The London Array Wind Farm @ $221 MWh

London Array Wind Farm

But you get it, at $221MWh, it has a capacity factor of 40% and it has a astonishing short operating life time of  24 years for "Phase 1 of London Array cost £1.9bn to build, has a 630MW capacity and is expected to produce around 2,200,000MWh of electricity a year".

This is call insanity!!!

The UCS talks about the new" Vogtle expansion, with mid-range levelized costs (per MWh) of $82, $83, and $90, respectively".

It is $35MWh in New England on June 22  and on a Saturday, and it is cool outside. It been $40 to $60 most of this month…but our high market price is leverage by the threat of a natural gas shortage and not enough installed capacity. We are in severe electricity crisis…well, a severe profit crisis because the utilities can’t find a bank big enough to hold all their money.   

Remember energy diversity and the all-of-the-above philosophy means the politicians are out to screw you and sabotage our jobs and income…this basically means the ginned up highest priced source of electricity sets the price of all the lower priced electricity. This allows all the sources of energy to collude against us all and wreck our political system with all their dirty money…gang up on us together.     

I am certain they could build a safe nuclear plant at $221MWh but it would drive our economy back to the stone age.

The London Array is the world’s largest offshore wind farm and began operation earlier this year. Located in the outer Thames Estuary, the 100km2 installation of 175 3.6MW turbines has a combined generating capacity of 630MW – and that’s just phase 1.

We asked the team behind the Array to answer your questions on the engineering challenges involved in such an ambitious project, and how much it all costs.

How long are the turbines designed to last and could their lifetime be extended or could they be replaced with like-for-like units? Could the Array exist indefinitely?

The lifetime of the turbines is approximately 24 years. It is possible that the turbine’s lifetime could be extended with refurbishments at appropriate intervals, and it is also possible to replace the turbines with new ones. This would need to be done within the consenting conditions that apply to London Array Phase 1. London Array has been developed under a 50-year lease for the site from the Crown Estate – which gives it a finite lifetime – and is not designed to be there indefinitely.

How much energy (in MWh) do you expect to generate annually? What is your expected load factor?

We expect a load factor of c.40%, giving output of c.2,200,000MWh – enough to meet the electricity needs of around 500,000 households.

How does the capital cost per MWh of predicted annual energy output compare to new nuclear and gas plants of the equivalent size?

Phase 1 of London Array cost £1.9bn to build, has a 630MW capacity and is expected to produce around 2,200,000MWh of electricity a year. Wind is currently a more expensive form of energy generation than traditional sources largely because it is a newer form of power plant, but the government has set a target of reducing the cost of offshore wind to £100/MWh.

One of the partners, DONG Energy, has also set a target of reducing the cost of its offshore wind projects to €100/MWh for projects sanctioned in 2020 and has put a number of plans into action in order to achieve that aim. Once constructed, offshore wind farms have relatively low operating costs and produce no waste products.

The analysts’ view

We asked two energy analysts for their views on the costs of offshore wind relative to other electricity sources, trends in wind turbine prices and to what degree offshore wind is artificially supported by subsidies.

Angus Crone, Bloomberg New Energy Finance

Our levelised cost of electricity model currently has offshore wind at $221 per MWh, onshore wind at $83, PV solar at $128, nuclear on $101 and combined cycle gas turbines (CCGT) at $70. Note that these are global averages and are levelised costs, not simply capital costs. They also exclude the costs of CO2 emissions in the case of CCGT gas.

Only about 45-50% of offshore wind capital costs are the turbine. The rest consists of foundations, cabling, installation etc, and there is probably even more scope for cost reductions there. Our estimate is that levelised costs of electricity for offshore wind will come down by 22% between 2012 and 2020. There will be further significant cost reductions beyond that.

We think costs will peak in the next couple of years and then fall

Offshore wind costs have already gone up in the last few years because of the move to deep water. We think costs will peak in the next couple of years and then fall, as improvements in installation knowhow, foundations and turbine technology outweigh the extra costs of going to deeper and deeper water.

Offshore wind projects would simply not be built at the moment without support provided by the roc scheme, or after 2017 the contracts for difference feed-in tariff scheme. However the government hopes that by supporting offshore wind now, it will make possible a big reduction in costs over the next 15 years and also help create a world-leading industry in the UK.