Surprise! Most German Wind Park Investors Losing Money …Duped By Exaggerated Wind Projections!

Loading

P.Gosselin:

German ZDF public television here brings a report on the performance of wind turbines in Germany titled: “Wind energy – a loss business?“. In summary: Investors are losing money and many are finding themselves the victim of overblown promises.

ZDF Wind Park output chart
ZDF public television wind occurrence chart above based on data provided by the German Association for Wind Energy. It shows that actual wind occurrence fell below expectations most of the time. Chart cropped here.

Everywhere in Germany monster wind turbines, which at times soar over 200-meters, are popping up. They are supposed to eventually supply the country with clean, environmentally-friendly energy, the ZDF reports. But according to an analysis of 200 wind parks carried out by Werner Daldorf, an expert certified accountant, they are failing economically. It turns out that wind energy investors often see returns that fall far short of what they were originally told to expect – despite all the subsidies designed to make wind parks risk-free and profitable for their operators.

At the 0:30 mark, Daldorf tells ZDF:

About two thirds of the investments are not paying out as expected. The capital that the investors paid is at risk and possibly will not be recovered.”

The problem, ZDF reports, is that without wind there is no money. ZDF says that future projections of wind occurrence appear to have been overblown, and “are well below what was expected and produce far less power than first thought” – see chart above. Most of the time the wind blows below what investors were told to expect. As a result, not only is wind energy making German power exorbitantly expensive for consumers, but it is also hitting rosy-eyed investors

At the 1:25 mark, The ZDF tells viewers:

Read more

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
12 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

I’ll bet that global warming is causing a decrease in actual wind as opposed to projected wind. Maybe more taxes, regulations and fees would help?

Why do these socialist greenie programs fail time after time? The answer my friend is blowing in the wind, it can fail cause were using O.P.M.

(other peoples money)

I’m guessing a lot of oil industry investors are also losing money at the moment, with the commodity presently selling for $29.53 per barrel. Does anyone want to draw any conclusions from that?

Maybe something about the wisdom of investments in a pipeline to carry the world’s dirtiest fuel across one of the nation’s shallowest aquifers would be good. It now costs a lot more money to extract and process Canadian oil sand that can be made back by selling it.

@Greg: Maybe something about low demand due to a terrible economy.

That would explain why 2015 was a year of such strong job growth, wouldn’t it? It’s probably why U.S. Car Sales Set a Record in 2015. It’s probably why home sales have been so strong.

Don’t give up. Seven straight years of telling people that the economy is steadily worsening and that economic disaster is at hand might eventually take. You still might manage to convert a minor downturn into some sort of serious failure of consumer and investor confidence.

@Greg: You know damn well why the oil prices are low the Saudis are trying to drive the American drillers out of business by flooding the market. Had the pipeline been approved the dollars would be flowing to Canada not the middle east. The politics of that is perfect for this administration.
Now to point our little ADD troll back to subject at hand green energy is a financial loser for investors and end users.

The pipeline would provide oil to a higher-paying world market, not a U.S. market. Many thought it would also raise U.S. gasoline prices, because some domestic oil would be redirected from Midwest refineries to Gulf Coast refineries and then sold in the higher-paying world market. This 2014 Bloomberg Business article explained how that could be an outcome.

Keystone has always been about making a profit by exporting Canadian oil, not about providing an increased supply to the U.S. market. Congress’s recent lifting of the 40-year ban on exporting U.S. pumped domestic oil has now made that outcome even more likely. It’s never been about what’s good for the United States. It’s always been about what’s good for a few big money players.

@Greg: woo hoo. Part time and low-paying jobs…. so many low paying jobs that the left has to try to artificially raise the minimum wage. Auto sales up due to low gas prices.

Keystone has always been about making a profit by exporting oil, not about providing an increased supply to the U.S. market.

The Keystone was about creating jobs, financed by private enterprise. Good jobs. Well-paying jobs. You don’t even know what you are getting behind any more… it changes from day to day.

Keystone wouldn’t create many permanent jobs, unless you count the manpower that might be needed for environmental cleanups.

Granted, there would be thousands of short-term jobs created during the construction phase, but the number of permanent jobs that would remain after construction is completed is pretty much insignificant—as in, under 100. In exchange, you would have elevated environmental risks and a very real possibility of higher U.S. gas prices for consumers.

The troll never understands that the pipeline would not only carry Canadian oil, but oil from North Dakota and Montana. The trains currently carrying the light crude has had more spills, polluted more waterways and killed more people in the past 5 years than any pipeline in the US. The jobs would be created in refining oil and increasing the value of every barrel by selling a higher value refined product. Every one of these jobs would pay more than the half time burger flipping jobs Obama created.

@Greg: So, you leftists are totally happy with food service jobs or part time jobs, but 3-4 year, high paying professional jobs are simply not worth the effort, huh? Thankfully, I still have my job (though we just went through a RIF and face further reductions if the economy does not improve), so I am not one of the desperate souls dependent upon the people you support to find an adequate job. However, when allowing the private sector to create good jobs (note that many of the people that would build the Keystone make a living going from project to project… they don’t land and work on a project for the rest of their life) is blocked due to ideological pressures, I have a full understanding of the plight of those cast aside by this failed administration.

@Randy: The left does not care about facts. Obama uses as his excuse to block the Keystone that “it would not solve all of our energy problems” which, of course, no one claims it would. Meanwhile, he illegally enacts edicts that infringe the rights of millions of Americans with the forlorn hope that “just one life could be saved”. Why does he not wait until the cure for ALL violent crime is found before he imposes something? Obama’s supreme stupidity is his assumption that people other than his most ardent loyalists actually believe his trash.

@Bill: I think all of us who post here must agree to stop feeding the trolls. Feeding the trolls makes us aware of the millions of imbecilic people that know nothing but continue to think they do. Knowing how many there are may affect our sanity. My Dad had a saying about those people, “if their brains were gun powder, they would not have enough to blow their nose!”