[HN Gopher] Wind power slashed 4.6B euros off electricity bills ...
___________________________________________________________________
Wind power slashed 4.6B euros off electricity bills in Spain last
year
Author : mooreds
Score : 131 points
Date : 2026-01-14 20:18 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.surinenglish.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.surinenglish.com)
| robertakarobin wrote:
| Meanwhile the administration of the US says that wind farms are
| "losers":
| https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2026/01/09/trump-...
| timeon wrote:
| With virtually unlimited donations they are paid to say it.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| Compared to solar, they are kind of noisy though. If you are
| used to not hearing the constant traffic "rumble" that exists
| almost everywhere, they add quite a lot of "rumble" themselves.
| robertakarobin wrote:
| Are they? I haven't noticed the sound myself, although I
| don't live next to windmills and just travel in areas with
| wind power from time to time... I also grew up next to train
| tracks and now live next to an interstate near an airport so
| may have a high tolerance for background noise!
| wood_spirit wrote:
| There is one turbine near where I live in Scandinavia that
| is very noisy. It is a low thumping sound that penetrates
| houses and is horrid. Those living within a km perhaps more
| won a court case to remove it but the owner has appealed
| and appealed and during the years or appeals the thing
| keeps turning and keeps being noisy so people can't sleep.
| My understanding is the simulation and calculations of the
| noise that were part of the planning process were flawed
| and did not accurately model the terrain.
|
| Meanwhile, not 5 km away, there are a bunch of turbines
| with people living around them and no problem.
|
| So the exact slopes etc of the terrain is very important.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That sounds very much like either tower thump or a broken
| bearing, I think the neighbors would have a better case
| if they pushed the safety angle because a turbine in a
| bad state of maintenance is dangerous.
|
| Then they'll be forced to fix it and it will be quiet
| again. You can ask them if it always was that noisy, if
| it wasn't then that's an extra arrow in their quiver. I'm
| very much pro renewables but safety is a major concern
| and operators that do not work safely and/or ignore valid
| complaints are a net negative for renewables.
| Manfred wrote:
| Which is why you put them in the sea or in places with sparse
| population.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Which greatly increases the cost of setting them up.
| tensor wrote:
| Trump also said solar is bad.
| Tade0 wrote:
| One time I drove up to the very base of a ~2MW wind turbine.
|
| Couldn't hear anything besides the road several hundred
| metres away.
| edent wrote:
| That isn't true. We have several turbines near us. One just
| across the street. Even on days without traffic noise, we
| can't hear them.
| jacquesm wrote:
| What's the closest you've lived to a windfarm?
|
| I've lived within 500 meters of a pretty large one and the
| highway more than a kilometer away from where I lived was
| _far_ more noisy than the turbines.
| tzs wrote:
| From that article:
|
| > "Just about all the windmills are made in China," Trump said.
| "They make them and sell them to suckers like Europe and
| suckers like the United States before."
|
| > "All you have to do is say to China: 'How many windmill areas
| do you have in China?' So far they're not able to find any," he
| said. "They use coal and they use oil and gas and some nuclear,
| not much, but they don't have windmills."
|
| It then goes on to cite data from the US Department of Energy
| showing how wrong Trump is.
| epistasis wrote:
| The US has become a nation that values persuasion over reality.
| It values the propaganda over truth.
|
| The US was the envy of Europe with the IRA, which started to
| establish a huge manufacturing base for solar, batteries, etc.,
| that would power cheap energy for the rest of the century for the
| US. The EU couldn't pull it together because they have only
| sticks, whereas the US could use carrots to cause massive
| investment. And it worked! We were building so many factories,
| mostly in highly Republican rural areas, because that's where
| there's a lot of people looking for manufacturing jobs. But the
| factories that were built, that raised wages for entire
| communities, they couldn't even _say_ that it was for renewable
| energy, that it was a benefit of the IRA, because the propaganda
| is so thick that it would poison the jobs. And now, all that 's
| going away. All the lead. All so that we can steal nasty heavy
| sour crude from a South American country that US oil producers
| don't even want.
|
| With the Greenland invasion insanity, Europe is finally getting a
| small taste of what it's like to be a normal person living in the
| US the past decade. Fantasy, vibes, and really bad values have
| taken over the semblance of sanity.
|
| The US is missing out on the biggest technological transition of
| the century, far bigger than AI, because the masses have been
| negatively polarized against cheaper energy bills through
| misinformation.
| nothrowaways wrote:
| FAFO, sadly
| znpy wrote:
| > The US has become a nation that values persuasion over
| reality. It values the propaganda over truth.
|
| These things don't happen overnight. That thing has been
| boiling for at least a decade.
|
| As a non American, that's evident...
| UltraSane wrote:
| It really started with Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.
| piva00 wrote:
| > The EU couldn't pull it together because they have only
| sticks, whereas the US could use carrots to cause massive
| investment.
|
| Perhaps that's also part of the downfall: the US unlearnt the
| necessity to use sticks to stamp down the ugly side of
| capitalism.
| the_cat_kittles wrote:
| all i can say as a citizen of this country is that it will
| continue to do whatever it wants until there are consequences.
| everyone needs to recognize that.
| jacquesm wrote:
| There are already plenty of consequences, even if you don't
| see them.
| keithnz wrote:
| even when americans are dying or suffering, as long as
| someone foreign isn't killing them, the consequences don't
| seem to matter
| jvdvegt wrote:
| Without paywall: https://archive.is/lV7Ng
| gretch wrote:
| An interesting thing I learned from reading the article is that
| Spain is the 4th largest exporter of turbines behind only China,
| Germany, and Denmark.
|
| Reading the other comments, it's really a shame we can't have a
| discussion about something happening in the world before it
| immediately becomes about the US, on topics that are barely
| relevant.
| another_twist wrote:
| I am interested. Tell me more. Any books / articles you'd
| recommend ? Given that Spain made such progress, there has to
| be atleast an FT article.
| hiccuphippo wrote:
| Don Quixote.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Search for Siemens Gamesa. Siemens fused their wind power
| branch with them a few years prior to the pandemic and
| finalized the full takeover in 2022.
| doctoboggan wrote:
| Spain is also big in the utility scale solar and storage
| industry with the Power Electronics company providing inverters
| or other components to many of the worlds largest plants.
| mono442 wrote:
| Did those savings actually trickle to end costumer bills? I often
| read how renewables are making electricity cheaper but I only pay
| more and more despite the share of them increasing here in
| electricity generation.
| hvb2 wrote:
| One reason cost might be going up is because the grid needs
| upgrades.
|
| A house might have a typical peak power demand of 1kWH. Now? It
| might peak at 10. I'm making up these numbers by the way.
|
| Everywhere that I know of, you pay for the grid through your
| bill.
| zaik wrote:
| I'm in Austria and I pay separate bills for the grid and the
| electricity.
| ff_ wrote:
| second paragraph of the article starts with:
|
| > The sector contributed 0.25% to GDP and enabled savings on
| consumers' electricity bills of more than 4.6 billion euros in
| 2024, with an average reduction in the wholesale price of close
| to 20 euros per MWh.
| blibble wrote:
| in the UK the price everyone pays is set according to the
| marginal price
|
| essentially this means if there's one milliwatt of gas on the
| grid: everyone pays the gas price
|
| as a result consumers see very benefit from renewables
|
| (but the renewable generators are making out like bandits)
| julosflb wrote:
| Yes that's sound weird but this is to make sure gas peaker
| plants which by definition run only a fraction of time can be
| profitable and be built.
| blibble wrote:
| yeah I understand the theory behind the system
|
| however the market participants have "adapted" to it
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jan/08/two-
| power-s...
|
| it works pretty well on a short-term basis but due to the
| way the system works there's no ability to price-in a long
| term signal
|
| the government is currently consulting on a changes to
| introduce this mechanism (as is the EU)
| Arnt wrote:
| At a glance, it sounds as if those power stations need to
| pay for themselves in a few hours per week, and as soon
| as you get more transmission capacity from Scotland
| they're dead.
|
| Give those constraints, of course they must be expensive
| if they are to exist at all.
|
| Do I misunderstand anything?
| zozbot234 wrote:
| This is the right move. The marginal price is the price that
| balances supply and demand by definition, and this must be
| the case on the grid at all times, even to the last
| milliwatt, or you immediately get a Spain situation with
| cascading blackouts where huge parts of the grid go dark.
| otherme123 wrote:
| That happened _once_ , and the causes are still unclear/
| being investigated. We don't have blackouts unless extreme
| weather or bad grid sectors (e.g. semi abandoned rural).
| Also, we have marginal pricing, and we had this pricing for
| years before the Blackout.
|
| And you can have other pricing schemes, for example pay-as-
| bid, that also balance supply and demand.
| kingstnap wrote:
| Well we can see how much we would even expect this to matter.
|
| For example take the 2024 Financial Report of Hydro One
| (distributor for Ontario) [0].
|
| Apparently they earned 8,484M in revenue, and spent 4,143M in
| Power, and Net Income was 1,156M. Putting these together you
| can sort of conclude that the price of the electricity is
| around 1/2 their expenses.
|
| If I then go to Ontario Power Generation financial reports 2024
| [1], Revenue was apparently 7,187M, with Fuel Costing 1,049M,
| and net income around 1,006M. This sort of tells you that the
| price of fuel is only around 1/6th of their expenses.
|
| I spent some time thinking about this and I'm not sure what to
| conclude other than probably a lot of what you pay is just
| paying for staff and maintenance and so even if fuel was free
| where I live it would be like a 1/12th change. Assuming the big
| savings in Wind are supposed to be from not having to pay for
| Fuel.
|
| [0]
| https://www.hydroone.com/investorrelations/Reports/Hydro%20O...
|
| [1] https://www.opg.com/reporting/financial-reports/
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Related today:
|
| _UK secures record supply of offshore wind projects_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46614777
| secondcoming wrote:
| UK energy consumers cry
| outside1234 wrote:
| PG&E bills in California are also going down this year as well.
| briandw wrote:
| Sarcasm? Ca electricity costs 33.60 per kWh vs the US average
| of 17.98. Personally Ive seen my bill double in the last 10
| years.
| adrr wrote:
| Power generation is going down, power delivery is going up.
| Power delivery is way more expensive than the actual
| electricity.
| jacquesm wrote:
| There are multiple comments in this thread suggesting that the
| outage in Spain was caused by wind power.
|
| This has also been suggested by various politicians and others in
| front of a microphone or a camera without any basis in fact
| whatsoever. There is a (by now remote) chance that indeed wind
| power (or renewables in general) were the primary cause but the
| evidence points in an entirely different direction, the lack of
| control authority and undampened oscillations getting out of
| control. In such a situation various safety protocols dictate
| that sections of the grid disconnect and go into island mode or
| switch off altogether. This to prevent damage to the grid and to
| all of the grid connected devices. As these outages go, I think
| it was handled extremely well, the main question remaining is
| what the root cause was and what should be done to avoid a
| repetition.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Iberian_Peninsula_blackou...
| cbmuser wrote:
| France was not affected and guarded the rest of Europe because
| the have reliable, dispatchable power.
|
| It's not really surprising that an electricity grid becomes
| fragile if you remove large rotating masses which can act as
| power reserves which can react to power variations immediately.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Rotating mass is a suspect in this case, not necessarily the
| primary one but the lack of control authority in the presence
| of frequency fluctuations is the exact opposite of what you
| are suggesting. It means that something with a fairly large
| amount of source/sink capability caused a local stability
| issue. Almost all modern grid connected windmills are - and
| this may surprise you - connected to the grid using inverters
| because that gives them a much better chance at following the
| grid fluctuations than the older direct connected types did
| (which did have the potential to cause issues and which
| resulted in much higher start-up speeds than the present
| crop). These inverter based interconnects give response times
| that rotating mass based systems can only dream of, resulting
| in much smaller errors in phase and thus voltage tracking.
|
| The European grid is stupendously reliable, far more reliable
| than any other power grid worldwide to the point that most
| houses and business do not have backup power plans
| (datacenters, hospitals, telcos and some others excepted).
| France is doing ok but do not pretend that without France
| this outage would have spread further. The Iberian peninsula
| has one of the weaker and heavier loaded grids in Western
| Europe, in spite of the above, they should have probably
| invested more into their infrastructure but Spain has a lot
| of other issues it needs to deal with which cost it a fortune
| every year in terms of crop losses, fires and floodings. Both
| Spain and Portugal (and to a lesser degree Italy and Greece)
| are in the line of fire when it comes to climate change
| damage.
| miduil wrote:
| I did not mean to suggest that the outage in Spain and Portugal
| were caused by wind power or just renewables.
|
| It's more related to me in terms of when you look at the
| economical impact of energy, what sizes are in play. Just
| reading 4.6B Euro is a bit vague to understand to me, at least
| without having that put into perspective.
|
| Another topic that has been surfacing every now and then is
| Electricity theft, partially for in-door cannabis plantation in
| occupied apartments. Which Endesa is valued 2B Euro per year.
|
| https://www.endesa.com/en/press/press-room/news/energy-secto...
|
| Generally renewables do pose new challenges onto the grid,
| unfortunately conservatives/fascists are using that for FUD -
| making a technical conversation harder on that topic.
|
| https://www.brattle.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/2025-Iber...
|
| Even in the hypothetical scenario that renewable energy being
| more expensive than fossil energy (in production), the climate
| catastrophe and the impact of that on the economy is undeniable
| magnitudes bigger than any investment we could currently do to
| shift quicker stronger to renewable resources.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Spain will need to make some very hard choices, they have a
| relatively - by European standards - fragile grid and some
| weak interconnects. This situation has been flagged years ago
| but so far priorities have been to do other things first. The
| outage has definitely given people food for thought and I
| expect that when the final report is presented that it will
| come with some recommendations on how to prevent future
| recurrence. In particular the voltage / frequency regulation
| aspect of some of the local grids will become a focal point
| because these have the potential to destabilize much larger
| sections than just their own. The real puzzler to me is that
| there were multiple signals of pending grid instability and
| no action was taken when they easily could have, this is the
| bit that I'm most interested in learning about.
|
| I look at energy companies about twice every year in some
| detail and I know that the typical grid operator is extremely
| careful and pro-active on this subject (at least, in NL and
| Germany, my work area, they are), the energy market has
| introduced some potential for abuse and for instability but
| so far that seems to be under control. Which makes me quite
| curious about what the root cause here was.
| lentil_soup wrote:
| It's fascinating to see the live electricity sources with
| Electricity Maps.
|
| Here is Spain: https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/ES/
|
| Throughout the day you can clearly see how the wind and sun power
| starts kicking in, when it's raining hydro raises, etc.
| booi wrote:
| That's interesting because here in California, $4.6B is slashed
| off productivity because of wind.
|
| - still angry at pg&e
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2026-01-14 23:01 UTC)