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Energy from offshore wind in the UK will be cheaper than electricity from new nuclear power for the first time.
The cost of subsidies for new offshore wind farms has halved since the last 2015 auction for clean energy projects
Two firms said they were willing to build offshore wind farms for a subsidy of £57.50 per megawatt hour for 2022-23.
This compares with the new Hinkley Point C nuclear plant securing subsidies of £92.50 per megawatt hour.
Nuclear firms said the UK still needed a mix of low-carbon energy, especially for when wind power was not available.
Both nuclear and wind receive subsidies, but for the first time wind is coming to market with less, so providing the same electricity with less cost to the public than nuclear.
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Offshore Wind Power Cheaper Than New Nuclear
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(Score: 5, Interesting) by choose another one on Tuesday September 12 2017, @03:46PM (5 children)
> The subsidies, paid from a levy on consumer bills, will run for 15 years - unlike nuclear subsidies for Hinkley C which run for 35 years.
Experience shows nuke plants last longer. The AGRs in the UK were years late and had many construction problems, but they are all expected to last 35yrs+. The previous generation Magnox reactors (all shutdown now) lasted up to 47yrs I think.
The wind farm that used to be a landmark (or intrusion on the view, depending on your opinion) from the offices where I worked in the 90s' is now gone. It lasted only 20 yrs in total and for the last few years the turbines stood idle and broken - apparently uneconomic to repair - so energy generation lifespan of 15yrs sounds about right. Good news is that they are relatively easy and quick to decommission and return the landscape to what it was, unlike nuke plants.
(Score: 4, Informative) by bob_super on Tuesday September 12 2017, @04:58PM (1 child)
I think they expect the newest nukes to work for 60 years.
It is not impossible that the company/administration managing the wind farm you were looking at, either ran out of money for maintenance (for political reasons, bad management, or because the type of turbine wasn't viable for that place after subsidies expired), or decided to use that money to build more profitable or less ugly power in a different place.
Nuclear power is still mostly stuck in the 60s (newer tech is barely coming live now), with astronomical new-entrant costs and no real competition. Conversely, wind power tech has gone leaps and bounds in the last ten years, so what made sense building 15 years ago can be only good for the scrapyard today.
(Score: 1, Troll) by choose another one on Wednesday September 13 2017, @01:38PM
> It is not impossible that the company/administration managing the wind farm you were looking at, either ran out of money for maintenance
It is more that they (quite possibly deliberately) let the turbines decay to the point where they would be too expensive to fix, and then applied to replace them (so they had money available) with newer bigger ones (that would get newer bigger subsidies and hence make bigger profits). It was a gamble that failed - I don't think many people were actually against them when they were turning and doing something useful, but once they were ugly broken stumps opposition to them grew, after all what was to stop the new ones becoming even bigger broken ugly stumps in a few more years? Planning permission was refused and they were ordered to removed the old broken ones.
> Conversely, wind power tech has gone leaps and bounds in the last ten years, so what made sense building 15 years ago can be only good for the scrapyard today.
So 15yr subsidy makes sense, no sign the improvement is slowing down.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 12 2017, @05:43PM
The best cheapest way to decommission a nuke plant is to bury it where it stands, after blowing up all the really tall shit. And it will leave future archeologists wondering what the ancient mounds and weird purple plants growing on them are.
(Score: 4, Funny) by krishnoid on Tuesday September 12 2017, @06:45PM (1 child)
Only problem is that all that used wind won't degrade for another 50 years, and will keep cycling around. I hear that stuff causes birth defects.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday September 13 2017, @09:14AM
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