, 2024. LAND-BASED WIND MARKET REPORT, 2024 EDITION. Available Online.
Lemming, J., Morthorst, P., Clausen, N., 2009. Offshore Wind Power Experiences, Potential and Key Issues for Deployment. Danmarks Tekniske Universitet, Risø Nationallaboratoriet for Bæredygtig Energi. Denmark. Forskningscenter Risoe. Risoe-R No. 1673(EN)
Mai, T.T., Lantz, E.J., Mowers, M. and Wiser, R., 2017. The value of wind technology innovation: Implications for the US power system, wind industry, electricity consumers, and environment (No. NREL/TP-6A20-70032). National Renewable Energy Lab.(NREL), Golden, CO (United States).
NREL, 2024. Offshore Wind Market Report 2024. Available Online.
Pratama, Y.W., Gidden, M.J., Greene, J., Zaiser, A., Nemet, G. and Riahi, K., 2025. Learning, economies of scale, and knowledge gap effects on power generation technology cost improvements. iScience, 28(1).
Santhakumar, S., Smart, G., Noonan, M., Meerman, H. and Faaij, A., 2022. Technological progress observed for fixed-bottom offshore wind in the EU and UK. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 182, p.121856.
Schwanitz, V.J. and Wierling, A., 2016. Offshore wind investments–realism about cost developments is necessary. Energy, 106, pp.170-181.
Shields, M., Beiter, P., Nunemaker, J., Cooperman, A. and Duffy, P., 2021. Impacts of turbine and plant upsizing on the levelized cost of energy for offshore wind. Applied Energy, 298, p.117189.
Snyder, B. and Kaiser, M.J., 2009. Ecological and economic cost-benefit analysis of offshore wind energy. Renewable energy, 34(6), pp.1567-1578.
Van Kuik, G.A.M., Peinke, J., Nijssen, R., Lekou, D., Mann, J., Sørensen, J.N., Ferreira, C., van Wingerden, J.W., Schlipf, D., Gebraad, P. and Polinder, H., 2016. Long-term research challenges in wind energy–a research agenda by the European Academy of Wind Energy. Wind energy science, 1(1), pp.1-39.
Veers, P., Dykes, K., Lantz, E., Barth, S., Bottasso, C.L., Carlson, O., Clifton, A., Green, J., Green, P., Holttinen, H. and Laird, D., 2019. Grand challenges in the science of wind energy. Science, 366(6464), p.eaau2027.
Williams, E., Hittinger, E., Carvalho, R. and Williams, R., 2017. Wind power costs expected to decrease due to technological progress. Energy Policy, 106, pp.427-435.
Wilson, C., 2012. Up-scaling, formative phases, and learning in the historical diffusion of energy technologies. Energy Policy, 50, pp.81-94.
Wiser, R., Rand, J., Seel, J., Beiter, P., Baker, E., Lantz, E. and Gilman, P., 2021. Expert elicitation survey predicts 37% to 49% declines in wind energy costs by 2050. Nature Energy, 6(5), pp.555-565.
thanks useful. Noteworthy most successful reneable energy states are those 600 miles south of UK like california and texas much more sun - solar works much better.
Yes, maybe, but the Dutch need all the open land we have left to keep on being grazing fields for our cows. And we can't have windmills there, else our milk will be churned before it leaves the cow. Then we won't have those two pints of milk a day anymore. Or something like that. And IF we would actually transform some farmland into something, that something would have to be housing, and nothing but housing. Well, housing and roads to get to those houses, of course. The prices of electricity from gas today are relevant to this question but not only, since we are closing down the gas fields to avoid Groningen from falling into a sinkhole, and the US or Russia might go crazy at any point again, leading to potentially enormous spikes in gas prices in the future. My point is that we can't truly look at offshore wind in relation to (today's costs of) other types of energy only, we also have to look at it in relation to other types of land use (and to social and political feasibility), and to control of the supply, etc.. But the benefit of offshore wind is that it is one of the few ways to use that space productively (together with fishing), leaving more space on shore for other things we want or need. Now it might be a false bad idea (like a car tunnel which creates more road space, but might in the end lead to more congestion due to induced demand, and all that), but your article hasn't convinced me yet that it is. It might be expensive, yes, but it might be a relatively stable, future-proof solution taking into account other issues we face.
As you highlighted there are some considerable issues with offshore, but realistically Nuclear will not be able to get the EU into a better place (at the very least, it will take a lot of time even if everything else aligns). And offshore is reliable in a sense that the US cannot switch off the supplies like it can with the LNG. Furthermore, costs for every type of generation (outside of the solar) are up massively - gas turbine waiting times are 5-6 years thanks to the AI capex bubble).
EDF had sent teams for month-long stints at China’s CGN and China Nuclear Engineering Corporation to work out how they deliver their five-year lead times, executives said. Meanwhile, EDF suppliers are meeting regularly to whittle down control stages and learn how to work in parallel before assembly even starts. At stake is the future of Europe’s nuclear energy renaissance, and in particular the plan for six new large reactors in France, the region’s biggest project of its type in a quarter century with a budget of nearly €73bn in 2020 prices.
Meanwhile Groninger gas costs like 5e/mwh or so. So about 10-12 converted to electricity. Plus another 25-30e/mwh in operating/depreciation costs. So we could have gas for 30-40mwh instead of 100+.
Subtract the insane sales and energy taxes which are highest in Europe and energy bills could be cut in half easily.
There are 25k homes which would need to be earthquake proofed, costs a few billion, but we would save tens of billions/year doing this.
The main point is that now it is not time for decarbonization, but for electrification. Instead of figthing over the electricity sources, first we need more EVs. They are manageable demand, and make room for the instalation of renewables without conflict with other sources.
And these are back of the envelope computations, on where electical peaks appear. Among the disadadvantages of wind, one is that it is less predictable.
I think problem in wind energy is the same as in nuclear energy. Most cost reductions are from vertical scaling (i.e. bigger blades). Just like in nuclear you will go on with vertical scaling up untill the point logistics get so massively complicated that it gets close to unbuildable. We are hitting the S-curve on vertical scaling (especially on land). I would say: one advantage of offshore wind is that you can keep on vertically scaling for longer, due to logistics (you can't transport truly MASSIVE blades on land, but you can over sea). Also: interest rates arent that low anymore – that's a major source of cost. https://decorrespondent.nl/15355/kernenergie-niet-nodig-niet-slim-en-niet-te-betalen/a95a368a-57e8-0a02-3771-a37846ed2fba This is quite different from solar energy.
Some more notes: Netherlands is also paying for the connection to the grid (which is different in UK I think?). This is quite expensive for offshore infrastructure. It's also a bit of a mess, because the users of Dutch wind energy are also foreign, while grid cost are payed by domestic users.
Dutch power prices are extremely low during large part of the summer due to massive solar roof expansion. It's quite difficult to make money for wind developers with low or negative prices during much of the summer. Wind is negatively correlated with solar energy (more in winter than in summer), so the business case might improve if heating demand gets electrified.
I think we should be bullish on solar energy, but the fact is that the Northern-Europeean countries without hydro are not very well suited to the cheapest technologies with most energy demand in the winter. Countries like Spain or states like Texas are.
All very interesting points, and agreed on the unique problems with solar in northern Europe.
I don't think the nuclear skepticism is justified, though. The current cost of nuclear are high mostly because we accepted extremely gold-plated standards (ALARA) that make it de facto illegal for nuclear to be cost competitive (ALARA obliges power plant developers to do every possible radiation mitigation investment that doesn't drive them bankrupt). When the French built 40 nuclear plants in the 1980s (pre-ALARA), they did so for the cost of a gas plant today ($1000/KW), with a tiny fraction of the future operating costs. Nuclear has the added advantage of not being intermittent, of course.
The economic case for intermittent power would be much stronger if we had cost-effective ways of using excess capacity to make useful things during periods of low demand, such as batteries, chemical synthesis, data analysis, or CO2 removal. Most processes are optimized for continuous operation so we can't just put a smelter next to a wind turbine.
hydrogen will probably get there at some point
I don't see the alternative to Wind for Europe. Overbuilding solar to such a degree that you still produce enough energy in the Winter is completely unrealistic any time soon, and battery storage doesn't store energy long enough to use excess generation from the summer in the winter. Coal and Nuclear energy work as a base load but become way too expensive if you are turning them off for most of the year due to high solar generation, there isn't a lot of untapped potential for Hydropower, and we want to reduce our dependency on imported fossil fuels, because we would be dependent on at least one of Russia, the US and the Gulf, and all of them are at best unreliable allies that are willing to coerce us with this dependence and at worst actively hostile to us.
Wind energy is relatively complimentary to solar and I don't see any alternative for Europe for electricity generation in the winter that doesn't have worse problems.
The kind of wind being built by the Dutch, Germans, or English is far beyond what you would build if you were complementing solar.
Even if you do have a good solar and wind mix, you’re still stuck with the windless, cloudy days between November and March, so you’ll still need some baseload and LDS.
My sense is that nuclear could easily be cost-competitive if we got rid of the post-1980s goldplating, especially the ALARA rules. The French built 40 reactors for <80$/MWh.
I think that electricity demand is going to rise significantly over the next decades due to the electrification of transportation and other sectors, so I don't think that the current build up of wind is going far beyond what's needed.
When it comes to windless, cloudy days my guess would be that the combination of a Pan-European electricity grid and the battery storage that is already being build to support solar in the summer would allow you to smooth over most problems with that, but I haven't looked into it.
I find it difficult to see nuclear as a better alternative, because I expect solar plus batteries to dominate during the summer and adjacent months, so you would have a massive nuclear fleet that would be idle for half of the year, and the combination of having the initial capital expenditure being spread over less production and having to maintain the fleet and pay its workforce for doing nothing for big parts of the year would make nuclear so expensive that it doesn't make sense.
If you need year around electricity then it doesn't matter if you think solar plus batteries will dominate in the summer. If you need the nuclear in winter you might as well just use your nuclear plant in the summer as the marginal cost of the fuel is negligible. Switching a nuclear plant down is either a failure of market design or you are France and nuclear penetration is >70%.
We already have the evidence that you can build a nuclear plant cheaply in some countries and in some time periods. The actual plants are not substantively different across both time and distance.
Furthermore those cheap plants built in Asia today or in the West in the 60's and 70's were hardly the leading edge of where you can get to in any measure of potential cost efficiency. Light water reactors are not a mature technology, development was cut off in the 70's, they are stagnant technology.
Compare and contrast the difference in configurations and layouts of nuclear plants available today, it looks like civil airliners in the 50-70's where you had all sorts of different engine and wing configurations. Whereas today in civil airliners every plane has twin high by-pass engines, slung under a low wing (with some form of end treatment) with a conventional tail. Continuous development resulted in evolutionary convergence.
Yet even with the configuration freeze they still get an average of 1% more efficient every year due to incremental improvements. That is despite being much closer to the cutting edge of engineering and materials science than a nuclear plant and being in a highly regulated industry.
As a Finn, this is hard to understand. We have the cheapest energy in Europe, averaging 4 c / kwh. Wind power is built without any subsidies, and it's profitable
We're getting a lot of investments to district heating water boilers and other technologies which make use of the almost free electricity when it's windy
What happens to electricity prices in Finland during a dunkelflaute?
Obviously they go up. It's quite rare since we're well connected to other countries electric grids. When it's calm here, it's probably windy somewhere else. Also hydro plants thrive on these prices.
We're currently experiencing a windless period, and it's -20 celcius, so lots of need for heating. All ok. Energy price has been 30 c/kwh avg for the past week, but soon it will be almost free again.
January was 15 c / kwh
December 4.5 c / kwh
November 6 c / kwh
Summer 3 c / kwh
I don't know the details of the Dutch policy. Generally, it is my impression that it is useful to have wind as a back-up, in particular in areas where the sun doesn't shine much in the Winter. I would have thought that Denmark's energy situation is strengthened by wind power - while they of course should scale up solar.
Again, not arguing that the extent of investments make sense. But better to have some wind power, than none?
It's not really a "wind energy" problem - it's a generalized cost of energy problem.
Comparing the cost of NEW wind energy to the cost of legacy gas generation is an apples to oranges comparison.
New CCG gas plants in the UK are estimated at £115 per MW LCOE - which is £20 MORE expensive than fixed bottom offshore. The UK newest nuclear plant is going to be at least £200 per MW.
The mega-trend is that wind has become significantly cheaper per MW over the last twenty five years. Turbines have become substantially less material-intensive per MW, and capacity factors have increased from 30% to 48%. Non-turbine costs have also decreased due to scale economies in maintenance fleets and better operating experience.
The last three years cost escalations are due to increased labor and materials costs - driven by cost increases in energy inputs and general inflation, as well as much increased interest rates.
We're not going to see £40 per MW offshore wind anytime soon. But we're not going to see £50 per MW gas generation either.
The regulation around building new nuclear and gas are very gold-plated. European countries (France) delivered new nuclear for $77/MWh in the pre-ALARA age. It seems a bit unfair to take a kind of generation, consciously make it expensive, and then to argue that it's not competitive due to high costs.
This is not even getting into the comparisons with solar and onshore wind (which are unfavorable for offshore), and into the problems with intermittency.
Offshore wind has similar, arguably higher, regulatory cost burdens. The amount of hoops that offshore developers have to jump through here in Ireland means that not a single offshore wind farm planned in the last decade is operating yet.
And yes, France was able to build cheap nuclear in the 80's but that looks like it was anomalous because the estimates of LCOE for next generation new nuclear are similar to the UK numbers.
If you're interested in learning more about offshore wind scaling here is a good bibliography. Santhakumar (2021) is particularly good I think.
Dismukes, D.E. and Upton Jr, G.B., 2015. Economies of scale, learning effects and offshore wind development costs. Renewable Energy, 83, pp.61-66.
Dykes, K., Veers, P., Lantz, E., Holttinen, H., Carlson, O., Tuohy, A., Sempreviva, A.M., Clifton, A., Rodrigo, J.S., Berry, D. and Laird, D., 2019. Results of IEA Wind TCP workshop on a grand vision for wind energy technology. Available Online
Elia, A., Taylor, M., Gallachóir, B.Ó. and Rogan, F., 2020. Wind turbine cost reduction: A detailed bottom-up analysis of innovation drivers. Energy Policy, 147, p.111912.
GWEC, 2024. Global Offshore Wind Report 2024. Available Online.
Lazard, 2024. Levelized Cost of Electricity Report June 2024. Available Online.
LBNL, 2024. LAND-BASED WIND MARKET REPORT, 2024 EDITION. Available Online.
Lemming, J., Morthorst, P., Clausen, N., 2009. Offshore Wind Power Experiences, Potential and Key Issues for Deployment. Danmarks Tekniske Universitet, Risø Nationallaboratoriet for Bæredygtig Energi. Denmark. Forskningscenter Risoe. Risoe-R No. 1673(EN)
Mai, T.T., Lantz, E.J., Mowers, M. and Wiser, R., 2017. The value of wind technology innovation: Implications for the US power system, wind industry, electricity consumers, and environment (No. NREL/TP-6A20-70032). National Renewable Energy Lab.(NREL), Golden, CO (United States).
NREL, 2024. Offshore Wind Market Report 2024. Available Online.
Pratama, Y.W., Gidden, M.J., Greene, J., Zaiser, A., Nemet, G. and Riahi, K., 2025. Learning, economies of scale, and knowledge gap effects on power generation technology cost improvements. iScience, 28(1).
Santhakumar, S., Smart, G., Noonan, M., Meerman, H. and Faaij, A., 2022. Technological progress observed for fixed-bottom offshore wind in the EU and UK. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 182, p.121856.
Schwanitz, V.J. and Wierling, A., 2016. Offshore wind investments–realism about cost developments is necessary. Energy, 106, pp.170-181.
Shields, M., Beiter, P., Nunemaker, J., Cooperman, A. and Duffy, P., 2021. Impacts of turbine and plant upsizing on the levelized cost of energy for offshore wind. Applied Energy, 298, p.117189.
Snyder, B. and Kaiser, M.J., 2009. Ecological and economic cost-benefit analysis of offshore wind energy. Renewable energy, 34(6), pp.1567-1578.
Van Kuik, G.A.M., Peinke, J., Nijssen, R., Lekou, D., Mann, J., Sørensen, J.N., Ferreira, C., van Wingerden, J.W., Schlipf, D., Gebraad, P. and Polinder, H., 2016. Long-term research challenges in wind energy–a research agenda by the European Academy of Wind Energy. Wind energy science, 1(1), pp.1-39.
Veers, P., Dykes, K., Lantz, E., Barth, S., Bottasso, C.L., Carlson, O., Clifton, A., Green, J., Green, P., Holttinen, H. and Laird, D., 2019. Grand challenges in the science of wind energy. Science, 366(6464), p.eaau2027.
Williams, E., Hittinger, E., Carvalho, R. and Williams, R., 2017. Wind power costs expected to decrease due to technological progress. Energy Policy, 106, pp.427-435.
Wilson, C., 2012. Up-scaling, formative phases, and learning in the historical diffusion of energy technologies. Energy Policy, 50, pp.81-94.
Wiser, R., Rand, J., Seel, J., Beiter, P., Baker, E., Lantz, E. and Gilman, P., 2021. Expert elicitation survey predicts 37% to 49% declines in wind energy costs by 2050. Nature Energy, 6(5), pp.555-565.
In 2017, when the green blob started reporting that offshore wind could be delivered at £40 or so, we said it was nonsense.
https://thegwpf.org/publications/forget-the-spin-offshore-wind-costs-are-not-falling/
We said it again in 2021
https://thegwpf.org/publications/cheap-offshore-wind-power-claims-are-false-data-reveals/
For this we were demonised and excluded from polite society. But we were telling the truth, and the green blob was lying.
thanks useful. Noteworthy most successful reneable energy states are those 600 miles south of UK like california and texas much more sun - solar works much better.
Yes, maybe, but the Dutch need all the open land we have left to keep on being grazing fields for our cows. And we can't have windmills there, else our milk will be churned before it leaves the cow. Then we won't have those two pints of milk a day anymore. Or something like that. And IF we would actually transform some farmland into something, that something would have to be housing, and nothing but housing. Well, housing and roads to get to those houses, of course. The prices of electricity from gas today are relevant to this question but not only, since we are closing down the gas fields to avoid Groningen from falling into a sinkhole, and the US or Russia might go crazy at any point again, leading to potentially enormous spikes in gas prices in the future. My point is that we can't truly look at offshore wind in relation to (today's costs of) other types of energy only, we also have to look at it in relation to other types of land use (and to social and political feasibility), and to control of the supply, etc.. But the benefit of offshore wind is that it is one of the few ways to use that space productively (together with fishing), leaving more space on shore for other things we want or need. Now it might be a false bad idea (like a car tunnel which creates more road space, but might in the end lead to more congestion due to induced demand, and all that), but your article hasn't convinced me yet that it is. It might be expensive, yes, but it might be a relatively stable, future-proof solution taking into account other issues we face.
As you highlighted there are some considerable issues with offshore, but realistically Nuclear will not be able to get the EU into a better place (at the very least, it will take a lot of time even if everything else aligns). And offshore is reliable in a sense that the US cannot switch off the supplies like it can with the LNG. Furthermore, costs for every type of generation (outside of the solar) are up massively - gas turbine waiting times are 5-6 years thanks to the AI capex bubble).
at least France is trying to change tack:
EDF had sent teams for month-long stints at China’s CGN and China Nuclear Engineering Corporation to work out how they deliver their five-year lead times, executives said. Meanwhile, EDF suppliers are meeting regularly to whittle down control stages and learn how to work in parallel before assembly even starts. At stake is the future of Europe’s nuclear energy renaissance, and in particular the plan for six new large reactors in France, the region’s biggest project of its type in a quarter century with a budget of nearly €73bn in 2020 prices.
Meanwhile Groninger gas costs like 5e/mwh or so. So about 10-12 converted to electricity. Plus another 25-30e/mwh in operating/depreciation costs. So we could have gas for 30-40mwh instead of 100+.
Subtract the insane sales and energy taxes which are highest in Europe and energy bills could be cut in half easily.
There are 25k homes which would need to be earthquake proofed, costs a few billion, but we would save tens of billions/year doing this.
To the author - what do you think is the right energy source investments for NL to be making instead?
The main point is that now it is not time for decarbonization, but for electrification. Instead of figthing over the electricity sources, first we need more EVs. They are manageable demand, and make room for the instalation of renewables without conflict with other sources.
This is a reference:
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-09079-0
And these are back of the envelope computations, on where electical peaks appear. Among the disadadvantages of wind, one is that it is less predictable.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/jJap6KhzFe3mgh32M/electric-vehicles-and-renewable-electricity