Zombie electricity projects in Britain face axe to ease quicker grid connections

[SteamyTea]

Just now, JohnMo said:

Well done

I don't buy any of the biscuits.

[Crofter]

23 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

People bang on about how we do not have a manufacturing industry, why is Scotland not making wind turbines.

It's been tried. The Arnish yard up on Lewis was making jackets for offshore turbines for a few years. I don't what causes it, but any sort of manufacturing on the UK just doesn't seem to stand a chance against the competition.

And it's not like we're being undercut by China on this- it seems to be most Germany and the Scandinavian countries that are building all the turbines. Not low wage, low regulation economies. 

So we have to choose whether to build domestically and accept the consequences (whether that be higher cost, outdated designs, slower production, etc) or outsource to somewhere else and get a better product cheaper and faster. 

 

It's not just turbines that are affected- same story for ferries. And the politicians who make these decisions are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

[JohnMo]

30 minutes ago, Crofter said:

Scandinavian countries

They have rules about country made content, something like 70 to 80% of material content of engineered products have to include, materials and manufactured content made in country, otherwise they get with huge import tariffs or no permission to go ahead with the project. Then cost of manpower doesn't matter then, people are employed government gets income tax etc.  Why the heck we don't have such rules is bonkers. 

[Crofter]

18 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

They have rules about country made content, something like 70 to 80% of material content of engineered products have to include, materials and manufactured content made in country, otherwise they get with huge import tariffs or no permission to go ahead with the project. Then cost of manpower doesn't matter then, people are employed government gets income tax etc.  Why the heck we don't have such rules is bonkers. 

 

I'm quite surprised that they can do that in a common market.

[JohnMo]

Norway isn't in it - fully

 

And we aren't so could do it tomorrow if we wanted

[Crofter]

31 minutes ago, JohnMo said:

Norway isn't in it - fully

 

And we aren't so could do it tomorrow if we wanted

Yes but Denmark and Germany are, and they are the main manufacturers of wind turbines in Europe.

It's almost as if being the in the EU isn't actually that bad an idea. Ah well, what do I know.

[SteamyTea]

2 hours ago, Crofter said:

making jackets for offshore turbines for a few years

Do you mean the nacelles?

 

If my 35 year ago experience in composites is anything to go by, then it could be, in part, material prices.

I had a run in with ICI about chemical prices becuase I could get the components made in India, then delivered to any European site, cheaper than I could buy the materials.  The Indians were using the exact same materials, made in the same plant at Teeside.

Out of spite, and because EU free trade started, I changed to a German made polymer.

[saveasteading]

9 hours ago, andyscotland said:

Crown Estate making fortunes (as the "landowner" of the sea).

that could be changed very readily if there was the will.

[Roger440]

10 hours ago, Crofter said:

It's been tried. The Arnish yard up on Lewis was making jackets for offshore turbines for a few years. I don't what causes it, but any sort of manufacturing on the UK just doesn't seem to stand a chance against the competition.

And it's not like we're being undercut by China on this- it seems to be most Germany and the Scandinavian countries that are building all the turbines. Not low wage, low regulation economies. 

So we have to choose whether to build domestically and accept the consequences (whether that be higher cost, outdated designs, slower production, etc) or outsource to somewhere else and get a better product cheaper and faster. 

 

It's not just turbines that are affected- same story for ferries. And the politicians who make these decisions are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

 

One of the issues, of which there are many, is, ironically, that our industrial energy prices are too high.

 

 

[Roger440]

3 hours ago, saveasteading said:

that could be changed very readily if there was the will.

 

As with most of these things, "could be", but wont be.

[andyscotland]

5 hours ago, saveasteading said:

that could be changed very readily if there was the will.

Absolutely. Many of the things that are wrong with our energy system (not all, but many) are down to a lack of will.

 

It's not even like it's an ancient tradition. The system until very recently was that the Treasury got all the revenue from the Crown Estate (like any other public asset) and gave the royals a budget for their public duties based on what they could justify (like any other public service).

 

It was only in Cameron's time that that flipped to them giving us a share if we went cap in hand and persuaded them to hand it over.

 

So it's even worse - there was the will to revert to a feudal system, but not the will to change it back.

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 23:11 by andyscotland

[Crofter]

18 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Do you mean the nacelles?

No, the jackets are the big yellow structure at the bottom of the tower. Heavy steel, nothing like as complex as the nacelle.

[Dreadnaught]

On 10/12/2025 at 07:42, andyscotland said:

And then we have to ask the Crown nicely if they'd mind giving a bit more of that money to the public purse, if they're not using it.

 

 

AI "The revenue from the Crown Estate goes to the UK government's Treasury, also known as the Exchequer, not to the Monarch personally. Each year, the Monarch surrenders the entire net revenue profit in exchange for the Sovereign Grant, which is provided by the government to fund official duties and the upkeep of occupied royal palaces."

[Mike]

On 10/12/2025 at 08:42, andyscotland said:

Crown Estate

The Crown Estate is not the private property of the King. Our assets are hereditary possessions of the Sovereign held ‘in right of the Crown’. This means they belong to the Sovereign for the duration of their reign, but cannot be sold by them, nor do revenues from the assets belong to them.
The UK government does not own The Crown Estate either.

Established by an Act of Parliament in 1961, subsequently amended by The Crown Estate Act 2025, we are an independent, commercial business, managed by a Board (also known as The Crown Estate Commissioners).

 

...we continue to give all of our net profit to HM Treasury for the benefit of the nation's finances.

 

https://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/about-us/faqs

[andyscotland]

11 hours ago, Dreadnaught said:

 

AI "The revenue from the Crown Estate goes to the UK government's Treasury, also known as the Exchequer, not to the Monarch personally. Each year, the Monarch surrenders the entire net revenue profit in exchange for the Sovereign Grant, which is provided by the government to fund official duties and the upkeep of occupied royal palaces."

 

3 minutes ago, Mike said:

The Crown Estate is not the private property of the King. Our assets are hereditary possessions of the Sovereign held ‘in right of the Crown’. This means they belong to the Sovereign for the duration of their reign, but cannot be sold by them, nor do revenues from the assets belong to them.
The UK government does not own The Crown Estate either.

Established by an Act of Parliament in 1961, subsequently amended by The Crown Estate Act 2025, we are an independent, commercial business, managed by a Board (also known as The Crown Estate Commissioners).

 

...we continue to give all of our net profit to HM Treasury for the benefit of the nation's finances.

 

https://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/about-us/faqs

 

Those summaries make it all sound very reasonable, compared to my (perhaps deliberately provocative) wording, but they are somewhat misleading.

 

The net profit from the Crown Estate does indeed go to the Treasury. Net profit is of course an interesting concept - an amount of scope to spend money on nice things out of revenue before you get to that figure.

 

The AI summary then mentions the Sovereign Grant "to fund official duties". Sounds fair enough.

 

Except what it doesn't mention is that - unlike almost any other public service, where you start by costing the "official duties" you can justify funding - the Sovereign Grant is a fixed percentage of the net revenue. If the Crown Estate makes more money, the royals do more royalling (or more expensive royalling).

 

There is no mechanism for us to decide that actually we would like the same amount of royalling as last year and to spend the bonus on something else.

 

In fact it's even worse than that. If the net revenue goes down then the Sovereign Grant is set the same level as last year. So we get the same amount of royalling as before, whether we like it or not, and make cuts elsewhere.

 

And this whole situation has been made worse by the unexpected windfall in seabed leases for windfarms (which we are ultimately paying for in our electricity bills) which has delivered close to £500m a year in extra profit.

 

The royals have kindly agreed to reduce their Sovereign Grant % a bit as a result but are still getting an extra £45m this year - again, paid for by us, whatever the mechanism those £ use to get from our pocket to their expenses.

 

No other part of the public finances works this way and IMO regardless of any opinions on the monarchy either way it is bonkers that this is how their budget works.

[Mike]

5 hours ago, andyscotland said:

the Sovereign Grant is a fixed percentage of the net revenue.

It is, and it is a strange arrangement , but the percentage does get reviewed from time-to-time - currently inflated to contribute to the refurb of Buckingham House - projected total £132.1m for 2025-26, it seems.

 

Here in France this year's budget for the Presidency is €125.66m, and for that we only get one person royaling / presidenting. You might not save a lot by returning to a republic :)