Of course the transmission charging regime is going to disincentivise generators from locating behind a grid bottleneck, and incentivise them to locate in front of that bottleneck, close to demand. It’s not exactly rocket science. And it’s not “unfair”.
Just three key examples of the punishment Scotland faces total around £16bn in lost investment: • The 2GW West of Orkney wind farm has been paused with developers warning that excessive transmission costs has made the project uncompetitive. The 125-turbine wind farm would have had enough power for two million homes with £6.4bn investment lost. • Arven South wind farm was cancelled by Ocean Winds who blamed "the current impact of the current Transmission Charging Regime" ruining £1.4bn worth of investment. • Shell walked away from the Campion wind project with around £7bn lost in investment with transmission charges said to have been a key factor. Commenting, the SNP Westminster Leader and candidate for Aberdeen Deeside & North Kincardine, Stephen Flynn said: "The Labour Government is hammering our energy sector with crippling transmission charges uniquely applied to Scottish projects while equivalent sites in England are subsidised.
The performative stupidity of the SNP transmission charging grievance. Yes 5.5 GW of ScotWind projects have been paused or cancelled (those lease options were *not* sold off on the cheap). But that’s because there is a massive grid bottleneck between Scotland and England.
Explainer: Voluntary long-term fixed contracts A Contract for Difference (CfD) is a long-term contract between the government and an electricity generator that guarantees a stable, fixed price for the electricity they produce. A Wholesale Contract for Difference (WCfD) would offer existing eligible generators, who aren't already contracted under a CfD, the option to accept a fixed price for the electricity they generate. This would mean that both they and consumers are no longer exposed to volatile gas-linked electricity prices. A WCD would see eligible generators give up their current forward wholesale revenues in exchange for a fixed power price achieved via a CfD. Under this proposal it is envisaged that generators accredited under the Renewables Obligation (RO) would continue to receive support via the RO in the way they do currently - with only their wholesale revenues being exchanged for a fixed price CfD. The WCD will be a voluntary offer to eligible electricity generators, and will be subject to consultation in due course. Government will only offer contracts to electricity generators where it represents clear value for money for consumers. Further details will be set out in due course, with plans to consult later this year.
Important detail in Miliband plan: the new WCfDs will be quite different to regular CfDs. They will (presumably) have a shorter contract length. But they will also, in effect, have two fixed prices. Early years: WCfD strike price + ROC value. Later years: WCfD strike price only.
There is a single GB electricity market, and a separate single electricity market for the island of Ireland. So no.
There is no energy related challenge or opportunity that becomes easier with Scottish independence. The challenges and opportunities all become *harder* with independence. It’s pretty obvious that more can be achieved when all parts of our small island work together.
Moreover, while renewables' marginal costs are low, wind and solar farms require a lot of upfront investment to build. New projects in Britain tend to secure a contract with the government guaranteeing them a fixed price regardless of the wholesale price, to make sure they can earn back their upfront costs. This guarantee is funded by a levy on consumer bills, meaning that the wholesale price is not what consumers end up paying for those generators' output. In the most recent auction round of these contracts, offshore wind farms secured guaranteed prices of about £91 per megawatt-hour, higher than current power prices, and which will rise with inflation for 20 years.
If you don’t like what I’ve written about the costs of renewables, because of my unforgivable politics, here is the FT making the same points. These are not political points. They are points about economic realities. And an independent Scotland cannot abolish economic realities.
Because people are getting mixed up between short-run marginal costs, which are very low, and long-run marginal costs, which are not. The key thing to understand is that consumers ultimately have to pay the long-run costs.
Yes, I know that. But the price of renewables is higher than the gas-linked electricity price we pay today.
Decent effort by @severincarrell.bsky.social. But Swinney’s answer is his standard bullshit. To ask this question effectively he *must* be pressed on the fact (and it is a fact) that costs of the latest generation of Scottish renewables are *higher* than the price of electricity set by gas.
Here is what the SNP manifesto promises on energy bills. No details on how this would be achieved, of course. This is not a policy. It’s a fantasy.
John Swinney says one of the things he’s most proud of the SNP government for having delivered is something it had almost no role in delivering. (Energy is reserved. Scot Gov’s minor role is limited to planning applications.)
“But you are allowed an opinion.” (Part 2/2)
John Swinney’s inability to give a straight answer on the SNP’s position on new drilling for oil & gas, painfully exposed this morning by Nick Robinson on the Today Programme. (Part 1/2)
Nick Robinson skewers John Swinney’s fatuous argument that national security concerns are a smoke screen for an “anti-Scottish” conspiracy by the UK government to block a Chinese wind turbine factory in Scotland.
And again. He loves this line. And it’s wholly false.
1/ This line, that because a Chinese company has a minority stake in Hinkley Point C, the UK Labour government must be “anti-Scottish” to have blocked the Ming Yang wind turbine factory, on national security grounds, is very easily debunked.
Scotland’s energy wealth is being “siphoned off” by Westminster, says John Swinney. Populist bullshit of the highest order. #bbcdn
5/… which has not reversed the previous government’s u-turn on Chinese involvement in new nuclear.
“If that’s not an anti-Scottish move by a Labour government, I don’t know what is.”
Well, John Swinney, it turns out that you really *don’t* know what is.
4/ The minority stake in Hinkley Point C still held by a Chinese company is a passive, non-controlling interest, and the legacy of a decision made more than a decade ago by a previous government. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the current Labour government at Westminster…
3/ And in 2022, the Rishi Sunak government reversed that position by moving to exclude any further Chinese involvement in new nuclear, on national security grounds. hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2022...
2/ The Chinese involvement in new nuclear was a decision made in 2015 by the David Cameron government. www.gov.uk/government/n...
1/ This line, that because a Chinese company has a minority stake in Hinkley Point C, the UK Labour government must be “anti-Scottish” to have blocked the Ming Yang wind turbine factory, on national security grounds, is very easily debunked.
And again. He loves this line. And it’s wholly false.
Scotland’s energy wealth is being “siphoned off” by Westminster, says John Swinney. Populist bullshit of the highest order. #bbcdn
How to demonstrate that the SNP is not telling the truth about energy bills and Scotland’s “low-cost” renewables. A step-by-step guide.
This is really important. The SNP, and many supporters of independence, keep making the argument that Scotland's renewables would bring down the price of electricity in an independent Scotland, and imply that the current system is unfair to Scots. This analysis blows that argument out of the water.
How to demonstrate that the SNP is not telling the truth about energy bills and Scotland’s “low-cost” renewables. A step-by-step guide.
The gas price moves around, so I wouldn’t necessarily put it like that. In the long run, we cannot expect gas or wind to deliver cheap electricity.
