https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnparnell/2019/01/31/mind-the-gap-as-new-uk-nuclear-projects-fold-renewables-can-fill-the-void/#1df25bdfc8de
Mind The Gap: As New UK Nuclear Projects Fold Renewables Can Fill The Void
Electricity infrastructure is among the many problems the UK will have to turn its attention to once the Brexit course is set.
That referendum result led to hundreds of civil servants working on energy being seconded to the Department for Exiting the European Union (DExEU). The new department even took over the old energy ministry's offices.
Now, two new nuclear power plants have been scrapped and a third is thought to face a similar fate. That means electricity output equal to about 15% of the country’s total demand has evaporated.
The latest official withdrawal saw Hitachi walk away from the proposed Wylfa Newydd plant in Wales to be built on the site of a previous station decommissioned in 2015. Hitachi wrote off around US$2.8 billion in the process and called on the UK to “nationalize” the project if it wanted to press on with its nuclear plans.
The minister responsible, Greg Clark MP would not appear to be so keen on that option. He told the House of Commons that: “The government continues to believe that nuclear has an important role to play, but critically it must represent good value for the taxpayer and the consumer. I believe the package of support that we were prepared to consider was the limit of what could be justified in this instance. I was not prepared to ask the taxpayer to take on a larger share of the equity.”
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So, as with Brexit, we all know what people don’t want but what does the government propose could fill the gap? Clark’s statement caught some off guard with its frankness.
“The cost of renewable technologies such as offshore wind has fallen dramatically, to the point where they now require very little public subsidy and will soon require none. We have also seen a strengthening in the pipeline of projects coming forward, meaning that renewable energy may now not just be cheap, but also readily available.”
All very encouraging for the renewable energy sector. The government has issued a politicized moratorium on new onshore wind to appease NIMBYs and left solar power with a damaging cliff-edge end to support for large-scale projects. Offshore wind continues to enjoy support but only through tightly controlled tenders and at a scale that only a handful of traditional energy companies can participate in.
All that said, Clark is responding to the fact that investment for new nuclear has proven hard to find while there is more money than projects in the renewable sector.
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 Government has 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.
Despite the Brexit dramas the government appears to have stumbled into a good idea, even if investors deserve some of the credit for pointing them in the right direction.
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