Wind farms or subsidy farms?

Azzjoni Nazzjonali welcomes all kinds of private investments into our economy, not least where it concerns its lifeblood; energy.  However AN’s support is qualified to those investments which are commercially viable and which will not require public subsidy to sustain. It is illogical to expect the public to invest in energy technology only to end up buying the resultant energy at more expensive and inefficient rates.

Hence news of such investments should be accompanied by all the relevant facts. The reported interest of a Dutch firm to build an offshore wind farm with a claimed eventual output of ‘105 megawatts from 30 turbines’ is a case in point. Nowhere is it pointed out that this output is presumably the maximum that it can attain under perpetually ideal conditions. Hence in less than ideal conditions (which are the norm) it will generate much less than the total claimed. Furthermore a change in the output of wind farms of 50% in a few minutes is not unusual. Attempts to predict the output of wind farms more than an hour ahead have not been successful. This therefore necessitates an investment in a frequency keeping station because the amount of electricity generated must always match the demand exactly to avoid system collapse. Besides from the fact that energy will also be lost in transmission, renewable energy like wind is not produced when needed, so investment in expensive energy storage will also have to be made.

All this of course means that unless we are to avoid eventual power cuts, the amount of energy such an investment claims that it will deliver will still have to be backed up by conventional power generation. Hence the government will still have to invest public money to increase its output to cater for these eventualities besides from investing in a frequency station and energy storage. At best, wind farms would assist us in managing our peak demand but not much else.

It is likewise pertinent to note that many renewable energy providers such as Shell,  BP and Iberdrola Renewables,  are increasingly abandoning their investments in wind energy when faced with public funding cuts – a trait which reveals the fundamental commercial non-viability of this particular form of ‘alternative energy’.

I strongly believe that the media has a fundamental role in scrutinizing such news and educating the public with real facts rather than simply parroting what it is fed. This is the only way to ensure that the public (and not private companies feeding off the public trough) gets its value for money and a return on its investment.