nuclear-news

UK’s Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit’s under-reported analysis – renewables cheaper than new nuclear

Forbes 31st Jan 2019 , Under-reported analysis by the UK’s Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit
(ECIU) has shown that filling the gap left by the abandoned nuclear projects is not just feasible but better value. The government’s own National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) is minded to agree. Jonathan Marshall, head of analysis at the ECIU said: “In recent years Governmenthas quietly cut back its expectations for nuclear new-build, and that’s
looking more and more realistic as the price of renewable generation falls and the benefits of the flexible smart grid become more apparent.

Filling the nuclear gap with renewables would indeed require an increase in rollout, but one that is well within UK capabilities. “With enough focus on smart low-carbon energy, there’s no reason why Britain shouldn’t achieve all its energy objectives despite the cancellation of these nuclear stations,” added Marshall.

The ECIU analysis found that an additional 11.3GW of onshore wind, 5.7GW of offshore wind and 20.8GW of new solar capacity would be sufficient to fill the nuclear gap. Those figures are eminently achievable.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnparnell/2019/01/31/mind-the-gap-as-new-uk-nuclear-projects-fold-renewables-can-fill-the-void/

February 2, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | renewable, UK | Leave a comment

As a nuclear power project collapses, leading utility chief calls on UK government to increase targets for offshore wind energy

Forget nuclear woes and increase offshore wind targets, says boss of leading utility, Owjonline  25 Jan 2019 by David Foxwell The chief executive of one of the UK’s leading utility companies has called on the government to increase targets for offshore wind energy after plans for another nuclear power station were put on hold.SSE chief executive Alistair Phillips-Davies said the UK should be grateful that in offshore wind it has an ‘off the shelf’ answer to the problem of how the country can decarbonise energy cost-effectively while securing jobs and growth for the UK economy.

He is well-qualified to comment on energy policy in the country, having become chief executive of SSE in 2013 after working in the energy industry since 1997, when he joined Southern Electric.

“Later this year our Beatrice offshore windfarm, the largest project in Scotland, will be completed, and will begin exporting low carbon electricity to the grid,” he said. “It is one of many projects delivered to time and budget, which have helped bring the costs down substantially.

“Last year UK Energy Minister Claire Perry set out an ambition of an additional 1-2 GW of offshore wind per year during the 2020s taking the UK to a total of between 20 and 30 GW, meaning it could be the generation technology with the largest installed capacity in the UK.

“The sector has responded, and an Offshore Wind Sector Deal will be finalised later this year setting out the industry’s substantial commitments to the UK’s industrial strategy. The question now is whether 30 GW by 2030 is ambitious enough,” Mr Phillips-Davies said.

“In the coming months, the government will receive advice from the Committee on Climate Change on the implications of increasing its decarbonisation target from an 80% reduction in emissions by 2050 to net zero.

“In light of the IPCC report last year, SSE supports the adoption of a net zero target, and the implications will be a need to go faster and harder on decarbonising electricity as the driver for decarbonising heat and transport.”

Mr Phillips-Davies went on to say, “With the news that Hitachi has pulled out of the Wylfa project, the new nuclear programme looks in real trouble and was due to come in well above the costs of offshore wind anyway…….https://www.owjonline.com/news/view,forget-nuclear-woes-and-increase-offshore-wind-targets-says-boss-of-leading-utility_56566.htm

January 26, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | renewable, UK | Leave a comment

For UK it;s now time to double down on wind and solar energy

Now that UK nuclear power plans are in tatters, it’s vital to double down on wind and solar, The Conversation, David Toke, Reader in Energy Policy, University of Aberdeen January 23, 2019  Now that Japanese giants Toshiba and Hitachi have walked away from UK nuclear power projects that had previously been abandoned by others, it has forced the government to reassess the pro-nuclear bias of its energy policy. Greg Clark, the UK business secretary, has recognised that nuclear power is no longer cost competitive with renewable energy, but don’t expect any extra push into the cheaper technology. There is easily enough solar and wind energy available to make up for the cancellation of the nuclear projects and to produce the low-carbon electricity required to make the UK’s 2030 carbon emissions targetsachievable. Instead, however, the country’s incentives and regulations favour developing more power plants driven by natural gas. Having hacked back emissions from power by over two-thirds since 1990, progress with decarbonising the grid risks coming to an end. According to the UK parliament’s Committee on Climate Change, the UK needs to cut power emissions from about 265g of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour in 2017 to under 100g by 2030. The government had been substantially relying on nuclear power to do this, having originally identified eight sites as viable for new plants. Six projects were taken forward, including Hitachi and Toshiba plants in Wales and Cumbria respectively. Yet despite much larger government incentives than those available for renewables, most private nuclear builders are now steering clear, having seen the problems with new plants in the likes of the US and France. The only two projects still on the slate are a joint venture by EDF of France and CGN of China – both foreign state-owned companies. They are building the UK’s first new plant in over two decades, Hinkley C in south-west England; while also planning a second, Bradwell B, in the south east. Nuclear and renewables Even before the latest announcement that Hitachi’s Wylfa plant in Wales was being suspended, the Committee on Climate Change was already saying the UK needed to build more renewable capacity to reach its carbon reduction targets. Now the problem is even worse. In 2018, 19% of the UK’s electricity was generated by nuclear plants. With most existing plants due to retire over the next few years, I calculate this may now fall to 10% by 2030 when you factor in the new-build cancellations. Solar and wind generation could easily more than make up for this. For years, renewables’ share of generation has been steadily rising. It reached 30% in 2018 and is due to reach 35% in 2020. But with no new incentives for onshore wind and solar and only limited incentives for offshore wind, it looks likely to fall far short of its potential……….. Power politics The reason why more renewables are not on the cards is because the Treasury is keen to limit energy incentives. It worries that the electricity price has been increasing – and hence the Treasury wants to strictly limit new incentives, the costs of which are added to electricity bills. This, however, ignores the fact that CFD prices will benefit from the falling cost of building offshore wind farms – the price has more than halved in three years. Nevertheless, the amount of money available to pay for the contracts is being limited to around half that being made available to owners of gas-fired power plants to supply capacity when the wind isn’t blowing. If all 27GW of offshore wind power schemes in various stages of planning got contracts, I calculate it would supply around one-third of the total electricity requirement. Coupled with the remaining nuclear power and the renewables that are already onstream, that would reach the 75% of power that the Committee on Climate Change reckons needs to be coming from these low-carbon sources by 2030 to achieve the emissions targets. This is not counting potential offshore wind resources which are not even being mobilised, plus large possibilities for onshore wind and solar. Instead, gas-fired power looks set to supply around half of UK electricity by 2030, compared to 40% at present. One government justification for being less generous to renewables is that unlike gas or nuclear, they do not represent “firm” power – in other words, they only generate when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining. Proponents of renewable energy counter that you can reduce the generating capacity required by increasing the use of batteries to store power on the grid and by incentivising consumers to, say, use more power overnight when demand is lower. Yet one other option that attracts less attention is that you also get spare “firm” capacity from small gas engines or open-cycle turbines. These can be built quickly and would only be sparingly needed in a system mostly supplied by renewables. Based on my calculations using Hinkley C and Wylfa, they cost around one-twentieth of the projected cost of new nuclear power. They are alsonearly half the price of large gas-fired “CCGT” plants. Instead, however, the government spends the lion’s share of its incentives pot on large conventional power plants, many of which would operate whether they were subsidised or not………. overnment policy is offering large incentives to new nuclear, gas-fired power and also shale gas extraction – but, paradoxically, not many are actually being developed. Meanwhile the cheapest options – onshore wind, solar and offshore wind – are being discriminated against. The collapse of the UK’s nuclear power plans should be an opportunity to think again. How frustrating that decarbonising power is instead falling off the agenda. https://theconversation.com/now-that-uk-nuclear-power-plans-are-in-tatters-its-vital-to-double-down-on-wind-and-solar-110253

January 24, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | renewable, UK | Leave a comment

Orkney islands produce more electricity from wind and waves than they can use

Observer 20th Jan 2019 A tech revolution – and an abundance of wind and waves – mean that the people of Orkney now produce more electricity than they can use. It seems the stuff of fantasy. Giant ships sail the seas burning fuel that has been extracted from water using energy provided by the winds, waves and tides. A dramatic but implausible notion, surely.

Yet this grand green vision could soon be realised thanks to a remarkable technological transformation that is now under way in Orkney. Perched 10 miles beyond the northern edge of
the British mainland, this archipelago of around 20 populated islands – as well as a smattering of uninhabited reefs and islets – has become the centre of a revolution in the way electricity is generated.

Orkney was once utterly dependent on power that was produced by burning coal and gas on the Scottish mainland and then transmitted through an undersea cable. Today the islands are so festooned with wind turbines, they cannot find enough uses for the emission-free power they create on their own. Community-owned wind turbines generate power for local villages; islanders drive non-polluting cars that run on electricity; devices that can turn the energy of the waves and the tides into electricity are being tested in the islands’ waters and seabed; and – in the near future – car and passenger ferries here will be fuelled not by diesel but by hydrogen, created from water that has been electrolysed using power from Orkney’s wind, wave and
tide generators.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/20/orkney-northern-powerhouse-electricity-wind-waves-surplus-power-

January 22, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | renewable, UK | Leave a comment

Wind energy ready to supply UK electricity: time to remove the ban on onshore subsidies

Windfarm industry urges UK to lift onshore subsidies ban, Guardian, Adam Vaughan,  @adamvaughan_uk,  19 Jan 2019

Firms say 800 renewable projects ready to plug gap left after Wylfa nuclear plant scrapped  Ministers have been urged to drop their block on subsidies for onshore windfarms, as industry figures showed that nearly 800 renewable projects are ready to plug much of the power gap left by the abandonment of the Wylfa nuclear project.

A dozen firms are behind the schemes, including small players and big names such as Scottish Power, Vattenfall, E.ON, EDF Energy and npower’s owner Innogy. But onshore windfarm installations have stalled since the government banned them from securing subsidies.

Emma Pinchbeck, the executive director of RenewableUK, which compiled the figures, said: “We have ready-to-go onshore wind that can help close the gap between the low carbon power we need and the amount government policy is actually delivering, and this week’s announcement on nuclear power has made this mammoth task even harder.”

The government’s figures show onshore windfarms are the cheapest source of new electricity generation. The Hinkley Point nuclear project in Somerset won a guaranteed price of £92.50 per megawatt hour, compared with £57.50 for offshore windfarms in the early 2020s. Experts think onshore windfarms could hit around £50 per MWh…….

The Scottish energy minister, Paul Wheelhouse, said that after the failure of Hitachi’s projects, it was time for the UK to prioritise onshore windfarms and other renewable technologies over nuclear.

The government’s infrastructure advisers, the National Infrastructure Commission, urged a rethink that would allow onshore windfarms to compete for support…….https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/18/windfarm-industry-urges-uk-to-lift-onshore-subsidies-ban

January 19, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | renewable, UK | Leave a comment

Renewable energy can replace UK’s Moorside, Wylfa and Sizewell C nuclear power at a much cheaper cost

ECIU (accessed) 17th Jan 2019 The future of the Government’s plans to roll out six new nuclear power
stations across Britain is looking increasingly parlous, as the Wylfa
project becomes the second power station to be scrapped in just two months.

Wylfa’s demise makes the Oldbury project extremely unlikely to proceed,
while Toshiba has already backed out of developing its Moorside station.

Their absence leaves space for new low-carbon capacity to fill the gap. Filling the ‘nuclear gap’ with
alternative low-carbon power sources would keep bills down, maintain secure
energy supply and allow the UK to maintain progress towards legally binding
climate targets.

A representative scenario, in which 80% of the energy
output of Moorside, Wylfa and Sizewell C was replaced in equal measure by
onshore and offshore wind, with the remaining 20% by solar PV would entail
an average price of £50-65/MWh, including the cost of system balancing.

This is 13-33% cheaper than the cost of energy from nuclear (not accounting
for nuclear system costs). This would see an additional 11.3 GW of onshore
wind and 5.7 GW of offshore wind capacity, as well as 20.8 GW of new solar
PV capacity. Renewable capacity is already set to increase on current
levels, as more – and cheaper – capacity continues to come online.

https://eciu.net/assets/Briefing-%E2%80%93-Filling-the-nuclear-gap-compressed.pdf

January 19, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | renewable, UK | Leave a comment

Offshore wind leads, as UK’s renewable energy is on course to overtake fossil fuels

Business Green 16th Jan 2019,  Renewables are on course to overtake fossil fuels for the first time as the UK’s primary electricity source as early as 2020, according to the latest market forecast from EnAppSys. If current trends continue, the market analyst predicts growing renewable power sources such as wind and solar
will generate 121.3TWh of electricity over the calendar year of 2020, pushing ahead of declining coal and gas-fired power sources with a forecasted 105.6TWh of generation.

The forecast assumes current trends of declining fossil fuel generation and rising renewables generation continue at the same annual rate. In 2018, coal and gas fired power stations
produced a combined 130.9TWh, a 6.7 per cent fall from the previous year’s 140.3TWh, the report states.

Meanwhile, renewable sources delivered 95.9TWh last year, rising 15.2 per cent from 2017 – a strong performance bolstered by the UK’s increasing offshore wind capacity.
https://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/3069376/report-renewables-to-overtake-fossil-fuels-in-uk-energy-mix-in-2020

January 17, 2019 Posted by Christina Macpherson | renewable, UK | Leave a comment