Solar ... In the news

michaels

GreatApe wrote: »

Also the French will/have realized that closing a nuke will mean they have to build and open a new CCGT just so they can meet winter peak demands. This is why the phase down of nuclear in France has already been pushed back from 2025 to 2035

The mindless environmentalists while anti nuclear probably wont want new CCGTs built in France

So the government will have a choice.
Close the nukes and open CCGTs and see higher emissions plus higher costs
Keep the nukes going, with no need to build new CCGTs and no increase in emissions

Now I would say the choice is obvious and easy but then again if the Germans are willing to close nukes and fire up lignite plants who knows maybe the french are willing to close nukes and fire up new CCGT capacity but I dont think so

Just tying to make up a reason, but if a nuke has a run life of X years might it not make more sense to run it 6 months per year for 2X years and use solar during the other 6 months of each year?

Martyn1981

michaels wrote: »

Just tying to make up a reason, but if a nuke has a run life of X years might it not make more sense to run it 6 months per year for 2X years and use solar during the other 6 months of each year?

That sounds reasonable, I think, but the capital cost of building nuclear is vast, and the enormous costs each time their life is extended (after review), so halving their annual output, would also half the income each year, which when you are trying to recover massive embedded costs/investments each time, would actually push the costs up enormously.

Think of it a bit like investing in a domestic PV or battery system, if you halved the income, you would more than double the payback period due to the increased financing costs - longer to pay back loans (investors) and more interest (on greater outstanding debt) at any point in time.

The problem with nuclear, as France (and Germany, USA, UK etc) are finding, is that it is simply too expensive now compared to the alternative .... RE. That doesn't mean it is/was a bad idea, as it's low carbon and far less harmful than coal emissions, so v's FF's especially coal it's a better option and (I believe) cheaper when externality costs are included. But v's RE now, it's far too expensive, and far too slow to build.

Arguments that the choice is a binary one between nuclear and FF's are entirely false. If we choose not to deploy nuclear, then that frees up the monies for investment in RE instead. Looking at the UK, there's a good chance that nuclear may never recover now having stalled at HPC / 3.2GW v's the 16GW target. That doesn't mean we'll have 13GW shortfall, since the nuclear monies can now be targeted at RE instead, and with RE costs around half that of nuclear, we can save a fortune, and rollout the RE generation 10-15yrs sooner than the nuclear gen, thereby reducing FF emissions v's the nuclear option.

Further, on the RE costs being around half of the nuclear costs, that also hits a key metric, that of wholesale leccy prices being approx half that of nuclear, which means reducing subsidy top ups, potentially down to zero. The coming off-shore wind auction hopes to attract half the generation of HPC (approx equal amount of capacity) for £90m v's the £45bn for HPC - half the generation for 1/500th the subsidy support.

Lastly, the French also face the risk of growing energy shortages thanks to their ageing nuclear fleet. If you recall, a couple of years ago, about half their fleet had to be shutdown due to the number of cracks being found. At that point the UK and other countries had to help out by supplying them with leccy. So in the UK instead of buying 2GW of nuclear leccy excess from France, we had to dial up the coal fleet by 4GW to meet the unplanned shortfall.

GreatApe

michaels wrote: »

Just tying to make up a reason, but if a nuke has a run life of X years might it not make more sense to run it 6 months per year for 2X years and use solar during the other 6 months of each year?

First off it would be useful to note that if you had a fleet of 10+ reactors you can run the nukes 100% during the winter and 80% during the summer and get overall 90%+ CF which is useful in that you get more output during the winter and less during the summer. You do this by refueling during the lower demand months

PV is the opposite you get none in the winter when you need it most, and most in the summer when you need it least (at least for UK/EU grids)

With regards to running nukes less hours but for more years this would fail on economic grounds. Why build a huge capital infrastructure which has very low fuel costs but high running costs and then run this infrastructure at half capacity?

If you want to replace nukes in France the most realistic option to replace 1 GW of nuclear capacity is

1.5 GW of offshore wind ~40% CF
1.5 GW of solar PV ~11% CF
1 GW of backup CCGTs at ~20% CF
Curtailment of the wind/PV during times of excess ~ guesstimate of 10% of wind/pv output curtailed
Grid investment to move the offshore wind inland

It does not work without building the 1 GW of backup CCGTs which is why the french pushed back their 2025 nuclear ramp down to 2035. It is also more fossil fuel intensive than just keeping the nukes. And significant more capital intensive than just keeping the nukes

Sadly the green lobby does not accept that for France doing nothing is the cleanest cheapest option so instead France will be building wind farms and PV farms to just displace marginal nuclear production. The result will be more expensive electricity, more waste and CO2 produced, but the green lobby will get what it actually wants. They then point to ever increasing french electricity prices (due to the pointless digging holes and filling them back up again) and blame it on nuclear

The French nukes are ok for probably the next 5 years but beyond that if PV/Wind deployment keeps going up and eats nuclear lunch then the nukes will come under more and more pressure (or more likely will need public support) because of all this nonsense

The french grid is already super clean.
The green lobby should stop wasting time and resources and making things worse in France
They should lobby for more efficiency in heating/industry/cars and leave the grid alone why are they fighting a grid that is already 95-100% non fossil fuel

GreatApe

Martyn1981 wrote: »

That sounds reasonable, I think, but the capital cost of building nuclear is vast, and the enormous costs each time their life is extended (after review), so halving their annual output, would also half the income each year, which when you are trying to recover massive embedded costs/investments each time, would actually push the costs up enormously.

Think of it a bit like investing in a domestic PV or battery system, if you halved the income, you would more than double the payback period due to the increased financing costs - longer to pay back loans (investors) and more interest (on greater outstanding debt) at any point in time.

The problem with nuclear, as France (and Germany, USA, UK etc) are finding, is that it is simply too expensive now compared to the alternative .... RE. That doesn't mean it is/was a bad idea, as it's low carbon and far less harmful than coal emissions, so v's FF's especially coal it's a better option and (I believe) cheaper when externality costs are included. But v's RE now, it's far too expensive, and far too slow to build.

Arguments that the choice is a binary one between nuclear and FF's are entirely false. If we choose not to deploy nuclear, then that frees up the monies for investment in RE instead. Looking at the UK, there's a good chance that nuclear may never recover now having stalled at HPC / 3.2GW v's the 16GW target. That doesn't mean we'll have 13GW shortfall, since the nuclear monies can now be targeted at RE instead, and with RE costs around half that of nuclear, we can save a fortune, and rollout the RE generation 10-15yrs sooner than the nuclear gen, thereby reducing FF emissions v's the nuclear option.

Further, on the RE costs being around half of the nuclear costs, that also hits a key metric, that of wholesale leccy prices being approx half that of nuclear, which means reducing subsidy top ups, potentially down to zero. The coming off-shore wind auction hopes to attract half the generation of HPC (approx equal amount of capacity) for £90m v's the £45bn for HPC - half the generation for 1/500th the subsidy support.

Lastly, the French also face the risk of growing energy shortages thanks to their ageing nuclear fleet. If you recall, a couple of years ago, about half their fleet had to be shutdown due to the number of cracks being found. At that point the UK and other countries had to help out by supplying them with leccy. So in the UK instead of buying 2GW of nuclear leccy excess from France, we had to dial up the coal fleet by 4GW to meet the unplanned shortfall.

Mostly nonsense

Solar and wind power are not equal to thermal output
They can not guarantee supply when it is needed which is non negotiable

So it is not a simple picture of well wind power costs x and new nuclear costs y per MWH
MWHs are important but so is the ability to keep the grid up in fact that is much more critical

The actual cost is nuclear vs a mix of Solar + wind and CCGT to fill in the gaps.
And likely also significant additional grid lines to move offshore wind to french inland

This is why France abandoned its 2025 target to shift away from nuclear.
They dont want to build CCGTs and burn more NG which would be required to close its nuclear fleet

If the French wanted to shut down 60GW of nuclear they have no choice but to build 60GW of CCGTs. This is required to meet winter demand when solar output is zero and when wind can be close to zero for a week or more. A weeks worth of electrical storage in batteries is impossible not only would it bankrupt the country but it would be such a huge quantity of batteries that building them and commissioning them would create vast amounts of CO2 and pollution

Why fight the french grid when it is one of the cleanest in the world?
Deploy that capital and manpower in cleaning up the german grid
Or use that capital and manpower in improving french heating/industry/transport efficiency

GreatApe

BTW I accept new nuclear is dead vs offshore-wind/pv/CCGT-backup assuming offshore wind can be built for £2.6/watt solar for £1/watt and CCGT for £0.7/watt you could have a mix of those technologies at a price point around £50-60/MWh assuming 30 year life 3.75% interest and 30% O&M costs

The only question is how far you can go. Upto 60% of the grid should be fine maybe upto 75% is doable beyond that you get more & more curtailment but even 75% would be an amazing achievement a grid 75% Wind/PV and 25% NG is a good grid

France could do the same, replace its nuclear portion with 75% Offshore-Wind/PV 25% NG

silverwhistle

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/05/home-solar-panel-installations-fall-by-94-as-subsidies-cut


Who'd have guessed it? :cool:

Instead, officials confirmed that new solar installations would be expected to give their unused clean power to energy companies for free.

1961Nick

silverwhistle wrote: »

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/05/home-solar-panel-installations-fall-by-94-as-subsidies-cut


Who'd have guessed it? :cool:

It's fair to assume that everything that would normally have been installed in May was completed by the end of April...which no doubt was a bumper month.

It'll probably be July before we have any idea what the post-FIT adoption of solar panels is.

silverwhistle

True, but unless you can use all the power it really doesn't make economic sense, so we know the figures will be very low.


With the advent of smart meters there may be opportunity for innovative tariffs but there's going to be a hiatus during which all the installation firms involved on the domestic side are going to go pop. The party for small businesses my *rse.

michaels

There is mention that households with PV will pay more for their electricity in future.

Does anyone have any info re this?

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/dec/18/energy-bills-ofgem-national-grid

1961Nick

michaels wrote: »

There is mention that households with PV will pay more for their electricity in future.

Does anyone have any info re this?

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/dec/18/energy-bills-ofgem-national-grid

If energy is so lucrative, can someone tell me why all these small energy firms are going into liquidation?

All the talk about future regulation & nationalisation has already reduced market caps by 40% or so. That increases the cost of borrowing as credit ratings are lowered & ultimately affects future investment. How long before one of the big 6 enter a CVA?