Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

Since they get about 90% of their funding from the FF industry, I suppose they feel obligated to push FF's (and cough> crypto <cough) as hard as possible.

Reminds me of Kathryn Porter the lady who works for the gas generation industry, constantly attacking wind generation costs, when inflationary costs spiked due to the gas price spike, after the invasion of Ukraine. Perhaps she forgot that the same inflationary costs also pushed up the cost of building a gas CCGT plant …… and the fuel it burns?

The same is happening in Aus ATM with the climate science denial party, pushing for more FF's and less RE - after all, RE isn't cheap in Aus, is it. 🤣

QrizB

I've shared a couple of recent FT articles about interconnectors over on the "news" thread in the main Energy forum.

I thought this one would fit better over here. It's an article from a couple of days ago on the costs of nuclear power.

https://archive.is/VQuus

Electricity from the Sizewell C nuclear project is set to be more expensive than power from Hinkley Point, even though the Suffolk plant is cheaper to build, Britain’s public spending watchdog has said.

Sizewell C is on course to cost about 22 per cent less than Hinkley Point C, which is being built in Somerset. But the latter has agreed to sell its electricity at a fixed price, limiting the cost to end users because developer EDF has to absorb any cost overruns.

A National Audit Office report published on Wednesday estimates that if construction costs are in line with forecasts of £38bn-£48bn, electricity from Sizewell C will cost between £131-£155 per megawatt hour in 2024-2025 prices. This compares to £129 per MWh for electricity from Hinkley Point C.

During AR7, the most recent allocation round, offshore wind was priced at ~£91/MWh in 2024 terms so HPC is 41% more expensive than wind energy, and Sizewell C is looking to be 44-70% more expensive.

Also, the article says Sizewell C could cost as much as HS2 and isn't expected to be online and generating until 2039 ...

Netexporter

How many batteries can you buy for £100bn+? I know they could be installed in less than half the time.

QrizB

How many batteries can you buy for £100bn+?

I was reading an analysis earlier this month that suggested the turnkey price of BESS is around £90 per kWh, so £100bn would buy you a terawatt-hour or so (enough to match HPC's output for almost a fortnight) and leave £10bn you could use to build the renewables to fill it.

Magnitio

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82009489#Comment_82009489

We could scrap HS2 and build a long corridor of solar, wind turbines and BESS all connected to two main cities where the energy is required.

NedS

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82009368#Comment_82009368

Interesting. Does the Energy Generators Levy (EGL) apply to nuclear? It is currently charged at 45% on "exceptional profits" above £75/MWh.

QrizB

Does the Energy Generators Levy (EGL) apply to nuclear?

As far as I can tell, the EGL only applies to "large renewables" and doesn't apply to any generation that's covered by CfDs, or new nuclear using the Regulated Asset Base model.

https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2026-04-21/hcws1528

So no, it doesn't seem to apply to nuclear.

Martyn1981

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82009463#Comment_82009463

This is something I raised on another forum a while back.

One day the ~£55bn cost of HPC or SZC, jumped out at me, as some of the bids for a giant Government battery in China (16GWh I think) had come in at ~$55/kWh. And that's an all in, installed price (not just the batteries).

So it dawned on me that for £55bn* you'd get 1TWh of storage, roughly equal to 340hours of HPC or SZC output (at 92% capacity factor, allowing for re-fueling periods).

Totally appreciate that one is energy production, the other storage, but imagine the impact 1TWh of distributed grid batts would have on the potential to roll out RE generation faster and sooner, and also to prevent clipping / curtailment.

*Allowing for exchange rates, and hoping that the cheaper batt prices in China, would reach the rest of the world eventually. But to be fair, for now, I suspect the low bids may have been ways to 'dump' over capacity at cost, in order to ramp up production and achieve lower unit costs.

QrizB

... imagine the impact 1TWh of distributed grid batts would have on the potential to roll out RE generation faster and sooner, and also to prevent clipping / curtailment.

I was thinking about that earlier, after posting about a 1 TWh battery.

Looking at the stats at Wasted Wind:

https://wastedwind.energy

... most of the costs of abatement aren't the costs of paying the wind farms in the north to shut off; they're the costs of paying gas generators to generate replacement power in the south instead.

Today, for example, as I type this the numbers are:

We've spent almost six times as much on gas (etc.) as we've paid to the wind farms.

Yet most days have periods of hours when there's no abatement; hours when there's probably spare capacity on the N-S transmission lines.

If we put "only" say 10GWh of batteries in Glasgow and Edinburgh and another 10GWh in Manchester and Leeds (ie. at either end of the current East and West coast N-S connectors) we could buffer the system and avoid a proportion of these costs.

michaels

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82009807#Comment_82009807

Some interesting numbers there done by an octopus guy who are in favour of the abandoned regional pricing model which this seems to be set up to support.

Two thoughts -

1. it suggests this money covers about 35Gwh of power which means the wind curtailment costs about 2.5p per unit and the replacement power costs 14.5p (isn't 2.5p too low?)
2. I am not sure that counting the cost of replacing abated wind is really very fair as it will seem like it is a 'cost of renewables' whereas this power would still have needed to be generated whether the shortfall was because of wind abatement or excess demand or any other reason (nuke son maintenance or whatever). Putting it in this context will allow the haters to blame this cost on renewables whereas in reality it is nothing to do with them.