On 19/10/2010 15:10, David Hansen wrote:
On Tue, 19 Oct 2010 14:00:23 +0100 someone who may be "Nightjar
\"cpb\"@""insertmysurnamehere wrote this:-

I assumed it was sufficiently well known not to need references.

http://www.raeng.org.uk/news/publica...Commentary.pdf

The 2004 PB Power report for the Royal Academy of Engineering. Yes,
it is well known.

This is what UKERC had to say about it
http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/Downloads/PDF/06/0604Intermittency/0604IntermittencyReport.pdf

"Within the data on reserve impacts and costs we have included (but
not shown on figure 3.1) a notable outlier (Royal Academy of
Engineering and PB Power 2004) (ref.239). This report is difficult
to categorise. This is because the report does not use the systemic
approach to estimating system costs common to other studies, but
works on the premise that wind generation requires dedicated back
up. Since this back up would be expected to provide both balancing
and reliability, the data in this study are therefore a combination
of system balancing reserves and capacity installed to maintain
reliability. This highlights the scale of the implications of
methodological differences and the importance of terminology to
estimates of the impacts of intermittency."

"The study that does not show a penetration level (Royal Academy of
Engineering and PB Power 2004) (ref.239) is an extremely high
outlier at a cost of £17/MWh. This report has the unusual
characteristics noted previously, and appears to be an amalgamation
of balancing and reliability costs."

See also Box 3.1.

In less academic language, they started from a false premise and
built their house on that sand.

That is not actually what it says. However, if you simply look at the
cost of generating with wind power, ignoring the question of pricing for
back up, it still works out a lot dearer than nuclear. In this, the
study is in agreement with the following analysis from the government'
national archives:

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.g.../file31938.pdf

There are plenty of other studies available online that put onshore wind
generation at anything up to twice the cost of nuclear and offshore wind
at up to three times. However, I'm not going to hold your hand and guide
you through every one. You can spend the time Googling yourself.

Colin Bignell