Tilting at windmills may be costly for taxpayers
This report concludes that an investment of €14.75bn in wind energy projects would also be capable of supporting in excess of 10,500 jobs up to 2020.
This may indeed be true, but what about beyond 2020?
Deloitte and others may be able to pin down a figure for investment, and extrapolate job numbers from this quite accurately, but no one can claim to accurately call the true cost of an energy grid which by then will be hugely reliant on wind as our renewable power source.
Part of the problem stems from the fact that the wind industry and other wind advocates have never been forward in dealing with the question of cost, helping propagate the myth that wind power is somehow free power.
But consumers, not to mention taxpayers, need to be told the truth. Our own Commission for Energy Regulation has at least tried to come up with a comparator of sorts, claiming that wind power becomes “economical” when oil prices are “substantially” above the record €147 a barrel set in July of last year. By substantially, the regulator meant well above $200 a barrel — a price which now looks very distant.
In the meantime, we will have to continue subsidising our wind farms. Even without paying these subsidies, the cost of electricity in Ireland is already well above the European average.
And by choosing wind as our main renewable energy source, these needlessly higher energy costs are certain to endure. You can argue that whatever renewable source we choose, it will require subsidies. But we need a variety of renewable power sources and should be investing far greater resources in wave and tidal power, both of which are in abundant supply.
But instead, the field has been handed almost wholly to the wind industry.
The sale last year of Eddie O’Connor’s Airtricity business for €2.2bn was proof positive that there is money in wind.
Big power companies like Scottish & Southern, the company that splashed out that €2.2bn, know well that it is ultimately the consumer who generates the value.
No matter how freely the wind blows, they will demand a return on their investment — with the hard-pressed consumer picking up the tab.
- Pat Boyle
16 June 2009
Tags: Wind power, Wind energy
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