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Another revealing posts from our friends in Scandinavia:

Why should wind power be built?


Per Fahlén

Published 5 hours ago


The debate about energy has taken a turn. We do not ask what is best for the environment or the electricity supply. In the debate, costs of the most expensive nuclear power are compared with costs of wind power based on wishful thinking. We have a system that will adapt to the needs of wind power, writes professor emeritus, Per Fahlén.


When the energy authority sent a proposal on suitable areas for wind power for consultation a few years ago, the laconic response from Svenska Kraftnät was that before starting to plan where to build wind power, perhaps one should investigate why wind power should be built in particular.


Industrial wind power is in conflict with most Swedish environmental goals.


A very reasonable point of view, which is underlined by the National Audit Office's sharp criticism in 2023 of the almost total lack of impact analysis of the ongoing change in Sweden's electricity system. The discussion about future electricity supply seems to be locked on the question of what is the cheapest and fastest to build, but that was hardly the main reason for the change. Then six reactors would not have been shut down; cheaper electricity production is hardly possible today and it is not possible to build faster. They already existed.


Important questions about what is best for the country's electricity supply and for the environment, what the electricity should be used for and whether the use is effective are now largely missing. The focus is to quickly build electricity production, primarily wind power; the means has become the end. We have changed a system that could deliver electricity according to the users' needs for a system where both the users and other producers must adapt to the needs of the wind power. The debate compares costs for the most expensive nuclear power you can find with costs for wind power which are based on wishful thinking. There are also different yardsticks for financing for wind and nuclear power. Government loan guarantees for nuclear power are claimed to be a subsidy but most of the wind power is already built with that type of loan guarantee.


Values ​​for wind power's capacity factor and lifetime are greatly overestimated, while operating and maintenance costs are underestimated. Studies of thousands of wind turbines show that the capacity factor drops drastically due to wear and tear and can be halved already after 10–15 years. At the same time, the operating cost increases, which means that the economic lifetime in terms of means can be as low as 15 years for land-based and twelve years for offshore wind power. In a Nordic climate, the result is further reduced due to freezing in winter, and in large industrial areas the plants take wind energy from each other. The electricity production, which is to finance the investment, will thus be lower than budgeted and the majority of wind power in Sweden runs at large losses.


In Great Britain, a review was made of the costs of the country's extensive wind power production in 2020. The average cost for onshore wind power was SEK 1.18/kWh and for offshore wind power SEK 1.98/kWh, while its market value was only SEK 0.17/kWh. For more than 20 years, Professor Hughes has reviewed the costs of thousands of Danish and British wind turbines and has shown that the actual cost is significantly higher than expected. New generations of wind power have performed worse and been more expensive than the previous ones. He has also reviewed Vattenfall's project at Kriegers Flak. He wonders if Vattenfall knows what it's doing at all; the cost of the project was 75–85 euros/MWh excluding grid connection, while the prevailing contract price was 50 euros/MWh.


Regarding the time aspect, it does not look very bright for wind power either. In Markbygden, a wind industry area is being built on an area larger than Stockholm municipality. The project was estimated to last from 2010 to 2025, for 15 years. 1,100 wind turbines are to be built with a total annual electricity production of around 10 TWh. After 14 years, only half has been built, and that part is making big losses. By comparison, South Korea has built four reactors in the United Arab Emirates in eleven years, which can produce around 45 TWh per year. The investment per kilowatt hour over a life cycle is less than a third of that of wind power.


At the system level, wind power requires large investments in grid capacity and grid stabilization. Already at today's level, wind power's negative system impact can cost as much as the power plants themselves, while hydropower and nuclear power deliver system benefits with great positive value. Most of the wind power in Sweden is built, owned and operated by foreign companies and the electricity is often reserved for foreign customers; hence a large export, which takes up space in the Swedish network. Sweden gets very little electricity, tax revenue and jobs, but gets an overloaded grid and a devastated nature. The transmission distances cause large network losses; wind power from Norrland to Germany loses a fifth of production. In addition, the energy sustainability of wind power is 20–30 times worse than that of nuclear power; electricity production should be done close to the use for functional, cost and environmental reasons.


In a scenario analysis from 2023, system function, costs and environmental consequences are compared for different systems with a large proportion of wind power with a 100 percent fossil-free system where 80 percent is nuclear power. The results show that the nuclear alternative is the best from all aspects. A large proportion of wind power is problematic for the electricity system; for a given energy delivery, a high installed power is required, with a consequent poor ratio between maximum and average power and the risk of underutilized network capacity. It also requires an extensive expansion of the electricity grid and a large import, new fossil power or extremely expensive storage to meet the power balance. The excess power of wind power causes significant amounts of "spill", which must be exported or stopped. Large exports and imports are unfavorable both environmentally and economically; it gives rise to significant transmission losses, large land use, large investments and an export of wind power with a low market value as well as the import of, for example, gas, coal or nuclear power at high costs. The annual cost of operation will be more than three times higher for alternatives with a large proportion of wind power than for the nuclear alternative.


Why invest in a type of power that is more expensive and functionally inferior, increases carbon dioxide emissions and the use of non-renewable resources, impairs energy sustainability, requires huge areas and is problematic for biodiversity? Industrial wind power is in conflict with most Swedish environmental goals.


Per Fahlén

Professor emeritus, energy and environment, CTH, member of IVA


This is an opinion text. The opinions are the writer's own.

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