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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: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Tuesday September 12 2017, @03:16PM (12 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 12 2017, @03:16PM (#566764) Journal

    The "£57.50" isn't a subsidy of that amount. It's a guaranteed price. That's all the wind farm operator will receive.

    Guaranteed price on a demand/supply market can act as subsidies, if the price falls lower than that (which is likely, especially with the increase of supply). More or less, that guaranteed RoI, i.e. a safety net for the developer.

    What's also interesting:

    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.

    --
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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by choose another one on Tuesday September 12 2017, @03:46PM (5 children)

    by choose another one (515) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday September 12 2017, @03:46PM (#566781)

    > 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)

      by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday September 12 2017, @04:58PM (#566838)

      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

        by choose another one (515) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 13 2017, @01:38PM (#567214)

        > 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

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 12 2017, @05:43PM (#566870)

      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)

      by krishnoid (1156) on Tuesday September 12 2017, @06:45PM (#566909)

      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

        by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday September 13 2017, @09:14AM (#567142) Homepage
        Yeah, it's even been used for sonic attacks - did you miss the recent Cuban embassy story?
        --
        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
  • (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".

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (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.
        --
        Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
        • (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.
            --
            Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
  • (Score: 2, Troll) by Thexalon on Tuesday September 12 2017, @06:43PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday September 12 2017, @06:43PM (#566907)

    I was going to say: Here on the other side of the pond, Americans are still paying for the nuke plants built over 40 years ago. It's partially because the utilities are gouging, as they always do, but it's also that those things are really expensive to operate.

    Of course, we could reduce the operating costs if we just let them dump nuclear waste any old which way, but that would create substantial costs for everyone around the plant. I have to admit this one's personal, as I'm about 10 miles downwind and downstream from a nuke plant right now.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.