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Comment by Rapzid | Hacker News Reader

Whether or not these wind farms are economically viable sounds like something for the companies building them to work out.

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They are 100% not viable without tax dollars

Neither is petroleum, nuclear, or the highway system. What's your point?

Wind is the worst of all, otherwise the UK would have the cheapest energy in the West, instead of the highest

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity

Or maybe if not for wind their electricity would be even more expensive.

See? Anyone can make kill-shot arguments when there's no data.

There's plenty of data.

Analysis: Wind power has saved UK consumers over £100 billion since 2010 – new study

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2025/oct/analysis-wind-power-has-...

The interesting part is that 130 Billion of the savings were in reduced gas prices as it reduced demand, particularly in winter, and freed up gas storage.

And this is depsite an effective ban on constructing onshore wind in England from June 2015, more than half the 2010 to 2023 time period studied.

They effectively banned onshore wind for a decade in England just as it became the cheapest source of electricity available to them.

It's neat how right-wing sabotage feeds ino the next cycle of propaganda to support more sabotage.

Electricity prices are set by the marginal producer, which in the UK a lot of the time means gas turbines which are expensive to run. Which mainly means that the renewables plants are making money hand over fist, creating a big push to create more. It's only once that percentage grows enough that the price pressure will go downwards in general. (currently the UK is roughly an even split between gas turbines, nuclear/biomass, and renewables). You can already take advantage of the low price of renewables in some cases, though, if you have a flexible tariff and electricity demand (like a water heater, a house battery, or charging an EV), by drawing when the gas turbines are not necessary to meet demand.

Stop lying: https://electrek.co/2026/01/14/uk-offshore-wind-record-aucti...

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