Viking Energy fails to feature in Contracts for Difference allocations

Viking Energy has missed out in its Contract for Difference Bid.

The results from the latest round of the Westminster government’s bid results have been announced.

The project which aims to build 103 turbines in the Central Mainland is not among the dozen bid allocations outlined.

The CfD scheme is the government’s primary method of supporting low-carbon electricity.

It encourages investment in renewables by aimint to provide projects with a stable income while protecting consumers from increased support costs when electricity prices are high.

COMMENTS(11)

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  • Ivor Johnson

    • September 20th, 2019 8:34

    I’m highly disappointed with this news!

    I only register this opinion as I believe there is a huge, if quiet, volume of the population that are pro-Viking Energy, the feelings of whom never reaches the comments section of the local media.

    I wouldn’t like casual observers, within or without the isles, to think that the entire Shetland population was wholly against the chance to live in a place that generated an outstanding amount of clean energy for the next generation.

    Personally, the prospect would give me a sense of pride.

    REPLY
  • Rosa Steppanova

    • September 20th, 2019 9:27

    Hurrah!

    REPLY
  • Robert Sandison

    • September 20th, 2019 9:44

    This project was never about clean green energy it was/is always about subsidy. Destroying active blanket bog is now being seen by many climate scientists as one of mans greatest follies as these areas have been locking in carbon for at least the past 8,000 years and will continue to do so if protected to help combat climate change.

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  • John Tulloch

    • September 20th, 2019 11:30

    From the moment VE was sent packing to the offshore auctions system it was obvious that the project was a ‘turkey’. It would never fly.

    In 2013 VE told the government it needed £115/MWh to be viable. The last auction winners bid exactly half of that. This time the winners are coming in at just over a third.

    Time for the SIC to start pushing for access to the very cheap gas coming ashore at Sullom Voe. It is a scandal that not a single molecule of the £billions worth of gas passing through is made available to local homes and businesses.

    Cheap gas could supply electricity, heat and motor fuel and would greatly reduce Shetland’s “carbon footprint”, as well as removing a hefty slice of Shetland’s shocking 53 percent fuel poverty.

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  • Kenneth Peterson

    • September 26th, 2019 11:42

    Economically viable or not, the project was far too big for the Islands. Water down the project to provide electricity for local use. Hot water storage, electric car storage, hydrogen generation, large storage batteries and perhaps a tidal array, coupled with intelligent grid management can manage the variability issues associated with renewables. The technology exists today and is maturing. By the time the plans are in place, reliable hardware will exist and costs will have come down.

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  • Peter Hamilton

    • September 27th, 2019 4:58

    Thanks Kenneth. It is time now to get positive and practical. Smaller turbines could be placed near rural housing schemes and power storage radiators boilers. There are calm winter days for sure, but the bricks stay warm for a good long time. This would bring bills down and reduce consumption from the power station. The turbines must not be put on peat though.

    Such perriewise eco energy generation projects could begin quickly and could even turn a profit over time. Shetland Charitable Trust should be happy to help kickstart such projects if they were targeted at reducing fuel poverty. There may be businesses in Shetland that would be attracted to delivering this. Shetland Heat Energy and Power Ltd. should maybe take an initial look. They have some of business knowledge to help.

    Wind to hot water and storage radiator technology is proven and should be put to use, even if it only benefits a few dozen folk at a time. Too much time has been wasted on the grand schemes. It is time to make low impact cheap green energy available to Hjaltland, council tenants tenants in rural areas and those in near by homes.

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  • Ian Tinkler

    • September 27th, 2019 12:14

    The funds of the Charitable rust could easily be used as security for conventional bank loans for small scale turbines and solar panel installations on private homes and Croft Houses. I investigated a turbine/solar installation on my own Croft years ago. The capital cost being about £30,000. As a single parent part-time working, the bank required security for this loan. No security was available on a registered Croft.
    The irony was Ten Million pounds of Trust funds were being wasted on VE at that time. Just how many Green mini projects and to reduce CO2 emissions could have been secured with that money. By now that loan and many similar, would be repaid, and the Trust would be 10 million pounds better off, and my Croft and many like it, genuinely Green!! Green lunatics at work, the stupid get everywhere.
    I just planted 2000 trees instead. (They are mostly willow, some twenty ft plus tall now and those cost nothing as cuttings. Extinction Rebellion have not thought of that yet, nor our Super Green Council (interconnected) leader

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    • Øystein Kjerpeseth

      • September 29th, 2019 19:21

      Bravo from Norway to Mr Ian Tinkler and also to Mr Kennet Peterson, Mr. Robert Sandison and
      Mr. Peter Hamilton. The cases in these letters should have been a main headline and article in the paper. We have similar problems in the «green sector» in Norway, to many private business actors presents «unique» service to decision – making authorities in order to let public money pay the risk for failures.
      I allow my self to say:
      What is Shetland depending on in the future? As I see it: clean and intact peatland, floora and fauna,
      a population that are aware of how vulnerable Shetlands nature is to modern human activeties are.
      Why do people want to visit Shetland ? That is describe in Shetland’s tourist marketing and to
      prove it in the future will be more and more important. Shetland take care of your unique environment, and belive me, that will be an art of balance with many C moments.

      Regards
      Øystein Kjerpeseth
      a neighbor (Bergen)
      and a friend of Shetland

      REPLY
  • Peter Hamilton

    • September 27th, 2019 14:51

    Unusually I’ve just found myself agreeing with Ian Tinkler agreeing with me… well, up until the moment he started describing people he disagrees with as lunatics. That’s not something every rational person opts to do.

    Why might Dr. Ian think it ok to continue to perpetuate stigma around issues of mental health in this way? Maybe he doesn’t actually want his main point to be taken seriously, which, on this one occasion anyway, does seem a bit of a shame.

    That aside, if he doesn’t want to one day be considered as a sociopath, Ian really should try and take a telling on his use of language. After all, the Green agenda contains people with many different views, some of which Ian very much agrees with.

    If, on the other hand, Dr. Ian continues to persist in lambasting all Greens (just not himself you understand), well, he might one day find himself turning an interesting colour around the gills. I suspect though that if he was ever caught checking on the colour of his own gills then this would be thought to be somewhat fishy behaviour. Then again, he might be better to look, and then seek a second opinion.

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  • Ian Tinkler

    • October 1st, 2019 11:15

    Peter Hamilton, get yourself a dictionary annd perhaps you would write less tripe. I made absolutely no mention of mental health nor inferred that in the context above. You show remarkable ignorance for a school teacher!
    Lunatic: someone who behaves in a silly or dangerous way: (Cambridge English Dictionary)

    If you describe someone as a lunatic, you think they behave in a dangerous, stupid, or annoying way. (Collins English dictionary)

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  • Peter Hamilton

    • October 1st, 2019 17:03

    Mierenneuker Ian needs to reconsider his approach. http://www.dwotd.nl/2008/02/368-mierenneuker.html

    As a highly selective literalist, Ian well knows other dictionaries are available (Oxford) and that most provide alternative usages.

    A reputable organisation that aims to end stigma against issues of mental health, Time to Change, asks people to stop using the word “lunatic”.
    https://www.time-to-change.org.uk/media-centre/responsible-reporting/mind-your-language

    Whatever he says he intended to infer, Ian now knows the force of his annoying, stupid and dangerous term: “Green lunatics”. It does carry and reinforce stigma. This is how it is likely to be understood.

    As someone who presumably does not have an ASPD diagnosis, Ian will presumably now want to find a different way of referring to people he disagrees with who, like him, have environmental concerns. It shouldn’t really need to be said, but, for whatever reason, some folk just can’t take a telling.

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