Britain stumbling on quest to become the Saudi Arabia of wind

Do you remember “The Saudi Arabia of wind”? Of course you do. It was an irresistible soundbite from a prime minister unable to resist them. The Saudi Arabia of hot air is a more apt description of what is really happening in the North Sea, as the windmills’ trade bodies this week called for new subsidies to replace old ones, or they would stop building the triffids.

RenewableUK, the offshore umbrella organisation, did not put it quite like that. Indeed, it takes a close reading of their press release and letter to Hapless Shapps, the secretary of state for wind, to see that they are basically asking for a lot more money.

The argument is a reminder of “spend to save”, a distant echo of that Brownian motion under Labour. The Renewable lobby has such brilliant PR that most people believe offshore wind is getting cheaper. After all, once you’ve planted the windmills, the elements provide the fuel. Unfortunately, it is not true.

Wind is getting more expensive, driven by rapid cost inflation, and reflecting the increasing distances of new sites to the shore. The lobbyists are not asking for more money as such. Here’s what they say: “The budget for fixed-foundation offshore wind alone would need to be at least two and a half times higher than its current level to maximise the capacity which could now be secured in this year’s auction. [The letter to Shapps] also suggests that fixed-foundation offshore wind should be put back into a separate budget pot to maximise deployment.”

This is followed by a request to support emerging technologies such as floating wind and tidal stream projects, and finally that contracts for difference “parameters should reflect their economic environment more closely in terms of supply chain costs and interest rates.”

That is quite a list – three different forms of hidden subsidy, for an industry which has been supported by the taxpayer for 20 years to lead us to the promised land of windmills and sunshine. And just so we get the message, look at what’s happening in the US and EU, where vast sums have been set aside for green energy, making development there much more attractive than in the UK. Match them, or we’ll go and build there instead.

Whether or not Carbon Neutrality by 2050 is a pipe dream, we are going to need renewables as part of the energy mix of the future. Mr Shapps might tell Renewable to go away and come back with some hard numbers to justify such continuing largesse from the taxpayer. More likely, though, he will follow precedent and quietly add the subsidy to energy bills in the hope that the oil companies will be blamed or that we won’t notice. As Kermit the Frog nearly said; It’s not cheap being green.

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