Posts Tagged ‘Subsidy’

Czechs jump off the renewables train to nowhere

July 30, 2013

From Power Engineering:

The Czech Republic’s government has voted to end support for renewable power generation in a bid to reduce rising consumer electricity bills.

The law proposes to stop subsidies for new projects and goes in to effect from 2014.

Subsidies for renewable-power sources have raised prices for Czech energy users in the past three years as the cost is passed on through customer bills.

Prime Minister Jiri Rusnok said in the statement, that rising electricity prices “threatens the competitiveness of our industry and raises consumers’ uncertainty about power prices.”

Only hydro, wind and biomass power plants that got construction permits in 2013 will be eligible for support if they’re completed before the end of 2014, the statement said.

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Hard times forces a measure of realism into the mirage that is renewable energy

September 30, 2012

As the financial crisis continues, countries – one after another – are finding that the cost of pandering to environmental correctness is unacceptable. Renewable energy is proving to be unsustainable.

  1. Poland: The government moves to overhaul its system of support for green energy by effectively cutting funding for onshore wind.
  2. Greece: Greece has slashed the guaranteed feed-in prices it pays to some solar operators and is no longer approving permits for their installation.
  3. Switzerland: Switzerland plans for using more gas until 2050 and “energy needs can be completely covered by renewable energy”.
  4. Spain: Government has introduced a new tax on electricity production revenues to try and curb Spain’s current energy sector deficit caused mainly by the government’s renewable subsidy program.
  5. UK: UK cuts feed-in tariffs for Solar panels.
  6. Germany: Germany to press on with energy changes to the renewable subsidy system and with the easing of environmental over-regulation to rein-in renewable energy costs.
  7. Australia: Victoria cuts solar subsidies as the amount paid to new solar customers for power sold to the grid will be reduced from 25 cents to eight cents per kilowatt-hour.
  8. US: Tax breaks for wind energy to be curbed. Hopes that wind power could be competitive without any subsidy have been dashed by the plunge in North American natural gas prices.

Subsidies for what are essentially inferior products for electricity generation are ineffective.  Subsidies for what are misguided objectives are just not sustainable.

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The dark side of the sun in Germany

January 20, 2012
The dark sde of solar energy.

The dark side of solar energy: Der Spiegel graphic

The price for the headlong rush to renewable energy in Germany driven largely by a rampant Green party now has to be paid. Subsidies have exceeded 100 billion € but nothing of that has reached the consumer. But some developers and some entrepreneurs have made some not so  small fortunes.

Der Spiegel is not known for daring to challenge political correctness and has been one of the staunch supporters of the global warming orthodoxy. But even Der Spiegel is apalled:

The costs of subsidizing solar electricity have exceeded the 100-billion-euro mark in Germany, but poor results are jeopardizing the country’s transition to renewable energy. The government is struggling to come up with a new concept to promote the inefficient technology in the future.

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Now Holland cannot afford to subsidise off-shore wind power

November 17, 2011

Most subsidies for the introduction of  uneconomic technologies are in an effort to make them commercially viable. But after 30+ years in the power generation industry I have yet to see a case where this has happened. Instead, subsidies have nearly always been counter-productive. In virtually every case I have seen, subsidies have always been used first to maintain margins rather than to reduce costs. If costs are not reduced then the “indirect” costs for every taxpayer which a subsidy represents eventually end up becoming direct costs for the consumer when the subsidies end.

This is happening to an increasing extent with solar and wind power as subsidies are reduced or withdrawn in the current financial crisis. The costs have then to be borne directly by the consumers and it is not surprising that virtually all countries which have introduced wind power to any extent have seen electricity prices to the consumer increase.

Now it is the turn of the Dutch government to reduce subsidies and pass on the costs directly to consumers.

Reuters reports:

Dutch fall out of love with windmills

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