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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday September 12 2017, @02:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the and-less-radioactive dept.

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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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 12 2017, @04:39PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 12 2017, @04:39PM (#566824)

    Guaranteed price on a demand/supply market can act as subsidies, if the price falls lower than that

    Yes, but unless the market price falls to zero, a guaranteed price of £57.50/MWh is never a subsidy of £57.50/MWh. But the latter is what the summary claims.

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Tuesday September 12 2017, @05:07PM (3 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 12 2017, @05:07PM (#566850) Journal

    Yes, but unless the market price falls to zero, a guaranteed price of £57.50/MWh is never a subsidy of £57.50/MWh. But the latter is what the summary claims.

    I think you are unfairly shaming Phoenix666.

    My understanding is: they are now bidding for subsides the UK govt is offering, the bid being not the absolute level of subsidies, but the expected minimum guaranteed price. It wasn't necessarily so in the past, but in this today context, the terminology used is "bidding for subsidies", with the disambiguation considered perhaps evident for the UK-nians. If I'm right, it is not Phoenix666 that instilled a false view of the situation, but BBC itself.

    Checking:

    The figures for offshore wind, from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, were revealed as the result of an auction for subsidies, in which the lowest bidder wins.
    ...
    EDF added that energy from new nuclear plants would become cheaper as the market matures, as has happened with offshore wind.
    Eyes will be raised at this suggestion, as nuclear power has already received subsidies since the 1950s.
    ...
    Energy analysts said UK government policy helped to lower the costs by nurturing the fledgling industry, then incentivising it to expand - and then demanding firms should bid in auction for their subsidies.

    I could not find anything in TFA that explicitly says: "the level of subsidies will cover the difference between the selling price and the bid offer".

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    • (Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Wednesday September 13 2017, @09:18AM (2 children)

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday September 13 2017, @09:18AM (#567143) Homepage
      Yes, this is a BBC wording issue. It's terrible english - it's been businessified, with added weaseling to expedite confusification of the reader, so that the MBA-less masses remain ignorant of what the corporatists in power are doing with the public's money.

      Editors could have made the quoting more quotey, so there's be no confusion, admittedly.
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      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 13 2017, @11:42AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 13 2017, @11:42AM (#567178)

        It's terrible english

        That's not english - it's british.

        • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday September 14 2017, @03:38AM

          by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Thursday September 14 2017, @03:38AM (#567611) Homepage
          it's business/marketting speak, I think the US leads the development of that tongue nowadays.
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