Climate Denial Crock of the Week

Above, video from Wind developer Orsted on their new big offshore installation in the North Sea.

Orsted:

Ørsted is proud to announce that the world’s largest installed windfarm, Hornsea 2, is now fully operational. The 1.3GW offshore wind farm comprises 165 wind turbines, located 89km off the Yorkshire Coast, which will help power over 1.4 million UK homes with low-cost, clean and secure renewable energy.

The wind farm is situated alongside its sibling Hornsea 1, which together can power 2.5 million homes and make a significant contribution to the UK Government’s ambition of having 50 GW offshore wind in operation by 2030. 

The Hornsea zone, an area of the North Sea covering more than 2,000 km2, is also set to include Hornsea 3. The 2.8 GW project is planned to follow Hornsea 2 having been awarded a contract for difference from the UK government earlier this year.

Hornsea 2 has played a key role in the ongoing development of a larger and sustainably competitive UK supply chain to support the next phase of the UK’s offshore wind success story. In the past five years alone, Ørsted has placed major contracts with nearly 200 UK suppliers. Ørsted has invested GBP 4.5 billion in the UK supply chain to date and expects to make another GBP 8.6 billion of UK supply chain investments over the next decade.

CNBC:

A facility described as the world’s largest floating wind farm produced its first power over the weekend, with more turbines set to come online before the year is out.

In a statement Monday, Norwegian energy firm Equinor — better known for its work in the oil and gas industry — said power production from Hywind Tampen’s first wind turbine took place on Sunday afternoon.

While wind is a renewable energy source, Hywind Tampen will be used to help power operations at oil and gas fields in the North Sea. Equinor said Hywind Tampen’s first power was sent to the Gullfaks oil and gas field.

“I am proud that we have now started production at Hywind Tampen, Norway’s first and the world’s largest floating wind farm,” Geir Tungesvik, Equinor’s executive vice president for projects, drilling and procurement, said.

“This is a unique project, the first wind farm in the world powering producing oil and gas installations.”
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While some will choke on the “oil and gas installations” part, my take is that if oil and gas are subsidizing the growth of wind energy, and thereby hastening the energy transition, that’s a virtuous cycle. Similar dynamic taking place in west Texas, where a dearth of local electrical production has driven a lot of solar development to service local fracking operations – and continued to accelerate the cost declines and growth of the solar industry that will eventually drive gas out of the power production sector.

Bloomberg:

A city in southern China is planning an offshore wind farm bigger than all of the power plants in Norway combined. 

Chaozhou, in Guangdong province, intends to start work on the 43.3-gigawatt project before 2025, according to a copy of the city’s five-year plan posted on industry publication bjx.com. The wind farm will be built between 75 and 185 kilometers (47 and 115 miles) off the city’s coast on the Taiwan Strait.

Latest Scottish offshore wind energy price: 3.7 pence/kWh unit. Melt that into the political equation when your bill charges 28p or whatever it’s going to be when the cold sets in again. And remember, energy policy is devolved to Westminster. This is outwith Scotland’s control. pic.twitter.com/jRjMjTxGpJ

— Alastair McIntosh (@alastairmci) July 8, 2022

According to the news, the Shandong Bozhong project achieved an LCOE of 400 RMB/MWh, (USD 56.90) basically at the same level as the Shandong base coal price (394.9 RMB/MWh).

It represents a huge, HUGE decline in construction costs for offshore wind in the past few years.

— David Fishman (@pretentiouswhat) November 14, 2022