Barry Norris the founder of London-based specialist equity fund management company Argonaut Capital, wants all new wind and solar power projects in the UK to be put on hold because of a lack of reliability in the amount of energy they can generate.
Norris, whose firm manages with long and short and long-only funds, has written to Jacob Rees-Mogg, Secretary of State for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy calling for a pause “pending an official enquiry into intermittency and our ability to usefully store excess energy generation on windy and sunny days”.
In the letter Norris points out that on 7 October, “Northern Europe spot electricity prices collapsed as the wind blew and the sun shone. Solar and wind contributed nearly two-thirds of energy generation in the UK and Germany”. And yet “for most of the year, power prices have been at record levels”. According to Norris there were just seven day least year when variable renewable energy contributed more than 50% of UK grid power and 16 days when it contributed less than 10%.
Until the intermittency issues are resolved through the development of large-scale industrial batteries or major economic and technological advances in green hydrogen power, Norris says UK energy policy is in the hands of “the fairies and unicorns”.
