Subsidies are not enough to make wind energy projects viable. Onshore and offshore projects are delayed or scrapped. 
Wind Industry Projects Delayed or Cancelled
The WSJ reports Wind Industry Hits Rough Seas as Problems Mount
After months of warnings about rising prices and logistical hiccups, developers and would-be buyers of wind power are scrapping contracts, putting off projects and postponing investment decisions. The setbacks are piling up for both onshore and offshore projects, but the latter’s problems are more acute.
In recent weeks, at least 10 offshore projects totaling around $33 billion in planned spending have been delayed or otherwise hit the doldrums across the U.S. and Europe.
The holdup of projects that could generate 11.7 gigawatts—enough to power roughly all Texas households and then some—likely pushes 2030 offshore wind targets out of reach for the Biden administration and European governments.
Cancelled or Posponed
- The Norwegian energy major and BP are developing three wind farms off the coast of New York to power around two million homes but told the state in June that it will need to renegotiate power prices or else the projects won’t get financing.
- Three projects in the North Sea totaling about $19 billion in planned spending are potentially delayed or revising terms.
- Avangrid, a U.S. subsidiary of Spanish utility Iberdrola IBDRY, this month agreed to pay $48 million to back out of an offshore wind-power deal in Massachusetts that it bid in September 2021, when outlooks were rosier.
- Another Massachusetts project backed by Shell, Engie. and EDP Renewables is negotiating with utilities after saying it wanted to cancel and rebid its agreements to provide power.
- Rhode Island’s largest utility bowed out of an offshore project.
- Wind installations on land halved in the first quarter of the year compared with the same period last year, the slowest quarter in four years, according to the American Clean Power Association.
What Happened?
- The price of steel and other materials rose at the same time that European countries accelerated plans for offshore wind.
- Interest-rate increases made borrowing more expensive.
- Larger machines are running into problems with wear and tear.
- “We have problems both offshore and onshore,” said Tim Proll-Gerwe, spokesman with Siemens Energy. The company, which had previously said quality issues related to its subsidiary’s flagship onshore turbines could cost up to $1.1 billion to fix, on Monday raised that estimate to about $1.75 billion.
- Blade supplier TPI Composites issued a profit warning last month that it was seeing higher inspection and repair costs.
What happened are the precise things that anyone with any bit of common sense warned about in advance long ago.
And note that these projects are not viable despite massive subsidies in Biden’s preposterously named Inflation Reduction Act.
Hoots of the Day
- Siemens, which also forecast that it expects to lose about $5 billion this year, said it has a record-high backlog as demand for turbines soars.
- “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” Biden said last month about his administration’s plans to pursue more wind projects, including the first auction in the Gulf of Mexico later this month.
Of course there is record demand for Turbines at a loss.
Regarding “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” I am quite confident of that.
This clean energy boondoggle is sure to get worse. That’s what always happens when governments pick winners and losers, dictate technology solutions, and offer subsidies to the losers to make them appear viable.
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I worked for a large global windmill producer.
The business model for DOZENS of reasons is just not viable.
They prematurely wear ot due to weather, sand, heat.
They are very costly to maintain their effiiciency.
People near them say they are ugly, unhealthy and noisy.
I quit the place as it has no future. (of course it will remain on an option since John Kerry thinks windmills are the bomb!)
What was the zoning/regulatory process like? In some US states & counties, there’s strong opposition to wind farms.
I invested in some onshore wind farms built over a decade ago. Overall, the return on investment in the form of annual dividends have been ok and in terms of yield, are better than any available savings accounts. Cost of build was probably lower and a large part of the costs is site preparation. There are also far fewer prime onshore sites left, so any future upgrades will at least benefit from existing grid connection. Reliability has been fine.
“ Natural gas is reliable, efficient and the earth constantly produces it as a cheap energy resource.”
I am a big supporter of natural gas use, but your comment is misleading. It has taken the earth hundreds of millions of years to produce the natural gas that we are currently using. You make it sound like its a naturally renewable and endless resource.
It isn’t.
If we used up all the NG that was already created, it would again take hundreds of millions of years for the planet to recreate it.
Natural gas is solar power stored millions of years ago
So is oil and coal.
And we are using up a lot of that energy that was stored over the last few hundred million years in a mere few centuries.
Good for us. Not as good for the great grandkids.
They never had a chance
If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Natural gas is reliable, efficient and the earth constantly produces it as a cheap energy resource.
And there are some who believe natgas is finite and peaking even now, at least at cost-effective prices. It’s hard to tell in a capitalist economy, where a slowdown or weather of any kind can drop prices temporarily.
“ Natural gas is reliable, efficient and the earth constantly produces it as a cheap energy resource.”
I am a big supporter of natural gas use, but your comment is misleading. It has taken the earth hundreds of millions of years to produce the natural gas that we are currently using. You make it sound like its a naturally renewable and endless resource.
It isn’t.
If we used up all the NG that was already created, it would again take hundreds of millions of years for the planet to recreate it.
Not entirely false. I have found that I, myself alone, can produce prodigious quantities of natural gas from simple legumes and within 24 hours. Folks always get riled up about this stuff.
Natural gas is good but it will run out. Egypt was a gas exporter but declining output turned it into an importer. Then a big discovery in 2015 made it an exporter by 2018. Last year the gas exports were its largest source of export foreign revenue. Now that field is in decline and Egypt is currently relying on imported Israeli gas to keep the lights on, even then there are now daily blackouts as demand exceeds supply.
And what is the output lifespan of fracked gas? Peaks within a year and capped after a few more.
Irony that the very policies pushing inflation up are the same that are causing the pause in production of the products of the policies!
Green energy is the new bridge to nowhere.
Is there a bridge leading somewhere else?
I’m sick of debating the same claims and objections against solar/wind. “dead birds”, “they’re ugly”, “I saw one not spinning last week”.
Saudi’s MBS (the beheader) is converting to alternatives, yes Saudi, the “Saudi Arabia” of oil, is converting to solar & wind.
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Wind energy IS expanding all over the world but it still contributes just 2%of world energy.
The US is number 2 in wind energy. China is #1. Saudi does not make the top 10, yet.
link to energy.economictimes.indiatimes.com
Wind is free. The sun is free. Yes, the industry will not be completed in the first year. Neither was the airline industry. Neither was the car industry. Neither was growing edible crops. Neither was almost anything else we consider today to be “why didnt we do this in the first place?” Maybe from a Wall Street perspective, where nothing makes sense unless a billionaire is crowned in three months, they are horrible ideas. Free is still always the best — no matter how long it takes.
Capturing the energy from the wind and sun is not “free”. If it was free, there would be a lot more of it.
A small 2-3 MW windmill costs $4 million to build and $50k/yr in maintenance costs.
Currently wind and solar provide just 4% of world energy. Perhaps by 2030 this will increase to 5%. Maybe 10% by 2050.
Pretty sure he meant the energy source is free. For all energy, there’s a lot of up front construction costs. Solar now costs less per kwh than power plants.
Slave labour in China makes it so.
I have always been a vocal advocate of “free beer.!”
I drive through western Pennsylvania all the time and have yet to see more 60 or 70% of the giant wind turbines running.
I am not sure why the marketplace doesn’t figure out the best alternative to fossil fuels. No one recommends nuclear which basically is the most cost effective green energy. Its not politically popular. Surely a concerted effort to imlement a building program, perhaps using the modular design method, would solve a lot of our energy needs.
Thats because, unlike you, the “marketplace” does not think it is viable. Otherwise they would be being built all over the world already.
Having said that, there are currently 60 (non thorium) nuclear reactors being built around the world (with China and India leading the way), but not by the “free market”.
There are currently 463 Nuclear reactors in use worldwide and they contribute just 4% of world energy. It took 70 years to get to that 4%.
There is no way that nuclear will get to even 10% of world energy in the next two decades.
The world needs ALL forms of energy to expand. And we will be using more fossil fuels in 2030 than we are today.
Probably these projects were a malinvestment from the start, and rising interest rates revealed the ugly truth that subsidies cannot hide.
Wonder how the non-subsidized economy will fare?
They only need to appear profitable until the shares can be sold off to the public.
Similar to icebergs, the wind turbines you see are only the tip, the base is a huge blob of steel-reinforced concrete which will stay in the ground for the history.
Those concrete blobs and more to the point the anchor points for the towers. Can they last for many decades such that maybe the turbines need replacing every 15-20 years, the towers might last for a change of turbines and the anchor points for multiple changes of towers. Or are they being short sighted and only getting a single 15-20 year use off those concrete blobs because they use cheap anchors that rust?
I have a hard time imagining how something that huge and wobbly looking can work long term… there are probably better ways to capture wind energy.
Worldwide demand for energy continues to grow. And so far, renewables have not been able to meet that demand. Which is why consumption of oil, gas and coal keep hitting new highs. I expect the use of fossil fuels to keep increasing for the rest of this decade at the minimum.
Got oil?
30% of the population treats burning oil as a fundamental part of their identity. They’ll pay any price when it runs short. Even if everyone else goes to renewables, we’ll still have these guys to profit off.
Energy is fundamental to economic growth and human existence. People will use whatever form happens to be available. Which is why coal use hit a record this year, in spite of how dirty it is.
Even is an “oil producing” state like Texas, renewables are on the rise dramatically. And people aren’t refusing to use electricity because it comes from renewables.
link to chariotenergy.com
I’m talking about Trux.
Fossil fuel use is peaking. It’s hardly moved for years. Now that EV sales keep going up every year and solar and battery costs keep going down. I suspect it will soon start a long downtrend.
You must be joking. Right?
Or is it just wishful thinking?
Maybe fossil fuel use will begin to decrease in about 10-15 years.
link to ourworldindata.org
No. Fossil fuel use has leveled off. And now that solar is cheaper than power plants, it’s going to go down. Almost all the growth over the past few years has been in renewables. Take a closer look at the data.
Gasoline and diesel were the best fuels would could have found (packed with BTUs unlike anything else), and they were the first fuels we found. Conventional world oil production peaked in 2005 and has been going sideways ever since. Fracking is done so long as interest rates are high and gave us another eight years. Electric is NOT the best vehicle fuel, but if there is nothing else we can afford, electric it is.
Fossil fuels are peaking yet again.
Same as they’ve been peaking over and over for the past 25 years.
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“Electric is NOT the best vehicle fuel, but if there is nothing else we can afford, electric it is.”
If/when in-ground hydrocarbons get too scarce to be affordable for all but such sacred cows as long range bombers: It will probably; heck very likely; ultimately be cheaper to synthesise simple hydrocarbons, than it will ever be to battery power any of the more energy demanding pieces of the transportation mix.
Electric can work efficiently if highways/railways are “hot.” And at the scale of urban Birds/kickscooters. Step even a short distance away from either, and all you’re doing is powering your whatever by nothing more than a mix of unsustainable subsidies and naive dreams.
Fact; America has enough Oil, at current consumption to last another 200 years!!
The Democrats don’t want you to know this, and harp we are running out, and scream to high heaven that our ONE percent annual manmade released CO2 is causing the greatest hoax ever, when it’s now understood to be a record amount of underwater volcanoes that is heating up the Oceans, changing our weather patterns!!
But oil at what price?
Whale oil for my lamp is renewable, we just need to save more whales.
Too late, offshore windmills have killed the whales.
Honestly nobody takes into consideration the emissions from mining, manufacturing, installing, maintaining and especially decommission of these things. They consume more energy than they make, hence the needs for subsidies. Solar disposal even more of a nightmare. Thorium based nuclear is the answer. Clean safe and more efficient than regular uranium and plutonium reactors. Plus compatible with a current light water uranium reactor.
“…current light water uranium reactor.” ???
Ah, you’ve been watching the big boats going in and out of Haulover inlet. Three or four 200 HP outboards each. They aren’t worried.
In a truly FREE Market enterprise, wind-solar-ethanol would instantly collapse! Being forced by the Democrats to waste our tax payer dollars, and raising our electrical bills to pay for totally unviable and expensive projects is not democracy! It’s totalitarian! The Democrats are EVIL.
I think G Bush was the one who got ethanol going because he wanted the farm vote.
Oh you and your facts…
These large wind power projects may not be viable but it appears to be normal factors (interest rates, raw material costs, net technology issues, etc.) that are the problem, not subsidies.
Nuclear carriers can operate for 20 years, maybe more without wind, solar or fossil fuels. Normally houses about 5000 people but I’ve said too much. Please keep carry on with the windmills and have fun.
We need ALL forms of energy, including nuclear and wind. Currently nuclear is just 4% of world energy and wind is 2%. We need a lot more of both. But it will take decades to build it out.
A nuclear aircraft carrier supports a crew of 5000, and cost $13 billion to build.
And it is certainly not known if the aircraft carrier is cost effective.
and sails on aircraft carriers would get in the way of the airplanes….
Only if you lower a boom.
Contrary to what accountants believe, not everything is cheaper per unit if it’s scaled up.
In fact: At any globally meaningful scale, the opposite is always and everywhere the case.
OSW is a diaster on every level ecological, financial.commerical. They made back door deals , without our, knowledge or approval. The only Green deal here is the $$ lining their pockets. While they destroy our Ocean.
I like renewable energy, but am not a fan of wind turbines. I think they’re ugly and they always put them on top of mountains so they completely ruin the most scenic parts of the country. And half the time, they seem to be un-operational. I like solar a lot more.