nuclear-news

As costs of renewable energy continue to fall, UK’s Hinkley and Wylfa nuclear power projects look more and more financially risky

Current News 5th June 2018 The UK’s renewables lobby has scrutinised the government’s decision to
directly invest billions of pounds in Hitachi’s proposed nuclear project,
suggesting renewables to be a far cheaper and quicker way of decarbonising
the country’s power.

Yesterday energy secretary Greg Clark confirmed to
parliament that the government had entered into negotiations with
Hitachi’s nuclear unit Horizon Nuclear Power over the proposed
development of a 2.9GW nuclear facility in north Wales. But rather than
leave the development risk with third parties like it has with Hinkley
Point C and EDF, the government is discussing the prospect of directly
investing billions of pounds into the project in what constitutes a
significant U-turn in government policy.

Nina Skorupska, chief executive of the Renewable Energy Association, responded to the news by stating that the
government needed to “carefully consider” the value for money argument
before intervening. “Hitachi’s struggles to fund the project privately
represent one of the great challenges facing the nuclear industry, that it
is highly complex and costly to design, build, operate and maintain a
nuclear power station,” she said.

Furthermore, Skorupska added that as
the cost of renewables like solar and wind continues to fall, they stand to
be better suited to the wider nuances the energy transition presents.
“The costs of renewables are falling all the time whilst the clean
technology sector continues to set records for generation, it is much
quicker and cheaper to build an energy from waste, solar, wind or biomass
plant than continue to pursue nuclear investment. Research shows that in
the future the inflexible properties of nuclear will also become a
liability to the system rather than an asset as it cannot respond quickly
enough to changes in demand and supply on the system.”

https://www.current-news.co.uk/news/renewables-lobby-questions-economics-behind-wylfa-newydd-nuclear-investment

June 8, 2018 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | general