All posts tagged Labour’s Energy Price Freeze

The rising costs of the Renewables Obligation Certificate Scheme

Summary

The cost of Renewables Obligation Certificate scheme ROCs to covert the UK to renewable electricity has more than doubled in less than four years. Whilst the majority of this increase is down to volume increases and inflation, a significant part is down to switching to higher levels of subsidy, particularly for offshore wind farms. This means that the unit cost of electricity from renewables is rising. One wonders if the DECC has factored this into its projected costs of energy to households.

Main Analysis

In my previous posting “Labour’s Hypocrisy on Rising Energy Bills”, I identified that the rise in energy bills over the last few years was mostly due to rising costs external to the energy companies. I only briefly alluded to the causes. This posting looks at the growth in “Renewables Obligation Certificates” (ROCs), the major vehicle to encourage the energy industry to switch to renewables from fossil fuels. Working out the proportion of the “other cost” increases is difficult to work out, but it could be up to a half.

On the 19th December, the Department for Environment, Energy and Climate Change (DECC), issued a great rash of postings to its website. Amongst these of particular interest was “Energy trends section 6: renewables“. This contains a spreadsheet of interest – ET 6.3 “Renewables obligation: certificates and generation”. This gives monthly data covering the period January 2010 to August 2013.

Not all renewables are equal. Different types of renewables attract different ROC rates per MWh (megawatt-hour) of electricity generated. These vary from 0.25 to 5.00. In practice more than 99% of renewable power generated falls into four bands – 0.50, 1.00, 1.50 and 2.00.

Charting the electricity generated in megawatt hours for the period gives the following graph:-


In less than 4 years there has been a spectacular growth in total electricity generated from renewables, from around 1.5m MWh per month in early 2010, to over 3.0m in early 2013. But there has been even greater growth in the generation of renewables with 2.00 ROCs, and the disappearance of the 0.50 ROCs. This can be better seen by the proportions of generation in each of the ROC bands.


In early 2010, less than 5% of renewables generated qualified for 2 ROCs, whereas by 2013 over 20% did. To show the impact more clearly I have devised three indexes. These include all ROC bands for declarations on a monthly basis. (A very tiny number of schemes have annual declarations.)

  1. Renewable electricity generated qualifying for ROCs.
  2. Renewable Obligation Certificates issued.
  3. The buy-out value of the ROCs. This value is declared by the regulator OFGEM, and inflated each year by the Retail Prices Index. The 2013/14 declaration is here, with all the previous rates.

The index is for 12 month periods, with the period January to December 2010 set to 100.


From the period Jan-Dec 2010 to the period Sept 2012-Aug 2013, volume of renewables electricity generated increased by 80%; volume of ROCs by 116%; and value of ROCs by 140%.

There is a rapid growth in renewables, but the real cost per unit generated is increasing more rapidly. In buy-out values terms, the ROCs issued were worth £862m for Jan-Dec 2010 and £2,069m for Sept 2012-Aug 2013. But what type of renewable is responsible for this real cost per unit increase?

The Growth in Wind Turbine generation and ROCs

A major component of renewables has always been wind turbines, but the proportion is increasing. They are split between onshore and offshore. There are three graphs showing this increase.

  1. The proportion of renewables generated from Wind Turbines


    This shows that not only has the proportion of generation from wind turbines increased from around 40% to nearly 60%. More than 100% of the increased proportion is due to offshore wind turbines with 2.00 ROCs per MWh generated.

  2. Wind generated ROCs as a proportion of ROCs issued


    The share of total ROCS for wind turbines now accounts for over 60% of the total. Around 30% is from offshore wind turbines with 2.00 ROCs per MWh generated.

  3. Index of Changes in Renewables Obligation Credits for wind turbines.


From the period Jan-Dec 2010 to the period Sept 2012-Aug 2013, volume of renewables electricity generated increased by 134%; volume of ROCs by 177%; and value of ROCs by 209%. In buy-out values terms, the ROCs issued for wind turbines were worth £426m (49% of the total) for Jan-Dec 2010 and £1,315m (64% of the total) for Sept 2012-Aug 2013.

The true cost of offshore wind power

This analysis has solely concentrated on ET 6.3. The “Renewable electricity capacity and generation” (ET 6.1) file has some useful data on load factors. For wind turbines I have extracted the annual data.


Offshore wind turbines have around 35% higher load factors than onshore.

The vast majority of income for wind turbines is in two parts. There is the wholesale price at around £60 per MWh and the ROC income, which is £42 for onshore and £84 for offshore.

Per annum, with 35% more load, the offshore wind farm can expect about 90% more income per MWh of capacity than the onshore to cover capital and maintenance costs. It is even worse when compared with the gas-fired alternative. The only income for the generator is the £60 per MWh from selling wholesale, but they have the additional costs of at least £20 per MWh for fuel.

Biomass

An area not covered is the growth in the use of Biomass / other fuels at coal-fired power stations. This will be in a posting next year.

Questions on the subsidising of offshore wind turbines

  1. Given that prior to 2010 offshore wind farms were being commissioned with ROCs of 1.00 and 1.50, how much of this increased rate of 2.0 accommodates greater costs (more distant from the shore, and in deeper water) and how much gives greater profits?
  2. Given that a gas-fired power station can cover its operating and capital costs with less than £40 per MWh, should we be considering alternative, and less reliable, forms of electricity generation that seem to need up to four times the income to operate?
  3. Was any independent studies done of the costs of wind-generated power in setting the ROC rates, or was it just on the advice of the renewables industry and a DECC desperate to meet its carbon budget?
  4. Have the DECC factored in the need to give ever higher levels of subsidies to meet renewables targets?

Kevin Marshall

by manicbeancounter on 31/12/2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Climate Change Analysis, Costing, Labour in Opposition
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Posted by manicbeancounter on 31/12/2013

https://manicbeancounter.com/2013/12/31/the-rising-costs-of-the-renewables-obligation-certificate-scheme/

Labour’s Hypocrisy on Rising Energy Bills

If you go to the Labour Party’s website there is an announcement.

Clicking down will take you to energy price calculator. I found out with Ed’s policy I could save £112 per year.

Two weeks after the announcement, still no links to the actual plan, but there is a video to watch.

Just one minute and twenty-six seconds for a distinguished actor to say the following:-

How do you feel when you see your energy bill sitting at the front door and you know that it is going to be even higher than the last one?

And how do you feel when you read in the newspaper that your energy providers’ profits are up yet again?

Millions of ordinary families are struggling to keep up with bills. Bills that are rising faster than wages.

Since David Cameron became Prime Minister, he’s allowed gas and electricity to rise by an average of £300 a year and sat by as energy companies make record profits. Under this Government a privileged few come before hard-families. Ed Miliband and Labour are going to change that. Ed’s energy plan will mean a tough new regulator with the power to challenge the energy companies and keep prices down. Under Ed’s energy plan gas and electricity bills will be frozen. That’s right frozen. Under the Tories you have overpaid. Labour will fight the cost of living crisis and build an economy that works for working people.

The inference is that your bills are rising solely due to the ever-increasing profits of the energy companies. Further the nasty Tories had it in their power stop it. Along will come Labour and stop all that.

I have looked up the figures. Since the 2009, the energy regulator OFGEM has required the six big energy companies to produce financial data by five segments. That is for electricity generation, along with supply data for electricity and gas, each split between domestic and non-domestic supply. I have analysed all four years of data for the six companies, using links provided by OFGEM. There is, of course, no financial data available for 2013 as the year has yet to finish.

If Labour are correct in their inference of price rises being due to increasing profits then profits will be increasing as a percentage of sales. With the typical household’s bill rising by over 20% between May 2010 and the end of 2012, profits as a percentage of revenue would be rising sharply. The following shows the percentage components of revenue.

The narrow band in purple for profit increased from 1.8% of sales to 3.8%. It is not increasing profits that have caused the price rises. The reason for doubling is because, in total, the six major companies lost money on gas supply in 2009. Nor is there a sharp difference between domestic and non-domestic supply margins. You could claim that the energy companies are making more money on generation instead. They are not, as the full margins, by segment, by year, show below.

The total sales breakdown enhances the picture.

Although total are broadly the same in 2009 and 2012, revenue from domestic customers was 13%, whilst that from non-domestic customers was 17% lower. The reason Labour have a higher figure is they rely on OFGEM’s notional average user, who uses the same amount of energy year-in-year out. Real hard-working families have responded to rising prices by reducing consumption.

What is most important is why unit costs have risen. Labour are correct when they say it is not due to the wholesale price of energy. As already demonstrated, they are incorrect to say it is due to rising profits. The real reason is “other costs”. These rose from 32% to 40% of revenue in just four years. That is from £14.1bn to £17.7bn in just four years or a 25% increase. On declining volumes this is more significant for consumers.

These figures are corroborated by a breakdown by my energy supplier, Scottish Power.

With VAT at 5%, the Scottish power says that its charges to the domestic customer in 2013 are made up of 53% for fuel and 43% for other charges. This compares to the industry average in 2012 of 55.7% for fuel and 40.6% for “other costs” plus “amortization”. The higher proportion of other charges to domestic customers is to be expected, as small domestic customers have lower costs. The relevant domestic figures from the big six are 51.8% for fuel and 44.0% for other charges. Given the obviously rounded Scottish Power figures, they are remarkably close to the industry average.

The supply market is fiercely competitive, hence the real reason for the ability of customers to save money by switching suppliers. Therefore it is doubtful that internal costs will have risen. What has risen is the delivery of the energy to the home (National Grid, local delivery, and cost of meters), along with green levies. So it is likely over 75% of the price increases to the customer are due to factors outside of the energy supplier’s control.

Where does responsibility lie for the above-inflation price increases?

The dash for “clean” energy to save the planet is enshrined in the Climate Change Act 2008. It was pushed through the House of Commons when Ed Miliband was Environment Secretary. This accelerated the growth in green levies and the requirement for a more extensive grid network to carry the wind-generated electricity from remote turbines. Delve further in the profits on electricity generation and you will find that fossil fuel generation has margins of 10%. A price freeze will eliminate the supply profits in six months, and the generation profits in two years. The is a sure way to get a near monopoly in gas supply, and cause the rapid shut-down of three-quarters of generating capacity. It is an act of gross hypocrisy by Ed Miliband to threaten to destroy a competitive industry to remedy a problem that he is responsible for.

 

NB First time comments are moderated. The comments can be used as a point of contact.

Kevin Marshall

by manicbeancounter on 18/12/2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Climate Change Analysis, Climate Change Economics, Gordon Brown, Labour in Opposition, UK Energy Policy
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Posted by manicbeancounter on 18/12/2013

https://manicbeancounter.com/2013/12/18/labours-hypocrisy-on-rising-energy-bills/