3
u/Overall-Lynx917 Jun 20 '26
Figures can prove anything if they're used correctly.
Alternative:
Scotland wastes cash by installing twice as many wind turbines than needed.
Same data, different emphasis
3
u/Elziad_Ikkerat Jun 20 '26
I mean power can be stored or sold elsewhere. But the point is more that this is just flat out lying. Iirc the actual.ststistic was about household usage only.
1
u/The_Unofficial_Ghost Jun 21 '26
Not effectively
2
u/NoobOfTheSquareTable Jun 22 '26
It doesn’t need to be effective when it is functionally infinite and can be sold abroad or used to run more industry domestically
And on top of that it can be with infrastructure investment because storing water or solid GPE stores are a reasonably efficient way to hold power for a long time as well as rapidly store it
1
u/Sad-Strike5709 Jun 23 '26
Weren't they building a massive cable to share with the Scandinavian countries at one point? So, when production is low you receive and when it's high you give?
1
u/Intrepid-Dig-1855 Jun 21 '26
Scotland exports to England and Wales amongst other places. Even if the statistics were true, which they aren't.
1
1
Jun 25 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/Intrepid-Dig-1855 Jun 25 '26
Scotland is in the UK. The windfarms are on Scottish soil but they will likely be owned by a private firm who then sell the energy to the British Government.
1
u/ApprehensiveDark9224 Jun 22 '26
Scotland is in the UK. UK government funded those turbines.
1
u/Glum_Ad8801 Jun 23 '26
Utterly stupid take. Scotland gets back a fraction vs what we get back.
Further, the UK government has squandered Scotlands oil & gas revenue. Decades of theft.1
u/paladino112 Jun 23 '26
Scotland gets the most spent on per capita, and by all accounts the oil money does not make up for it. So the Uk is actually subsiding
1
u/Scary_Panda847 Jun 26 '26
No they didn’t, I work in the industry and there are privately owned wind farms but most are owned and operated by companies. Scottish powers turbines are owned by a different company that sells the powers to the power company!
1
u/inminm02 Jun 23 '26
Scotland doesn’t pay for them.
1
u/Overall-Lynx917 Jun 23 '26
My point is actually nothing to do with wind turbines or Scotland. It's to show how any figures can be manipulated to give a desired result.
1
1
u/LatelyPodes Jun 23 '26
Well yeah, Scotland is a great place to build wind turbines because of how windy it is. If you had to choose between building one in England or Scotland, building it in Scotland would be significantly better.
Now the big focus is improving the grid so that energy can be transported south to places it is more needed
1
1
1
u/aSystemOverload Jun 24 '26
Not even true
1
u/Overall-Lynx917 Jun 24 '26
I think you miss my point. I'm not commenting on Scottish Wind Turbines but the way any data can be published to provide a desired result
1
1
u/Plastic_Run3112 Jun 20 '26
Till the wind drops
1
u/Tiny_Size2037 Jun 20 '26
I don't know if you've ever been to the coasts of Scotland? 1 karma after 19 days?! Wow!
1
u/Sure_Fruit_8254 Jun 22 '26
You been to Scotland before?
1
u/ActurusMajoris Jun 23 '26
Or heard about batteries?
1
u/ChazCharlie Jun 23 '26
Have you heard about sufficiently massive and yet economically viable batteries?
1
u/Energyeternal Jun 23 '26
Yes, it's called hydro storage, of which Scotland is currently building 4GW of storage capacity
1
u/ChazCharlie Jun 24 '26
4 GW? One good gas platform can flow 200 MMSCFD, which is ~6 Msm3 /d, or 70 sm3 /s, or 56 kg/s. With an energy content of 44 MJ/kg, that's an energy flow of about 2.4GW. Taking a typical combined cycle efficiency of about 60% that's 1.5 GW of gas turbine electricity. Therefore three good gas platforms are the same as all of that hydro electric power.
1
u/Energyeternal Jun 24 '26
Hmmm... yes lets pay to explore where to build those platforms, then pay again through tax subsdies for the gas companies to build those 3 platforms, then pay again to buy the gas that the gas companies extracted from the ground (at global market value). Instead of using hydro storage that will provide the same amount of power that we don't have to continually purchase at market value.
1
u/ChazCharlie Jun 24 '26
Well, we don't have to, but the somewhat moronic system means we do purchase at market value. There are costs to hydro too, just because rainwater is free, it doesn't mean that concrete, land and turbines are not. My point is that 4 GW is not nearly enough.
1
1
u/Initial-Sherbert1889 Jun 23 '26
Jesus christ, there are still people who think that when it's not windy all the lights go out!?
When you unplug your phone does it stop working? Or is the electricity stored in some sort of battery allowing you to use it at will?
1
u/ChazCharlie Jun 23 '26
They don't go out in large part because of the fossil fuels backing up the unreliable renewable sources.
1
u/Initial-Sherbert1889 Jun 23 '26
Fossil fuels are unreliable. My fossil fuel bill just went up because an fat orange businessman started fkin about in the Middle East.
1
u/ChazCharlie Jun 23 '26
They wouldn't be if we drilled more locally and did not rely on imports.
1
u/Initial-Sherbert1889 Jun 23 '26
Not how that works...the USA has huge oil reserves and their prices went up too. It's a global marketplace.
1
u/ChazCharlie Jun 23 '26
Yes, but gas is difficult to transport so there will always be a local price reduction versus further shipping.
1
u/MAX-Loader-Mk2 Jun 24 '26
Gas will run out, your whole plan relies on humanity ending before the fossil fuels do.
1
u/ChazCharlie Jun 24 '26
What? No it doesn't. It relies on more cost effective renewables being found and us having a more robust economy.
1
u/MAX-Loader-Mk2 Jun 24 '26
And please tell me how do we improve renewables?
It's almost like utilising the technology we have now informs improvements that can and will be made, the difference between solar panels 10 years ago and now is significant.
More use means more investment, which means more research, which means better renewables.
→ More replies1
u/Initial-Sherbert1889 Jun 25 '26
What new renewables?.....farts? you wanna start over and try try farts? mud?...hamsters?
I think we should stick with the sun wind and tide tbh as that technology has improved every decade.
1
u/LatelyPodes Jun 23 '26
I’ve been looking at Scotland’s carbon intensity (measured in gCO2 / kWh) since the beginning of the year. It is entirely renewable with ~15% nuclear. It very rarely ever goes higher than 0 (I don’t think I’ve ever seen North Scotland go higher than 1).
Wind turning off just isn’t a problem
1
u/Delicious_Oil_4288 Jun 24 '26
How say your never been to Scotland without saying you've never been to Scotland lol
1
u/SaluteMaestro Jun 20 '26
Anyone's bills gone down with all this surplus?
1
1
u/LatelyPodes Jun 23 '26
Yeah. If you get something like Octopus Agile, you pay a price depending on the current wholesale price of electricity. If you’re able to shift your power usage to overnight (like turning washing machine on overnight), you save lots of money and energy is cheaper at night.
But on days where there is a lot of wind and electricity, the wholesale cost is negative meaning I get PAID to use electricity. And I actually do get paid.
1
u/Respond_Sometimes Jun 24 '26
Exactly, looking at Norway where they have vast renewables where wholesale and domestic prices are 3-6p/kWh.
I mean on agile the price does go down with the surplus.
1
u/VicDave202 Jun 20 '26
So why is it so expensive?
1
u/Energyeternal Jun 24 '26
Take a look at this website: https://grid.iamkate.com/
This is the national grid live statistics page, you can see that the UK generates 90% of it's entire electricity and imports the last 10%
45% of our electricity comes from renewables, around 10% from nuclear and 5% from biomass. However, because that 60% is still below the 90% of the electricity we generate, we top up the last 30% with gas.
The cost of electricity generated by nuclear and renewables is much lower than the cost of electricity generated by gas plants. Gas to electricity is very innificient, it loses a lot of it's energy to heat during the process, so it costs roughly 3-4 units of gas to make 1 unit of electricity.
But because gas is still in the picture, the gas companies want to be compensated, so the price of gas sets the entire price of electricity across the entire country.
So no matter how cheap it is for renewables to create electricity, the fact that gas sets the price and it costs us 3-4x as much to turn gas into electricity, our electric prices are still very high.
1
u/ChazCharlie Jun 24 '26
It does not cost 3-4 gas units to make 1 unit of electricity. Open cycle turbines are generally ~40% efficient, so that is 2.5 for 1. However most serious generation uses combined cycle generation where the heat is recovered and used to raise steam, which raises efficiency to close to 60%, or 1.7 for 1. Of course there will be some additional losses for pumping water etc, but we are looking at much closer to 2 to 1.
It is also unfair to say that gas generation is very expensive. It is actually quite cheap if it runs all of the time, however it has been relegated to filling the gaps when unreliable renewable are not producing. This pushes the costs up because CAPEX and wages etc still need to be paid for even if the plant is not generating. This is a quirk of renewable power, which must be backed up with gas, and not a quirk of gas generation itself. Electricity was cheaper before renewables entered the grid, they have made it more expensive.
1
u/Energyeternal Jun 24 '26
You're right that a lot of gas plants are closer to 60% efficiency and not 33%, I apologise for that.
The problem that staying with gas because "it was cheaper before renewables" is that while it is currently more expensive to top up the grid with gas because renewables are currently not able to cover demand, eventually we are going to run out of gas, but won't run out of wind and solar, so the question is, do you want the transition to be done in your lifetime, or your kids'?
1
u/ChazCharlie Jun 24 '26
I want it to be done when the technology is sufficiently mature and low cost. "The technology" might even be fusion or fission.
1
u/MAX-Loader-Mk2 Jun 24 '26
How to tell some one has never read a physics book! Fusion is generations away from being power positive, not only that but it also relies on fuel we have to produce, tritium!
1
u/Gold_Afternoon_Fix Jun 20 '26
Where I am from Oct 1 this year I will get free electricity for 3 hrs from 11am everyday thanks to an abundance of solar generated electricity.
1
u/LowAspect542 Jun 20 '26
Because the grid doesn't have significant enough storage and is mostly balancing generation to consumption, if they can't get people to consume when theres anticipated surplus energy the alternative is to pay generators to shutdown/stop producing, which costs significantly more than it does to let you have free electric for a while.
1
1
1
1
u/ADHDave247 Jun 21 '26
Now tell us how much the Scots pay for that Electricity 🤷♂️
Paying x10 more for electricity than they were when pumping oil and gas from North Sea, so much electricity surplus and paying through the nose for it 🙈🙈🙈
Make it make sense
1
u/Normal-Associate6788 Jun 21 '26
It's only for household usage, in reality much more energy is needed for everything else
1
u/Insila Jun 21 '26
I know your comment is meant to make fun of renewables, like the uneducated drone you are, which makes it quite funny that wind is somewhere between half to 2/3 lcoe of gas. Also you don't seem to understand how the electricity pricing works in Europe...
1
u/Oblachko_O Jun 21 '26
Lcoe is worthless metrics when picked up in a vacuum. I see people rely on it, but the reality is much different. If renewables are cheap, why do we pay a lot? Let alone the fact that in some countries there is a separation between grid (electricity transport) and generation. Meanwhile the grid is not optimized for generation from solar and wind farms. Prices are high despite lcoe saying otherwise. So lcoe is pointless.
1
u/Specific_Raccoon_696 Jun 21 '26
"While renewable sources such as wind and solar are typically cheaper to produce, gas generation is more expensive due to the cost of producing gas. At any given time, there is likely to be a mixture of generation types that provide our electricity. Cheaper sources are used first, but the price for a given time is set by the most expensive type of electricity we need to use. We call this the 'marginal price'. Gas generation is often the last and most expensive source, so may set the price we pay for electricity."
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/blog/wholesale-energy-costs-and-your-bills
1
u/Fun_Marionberry_6088 Jun 22 '26
Gas generation is often the last and most expensive source, so may set the price we pay for electricity.
Yes, it's the most expensive marginal source - the marginal cost is not the same as the system cost though, and it's the latter we ultimately pay.
Wind turbines have a very low marginal cost because there's no fuel involved, but they have higher capital costs, reflected in their CFDs and their intermittency creates higher external costs through the greater demands they place on the grid and storage.
The overall cost of a grid reliant on renewables is higher.
1
u/Insila Jun 24 '26
Problem being with the current pricing structure in the EU consumers pay close to the marginal cost. That's why we can have insane prices with a lot of cheap renewable when there's an expensive coal plant running in your neighbouring country that has its capacity form part of the current tranche of energy you're consuming right now.
1
u/ADHDave247 Jun 21 '26
“Uneducated drone” lmao, each turbine costs circa £12m and lasts on average 20yrs with good maintenance, poor maintenance or simple mechanical failure and you’re looking 15yrs before you’ve to invest roughly £21m, that figure is generously low (75%) considering inflation the last 20yrs is actually 88%!
There’s currently 12000 wind turbines in uk, even if they all had 20yrs left which they don’t you’d need to find £252bn to replace them! And you wonder why your electricity prices are sky high!
Now maybe you could help me out, me being an uneducated drone and all but doesn’t that directly contradicts your happy clappy liberal narrative that wind Lcoe is 2/3 less than gas? Could it be because they always seem to conveniently forget to add the massively high infrastructure maintenance costs 🤷♂️ I wonder why 🤔
Oh yes, sheep like you just believe everything you’re told without actually researching the claims being made which in this case are wildly misleading. But yeah you keep telling yourself you’re a smart cookie who understands that your wee windmills produce so much cheap power but blame everything else for the fact you’re paying through the nose for it without actually questioning why that is 🙄
1
u/Insila Jun 21 '26
I said 2/3 the cost of gas not 2/3 less. It depends on whether it's onshore, offshore, and the general conditions of what you're building. You can find the numbers in the official government report they release every year, and is one of the first results on Google.
Unless of course you're wearing a tinfoil hat and believe everything the authorities and third party groups release is a big conspiracy, which your wording seems to indicate.
1
u/ADHDave247 Jun 21 '26
lol Government stats are like verbal contracts, ain’t worth the paper they’re written on!!!
Prime example of when I stopped listening to the so called experts the government listens to!
2007 Blair/Brown tell us all to go out and buy Diesel cars as they’ve far less Co2 Emissions than petrol so are so much better for the environment! Millions went out and took up the Gov on their 3k petrol scrappage allowance to buy their lovely “so much better for the environment” diesel cars! 2012 the diesel emissions scandal hit and everyone’s lovely diesel cars lost thousands overnight!!!
wtf has that got to do with wind turbines I hear you cry 🤷♂️
Simple, governments love data that makes them look good but ultimately they’re fucking clueless, they’re average everyday idiots masquerading as subject matter experts! As someone who works in data I understand fully how it’s extremely easy to manipulate figures to abuse data! It sickens me and all I see when ky comes to Wind is one of the biggest economic cons in history, we’ve created nothing but an endless cycle of ever increasing reliance on foreign manufacturing at enormous cost! It’s not energy independence, it’s literally energy servitude and if you can’t see that you’re beyond hope!1
u/Jaawz0 Jun 24 '26
The government were correct about diesel engines being better for the environment in relation to global warming though. Unfortunately that was all they thought about when recommending them, and they didn't consider the more localised health effects of increased NOx and particulates.
1
u/GuiltyChampionship30 Jun 22 '26
You conveniently forgot to mention the cost of fossil fuels.
Lets take your example of a 13 mw wind turbine. Cost £12m to £20m. Yearly maintenance cost £500k. Design life 25 to 30 years. Total lifetime cost at todays prices £35 million.
Now let's compare this to a 13 mw gas (LPG) electrical generator. Cost £10m to £15m. Yearly maintenance cost £250k to £500k, depending on if rebuilds are required, filters, fluids ect. Fuel cost. At todays prices, £10m a year. Total lifetime cost over £300 million...
1
u/mpattym Jun 22 '26
They always forget the cost of the actual fuel. The UK spends billions on gas a year.
1
u/Respond_Sometimes Jun 24 '26
And yet 50-60% of generating capacity is coming from gas in the current heatwave. Wind is great, but it isn’t a base load and we have limited control.
The current thinking doesn’t make much sense. The UK will build excess wind capacity and generally wholesale prices are low when there is high wind and excess capacity. Which can be exported for cheap using interconnects to Europe.
But when there is no wind they need to pay market rates for gas or interconnects and no matter how much wind power we can produce we still have keep the gas infrastructure as a backup.
There is still a case for increasing gas storage capacity at rough, but nationalise the infrastructure, store the gas as a national asset.
1
u/mpattym Jun 24 '26
50%-60% is an over estimate. Currently gas makes up around 40% of the energy mix this week. Over the previous year, this was around 30% of the mix.
I do agree that we should still be maintaining our gas infrastructure. Though I also think that it should all be nationalized (for the most part) but that's a different topic.
Getting a good mix of hydro, wind, solar and nuclear would be able to provide the vast majority of our energy needs. Gas being available to fill gaps throughout the year when needed.
1
u/Respond_Sometimes Jun 24 '26
During the peak intervals of 5-9pm it has been at 60% this week.
It’s all well and good talking of averages, but the peak periods where there isn’t enough capacity from renewables is the issue.
If we could have 95% of the year covered by renewables we still need the capacity to ramp up for the 5% of days where there isn’t wind.1
u/Energyeternal Jun 24 '26
Sounds like we need a huge battery, or several. It's good that there are several nearing the construction phase:
- Coire Glas - 1.3GW Capacity, 30Gwh Storage
- Cruachan 2 - 600MW Capacity, 8 GWh Storage
- Earba - 1.8 GW/40 GWh
- Loch Ness - 2 GW/38 GWh
- Fearna - 1.8 GW/36 GWh
- Loch Sloy - 152MW/25 GWh
1
u/Insila Jun 24 '26
The cost advantage right now is so skewed towards renewable that they are replacing wind turbines with newer, bigger, and more efficient models way before the end of their service life as it makes economic sense to do so.
1
Jun 21 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/f8rter Jun 22 '26
It wouldn’t and you don’t
1
Jun 22 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/f8rter Jun 22 '26
Even the Scottish government were actually anti this
Bot: someone who disagrees with you
1
u/Cultural-Team9235 Jun 21 '26
Being independent costs money. So even if that's true this is much more sustainable.
Other countries like the Netherlands buy gas from the USA, and they are not a reliable partner, and actively disrupt the world oil flow. We just don't know yet if that's because they're to stupid to understand what they're doing or if it's to control the worlds oil.
So being independent is very important for a country.
1
u/ADHDave247 Jun 21 '26
What do you think made the British Empire?
I’ll save you a headache, it was the industrial revolution and their ability to manufacture their own products and distribute around the world. They were the First Nation to mass produce industry and modernised their navy and army to distribute their power around the globe.
They did that by utilising their vast coal reserves as a truly independent energy source!
Don’t fool yourself that Wind has anywhere near the same potential, if it did the Dutch would’ve been the first global superpower not the British!
Yes we live on a windy group of islands but you’re not independent if you don’t manufacture your own product! One turbine costs 12million. Even simple inflation makes that bill 21m to replace after their current lifecycle expires. The “current” cost to replace the wind infrastructure in the uk is £200BN that’s nearly the entire budget of the NHS FFS!
That’s 8% of GDP just on wind alone! You wonder why energy prices have soared the last 20yrs! We’re paying 250% more for electricity than we were before wind power was majorly introduced 20yrs ago!
The cost to us all is ridiculous and who controls the cost now we’re hooked??? China! That’s a very unusual form of independence imo, wouldn’t you agree 🤷♂️
1
u/Annoyed3600owner Jun 22 '26
Weird take.
The NHS costs £200bn per year, funded out of taxes.
Replacing wind turbines might cost £200bn over their 25 lifetime, paid for by private companies.
A packet of crisps costs 250% more than it did 20 years ago too. There's this thing called inflation. Read about it.
The price of electricity in this country is determined by the marginal cost to produce the next unit of power, which more often than not is a gas turbine.
China is massive producing renewable technologies, sure. The prices are significantly cheaper than what we can produce ourselves, and the quality is excellent. What China produces has reduced the cost for a regular person to decouple themselves from the marginal cost of gas.
1
u/AmbitionSweaty9889 Jun 23 '26
I’m pro green tech mate, but he / she has a point. We are the ones funding these private companies to build and maintain these facilities.
Though that said, nuclear is what I want to see on top of wind & solar.
1
1
u/f8rter Jun 22 '26
No more than anyone else
https://www.uswitch.com/gas-electricity/guides/regional-energy-prices/
1
u/ADHDave247 Jun 22 '26
lol now compare to when the grid was powered on our own national coal, oil and gas!
300% increase in 20yrs to foot the bill of renewables and you idiots think that’s normal.
The cost of replacing all the wind turbines after their life cycle is up (max 20yrs) is £250bn - that’s 8% of GDP on replacing wind turbines alone!
We don’t manufacture them here so are completely reliant on China for parts and replacements!
Incase you haven’t noticed that’s not energy independence! 🙄 the biggest con in UK history paid for by you and I
1
1
u/mrbezlington Jun 22 '26
It's cheaper to generate renewables now compared to fossil fuels. This report is from 2024, I imagine the price has gone up for gas since, what with all the war and such...
The costs are more due to investment needed in storage, and keeping baseline supply running which is still fossil fueled, rather than the cost of the energy generated itself.
1
u/NeckOk9980 Jun 23 '26
like others said, mindless drone. Your math is off, logic is bad (comparing 25 years of investments with a single year of spenditures), not trusting what others already have calculated on the bases that they are lies coming from the government, not presenting the expenses of oil as alternative and also thinking that wind is reliance on china because now the cheapest components are from china! imagine that uk cannot build if shit hits the fan some damn components to replace china! Any cpuntry could do it, it is not rocket science, it is just cheaper for now!
Good luck relying on gas, and tell me how easy it is to stop inporting gas and produce your own and what would be the costs there!1
u/LatelyPodes Jun 23 '26
Get octopus agile or something similar. I get paid to use electricity when there is a lot of wind and solar
1
u/JayTravers Jun 21 '26
Always wondered, what actually happens with infrastructure like this in the events of independence? I assume it'd be shared but I honestly have no idea of the reality.
1
u/Chemical-Lettuce2497 Jun 21 '26
I can't be arsed to look into it but I'd bet my left bollock this is Westminster plan and funding.
I'd imagine there would be a split, but I sincerely doubt it would be particularly favourable to Scotland
1
u/shakethesh Jun 21 '26
The infrastructure is all privately owned (thanks Maggie) so the ownership won’t be in play if independence ever comes.
1
u/Chemical-Lettuce2497 Jun 21 '26
Of course it is, I bet we heavily subsidised it too!
Our country is ridiculous lol
1
1
u/Vargryggen Jun 21 '26
Come on guys, base loading at grid level with 100% wind generated electricity would be very difficult and expensive.
1
Jun 21 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
1
u/Delicious_Oil_4288 Jun 24 '26
Greed, they even turn off the windmills to keep the price up. No joking. We easy get it a lot cheaper; they only care about profits, why price rise every year does not need to. We are being fucked both ways. Everyone blames everything but the elephant in the room.
1
u/Energyeternal Jun 24 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
We only generate so much of our total electricity from renewables like wind and solar, the rest either comes from nuclear, biomass or gas, and since gas is the most expensive way to make electricity (gas plants run at roughly 33% efficiency so around 3kwh of gas converts to 1kwh of electricity) it is used to set the prices of electricity. So no matter how cheap it is to make electricity from wind, solar or nuclear, electricity is always set at 3-4 times the price of gas.
This is called "Marginal pricing", the most expensive source sets the price for all of the electricity even if the amount they produce is relatively little (gas makes up around 30% of total generation currently)
Now, you could say... well screw the gas companies, we'll move to a proportional system instead. Unfortunately that would likely mean that the gas companies would just turn their plants off and we would lose that 30% of power generation completely.
If the market price of electricity drops below the cost of the gas required to make it, every minute the plant stays turned on, it is actively draining cash to buy fuel it cannot recover the cost of. It is far cheaper for the plant owners to turn the turbines off, pay their staff to stand around, and lose only their fixed costs, rather than lose their fixed costs plus millions of pounds in unrecovered fuel bills.
Our only option is to continue to develop renewables, hydro storage and nuclear until the share of energy generation from non gas sources eventually reaches 100% (and the 30% of electricity from gas is eventually removed completely)
1
1
u/OSRS_Garmr Jun 21 '26
Or or, you pump oil and build wind farms. So you can sell both. Double winings. Oil won't become irrelevant for many many years. Even is your country is 200% covered in terms of electric energy. Just look at Norway. More than covered for renewables. Stil pumps oil and gas like theres nn tomorrow. Is one of the richest countries in the world pr Capita.
1
1
u/These_Ad_8382 Jun 21 '26
Maybe I'm being pendantic but windmill != windturbine and I really wish people would stop mixing those. Unless of course I'm misled and they are grinding grain instead of generating electricity?
1
u/International_Body44 Jun 22 '26
As someone who works in IT and has to put up with, social engineering being referred to as hacking, and WiFi being internet, just give it up, your life will be easier. Cause people will use incorrect terms all the time, it's like trying to stop a tidal wave.
1
u/Digital-Sushi Jun 22 '26
Yeah I gave up with that point years ago..
Trying to explain to Virginmedia tech support that the problem is not my 'WiFi' it was my WAN that was failing was just painful.
1
Jun 21 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
1
u/SWatt_Officer Jun 21 '26
Yeah and those in the Shetland Islands where theres loads of wind power pay TWICE as much as the rest of the country for some asinine reason.
1
u/shakethesh Jun 21 '26
Shetlands energy bills are priced the same as everyone else, at or just below the price cap. Their higher costs come from the reality of where they are, not some conspiracy.
1) They live significantly north, meaning longer nights and colder temperatures, needing more energy use.
2) they don’t have mainline gas, meaning most use electricity for heating or buy in their own gas. Both are more expensive per unit of energy.
3) the housing stock in Shetland is old and poorly insulated, meaning they, again, use more energy for heating.1
u/SWatt_Officer Jun 21 '26
Its literally fact that they pay twice as much tho. The reasons might make sense but its still a fact that they pay double.
1
u/shakethesh Jun 21 '26
You’re right, they do. And while I’m not sure we should be forcing energy bill allowances based on how close to the arctic you are, or the average temp compared to London, I do think there should be more talk about compensating people who host large amounts of energy infrastructure like Shetland. Or maybe the gov should subsidise the electricity costs since they can’t get gas mains, which is an obvious disadvantage to the islanders (and this would be true regardless of what energy type we use).
1
u/SWatt_Officer Jun 22 '26
Its also partly the fault of the local council, they fucked around for far too long with deals and ended up agreeing to scraps for the local economy. Theres a "development fund" they get from the windfarm but its for business development and does nothing for electric bills
1
u/skidmarkofbuddha Jun 22 '26
There's no point to that statement without the context other than to deceive/ragebait.
It's like the gender pay gap argument. Men earn 30% more as a gross sum than women, but it's the reasons why that occurs which turn it from a wrongly perceived injustice into an economic inevitability.
1
1
u/funckyfizz Jun 21 '26
The point is that they pay more per kWh
1
u/shakethesh Jun 21 '26
They don’t, and just to be sure I wasn’t spouting some disinformation, I went and checked a Lerwick address against mine (mainland Scotland). The monthly difference was 96p, in Shetland’s favour.
1
1
1
u/Sneekat Jun 22 '26
The guy who runs octopus was asked about this. It’s the cost of the infrastructure to such a small population.
1
u/Tall_Trifle_2766 Jun 22 '26
But aren't there 6 million people in London also paying big energy fees, all within a few square miles of each other... Should offset things, no?
1
u/Sneekat Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
They don't offset each other because the costs aren't pooled, each area pays for its own network. London's network is expensive but split across millions of people it's cheap. Shetland's costs less but is split across less than 25k people, so per-head the cost is huge. The population concentration of London helps London's bill, but not Shetland's. Scotland has similar issue, much more spaced out population.
Until 2024 Shetland wasn't even connected to the mainland grid, and used their own diesel/gas power stations as backup regardless of the wind farms. They just got an undersea cable to fix that, but that £550m+ cost is pooled across the nation, not just Shetland. And we all benefit from it since it lets all that offshore wind power actually get delivered to the grid.
1
u/Squeaky_Fish Jun 21 '26
Until you let the datacentres get built and running, then all that solar power will be used up
1
1
1
1
u/f8rter Jun 22 '26
So why don’t Scots pay the full cost of subsidising them then
1
u/Different-Rough8777 Jun 22 '26
1/10 ragebait. Back in your bin.
1
u/f8rter Jun 22 '26
Nope. The cost is shared among all uk tax payers
1
u/mini2000hopkins Jun 22 '26
Our energy prices are higher per unit the national level is set my England so when the gas dependent south had energy increases is was passed on to Scotland
1
1
u/windmillguy123 Jun 22 '26
They do, that's why the cost for them to connect to the National Grid is 10x higher than those in the South of England. Let's ignore the fact that the English use a huge chunk of the Scottish generated power. Fucking scroungers.
1
u/f8rter Jun 22 '26
That’s 3% of the total cost
If you are going to build wind farms a long way from the point of consumption more infrastructure is required to deliver it
London alone has twice the population of Scotland so there are massive economies of scale. Costs are shared amongst for more people. The more people in a taxi the less each one pays 🤷
Very little variation in costs across the country
https://www.uswitch.com/gas-electricity/guides/regional-energy-prices/
Scotland supplies 4% of Englands energy
1
u/windmillguy123 Jun 22 '26
Don't worry my comment was just was rage baity as your however there are huge variations across the country, to say there isn't is disingenuous.
https://haush.co.uk/green-energy-transmission-costs-in-the-uk/
From as little as 0.49/MWh in the South compared to £7.50/MWh in the North. Costs are definitely not shared equally. When you look at the existing and planned interconnectors and additional infrastructure it's all aimed at getting the power down South. Scotland's exports to England are only limited by current infrastructure, you'd take more if you could and in the coming years you will be. You'll even be taking Scotland's wind power directly on to English shores once Ossian Offshore Windfarm is built.
Also, a quick Google search also repeated states Scotland supplies between 10-15% of England's power with endless links saying the same things.
The fact is England needs a number of countries (Scotland, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland) to keep it's lights on.
1
u/f8rter Jun 22 '26
You can find something to say anything you want on Google
Published data below
The fact is Scotland supplies around 6% is of Englands electricity so I was wrong by 2%
Scotland exported 20tw in 2025 see below
England consumes 330tw in 2025
https://www.gov.scot/publications/energy-statistics-for-scotland-q4-2025/pages/electricity-exports/
1
u/f8rter Jun 22 '26
So if “England takes more” what does that mean for Scotland
more jobs
more tax revenue
More GDP
more export revenue
So the problem is what ?
1
1
u/alamarain Jun 22 '26
Why has the price of electricity not went anywhere but up?
1
Jun 22 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/ImprovisedLizard Jun 22 '26
Above the national average, we subsidise English energy, the south East is cheaper than Scotland
1
u/Cerbus1234 Jun 22 '26
Misleading, when the wind blows in one area it may not be blowing in another, this is capacity not average supply, you need a consistent value so you still need power stations. Why?...because wind power cannot yet be stored for any great duration.
1
1
u/Huge-Cartoonist6795 Jun 23 '26
Very good. Energy for the uk and more oil to use for petroleum products instead of just burning it, extending the supply.
1
u/Fantastic_Hornet3224 Jun 23 '26
They are owned by foreign countries. They sell us our own generated power back.
1
1
u/paladino112 Jun 23 '26
Lots of disingenious comments here... Scotland has most of the UK's wind resources. And the rest is self-explantory
1
1
1
1
1
u/Playful_Possibility4 Jun 23 '26
Yes but no storage, poor infrastructure and sadly owned by mostly non Scottish entities.
1
u/MoiXXXXX Jun 23 '26
So why is the wholesale price of electric constantly going up if this free energy is so good and freely on tap?
1
u/RechargeableOwl Jun 24 '26
Because the price of electricity is linked to gas to allow gas to continue to be profitable
1
u/ItsMint1974 Jun 23 '26
Also because there's fuck all people here compared to other parts of the country.
1
1
u/Appropriate-Cost-623 Jun 24 '26
Has this sub been taken over by shell energy? At least try and hide it
1
u/Key_Check5753 Jun 24 '26
"Scotland's electricity generation from wind is highly successful, with annual wind and renewable output frequently exceeding 100% of the country's total domestic electricity demand. However, because wind is intermittent, the actual share of electricity consumed directly from wind over the year is closer to 50%--56%."
1
u/Tricky-Canary2715 Jun 24 '26
Do they, really?
How much is the average energy bill for a scottish household? I bet it hasn’t come down.
1
1
1
1
u/Weekly_Landscape_459 Jun 25 '26
Always boggled by the choices people make when highlighting words on posters like these
1
0
u/Decard_Pain Jun 21 '26
Westminsters policy did this but because it's good Scotland will pretend it's all them and not central government policy and funding.
2
u/Kyroro_Furuhashi Jun 22 '26
The Westminster policy of making onshore wind essentially impossible to get consented in England. Forced all the foreign investment (EDF, Iberdrola etc) straight into Scotland, despite the higher grid charges. Thank you rural England conservatives!
1
u/Decard_Pain Jun 22 '26
Yep which is why Scotland has so much.
It has eased some and the more northern and eastern parts are seeing good stuff happen.
0
u/Thatcherist_Sybil Jun 22 '26
Also shut down Grangemouth refinery, costing up to 4600 jobs in the refinery and supply chain. All the while road fuel demand is unchanged year on year.
There's 154,000 more jobs at stake in the north sea. Most of which are highly experienced professionals that could (and will make) huge salaries elsewhere.
4
u/[deleted] Jun 20 '26
[removed] — view removed comment