What Does Offshore Wind Power Really Cost?

What Does Offshore Wind Power Really Cost? 20 hours ago Charles Rotter 77 Comments Reposted from Not A Lot Of People Know That FEBRUARY 7, 2021 By Paul Homewood See the source image Despite mounting evidence to the contrary, we keep being assured that offshore wind costs have tumbled to under £50/MWh. The US Energy Information Administration however don’t agree. They regularly assess the levelised costs of all power sources, and only a year ago calculated that the cost of offshore wind was $115.04/MWh, roughly £84/MWh, at current prices. Their figure does include transmission costs of $3.15, so excluding this we are looking at £82/MWh. image image image electricity_generation You cannot of course simply compare generation costs, which the EIA have done, as there are associated system costs involved, as BEIS explain: image image image https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/beis-electricity-generation-costs-2020 As Table 7.1 shows, these hidden costs could range between £15 and £35/MWh for offshore wind. By contrast, CCGT actually results in lower wider system costs (note the levelised cost of £82/MWh for CCGT includes a fake carbon cost of £32/MWh). image image Adding these extra system costs on to the US costings will take the true cost of offshore wind power to £100/MWh or more.