Green energy comes up short

Dear Editor: How come we keep hearing about the amount of ‘new capacity’ records for solar and wind electricity generation, but never the actual generation amounts relative to that capacity?

Or how come we frequently hear about how the cost of solar panels or wind turbines are “dropping,” but never the fact that electrical rates are rising — sometimes by orders of magnitude?

The harsh reality is that solar and wind electrical generation never achieves even close to “nameplate capacity.” That is, 100 units of installed capacity never produces 100 units. Or even 90 per cent or 85 per cent of capacity. Solar and wind, the world over, operate between 10-35 per cent.

And then, frequently they produce at times when demand for their electricity is low causing the utilities to “dump” the unneeded/excess power to neighbouring jurisdictions at below-cost prices (Ontario being a prime example.)

Thus, the cost of keeping such energy sources becomes more than they are worth to the system because utilities need to ensure that a backup source is available 100 per cent of the time for consumer needs/demands.

It is not that the raw materials for the backup supply have escalated. Far from it. Costs have remained stable or declined dramatically (think cheap natural gas), but the costs of the intermittency/inefficiency of so-called ‘green’ energy is green only in the sense of it costing a lot of ‘green’ to keep them operating.

Moreover, when the total cost, from cradle to grave, of maintaining ‘green energy’ on the grid is taken into account, it actually increases overall emissions.

All of these facts have been corroborated over and over around the world. Why is it that our media and politicians don’t apprise the public of these realities? Could it be that ideology has blinded them to the truth? Jim Church, Kelowna