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Investment banks downgrading centralised energy, as decentralised solar and wind get cheaper

piggy-bank--nuke-sadflag-UKNuclear damages attempts to tackle climate change nuClear News Dec 14
“………Meanwhile investment banks seem to have decided that the centralised utility model’s days are numbered:
UBS says it’s time to join the solar revolution and large power stations will be obsolete in 10 –
20 years time.
HSBC is predicting an energy storage boom.
Citi says wind and solar will continue to gain market share from coal and nuclear,
Citibank says the Big6 will lose 25% of their customers in the next six years.
Barclays has downgraded the US power sector because it can’t compete with renewables. (7)
So what are the alternatives to nuclear? A new piece of research from Forum for the Future,
Farmers Weekly and Nottingham Trent University has analysed the potential for rolling out
different renewable technologies on UK farms – principally solar and wind, and some anaerobic
digestion. Their report estimates that it would be relatively simple to get the first 20 GW onto
the grid from farm-based solar and wind. And that could be on stream by 2020 if we get behind
it, well before the projected date of 2023 for completion at Hinkley Point. (8)
Hinkley is expected to produce, at a very optimistic 90% load factor, 25TWh (billion kWh) every
year.
Domestic energy efficiency alone could save 40TWh/yr by 2030 and help eliminate fuel poverty
into the bargain. Other efficiency measures, such as converting commercial and street lighting to
LEDs could save 4 times what Hinkley might produce.
Britain’s solar industry says it could install the same capacity as Hinkley in 24 months and at
comparable cost.
total electricity consumption 328TWh/yr
total energy consumption 1635TWh/yr
Hinkley (at an unlikely 90% load factor) 25TWh/yr
Offshore wind up to 155TWh/yr
Solar Farms (just on land used for biofuel) 190TWh/yr
Commercial rooftops 30TWh/yr
Domestic roofs 140TWh/yr
Domestic efficiency by 2030 40TWh/yr
Other efficiency measures 100TWh/yr (9)
So 2015 will be a crunch year for energy policy in Britain. EDF says it will make its investment
decision in January or February. But Chinese investors alreaddy appear to be wobbling. We know
they don’t want to build any more EPR reactors themselves – they have been described by one
nuclear engineer as “unconstructable” (10). They would be mad to commit themselves to the No2NuclearPower
nuClear news No.69, December 2014 12
huge sums of money required before waiting to see whether Olkiluoto and Flamanville can be

 

December 17, 2014 - Posted by | 2 WORLD, business and costs, ENERGY, UK

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