Swwils wrote: ↑Sat Oct 29, 2022 7:18 pm
Please do suggest another way to get an equivalent capacity factor?
Hiya, the NIC (economic advisors to the Gov) suggested in 2018 that RE + storage was looking to be a cheaper option than nuclear (see article below). Bear in mind that this was before the results of the 2019 CfD auction where off-shore wind came in at ~£51/MWh (todays money), so the reference price at the time was the £70(ish) price from the 2017 auction.
The NIC recommendation was to put on hold the plans for 16GW of nuclear, and instead stop at HPC +1 (almost certain to be SZC), then wait till 2025 to revue how prices are going. Of course we are now seeing even cheaper RE (2022 CfD results were £48/MWh for off-shore wind), and large amounts of storage are starting to roll out across the world, including the UK. Plus the UK has massively scaled up its interconnectors, and will double that capacity again this decade.
Bear in mind that nuclear will take 2 to 3 times longer to build out than off-shore wind, and 5 to 15 times longer than is possible for onshore wind and PV. Plus it's not so much that the cost per MWh is more than double, it's the vastly greater amount of subsidy (~22x more than offshore wind*) that will deplete the LCF (levy control framework) , when it could be funding vastly greater amounts of RE generation.
*Comparing subsidy funding for Off-shore wind at a CfD v's nuclear, at historic wholesale prices and HPC CfD rates, we have:
Off-shore wind at £48/MWh, an £8/MWh subsidy top up on a wholesale price of £40, for 15yrs.
HPC at £114/MWh, a £74/MWh subsidy top up on a wholesale price of £40, for 35yrs.
So we have £8x15yrs v's £74x35yrs
120 v's 2,590
1 v's 21.58
This means in terms of bang for our buck, that we could get ~22x as much generation (not capacity, actual generation) for the same subsidy support - and of course, far, far sooner.
Assuming prices are higher than £48/MWh, such as current extraordinary times (till RE displaces most of the expensive gas off the grid), then we see RE actually paying net into the subsidy fund (see dashboard below). At £50/MWh the subsidy for nuclear would be £10/MWh less, but the ratio against offshore wind trends towards infinite, as wholesale prices rise towards RE CfD levels.
Just to be clear, the funding for RE and nuclear comes from the same pot, and of course the same source (UK). Also it will be more expensive and wasteful to have too much excess generation, so there will always be an approx target of total capacity mix. So obviously, more RE gen, means less nuclear is needed, and vice versa. So RE and nuclear are mutually exclusive, in the same way that increasing more of any generation type will reduce the need for others, and impacxt the overall economic viability.
Cool down nuclear plan because renewables are better bet, ministers told
CfD Historical Dashboard
On a separate point, I think this is really important - On our current trend of RE expansion (+3% to +5% pa), and HPC commissioning this decade*, we are on target to reach a net low carbon generation figure of 100% by 2030. It may not be axactly 2030, and of course we'll still be burning a lot of gas to fill in troughs when RE is low, but hopefully balanced by net exports of excess RE. We will see. But ....
after 2030, that RE expansion will cover rising demand (EV's and HP's), and continued ageing out of the existing nuclear fleet. So by 2035, if SZC could magically come on line (more likely 2040), it won't be displacing FF's, instead it will be competing directly with RE, and therefore will be as responsible for storage needs, as RE, since at times it too will be adding to excess generation. This is akin to the creation of Dinorwig, E7 and Heat Electric, all 'storage' methods, to support nuclear, despite claims that nuclear doesn't need storage. France's answer was to export cheap excess in the summer, and buy FF genertaion from Germany in the winter. that works fine if you're the only country doing it. But falls down if all countries did it.
*We have roughly 20% nuclear, but falling. HPC's additional 7% this decade will match the roughly 7% from ageing out nuclear, then the remaining 13% age out next decade. [Fun bonus dig at nuclear from me, that 7% from HPC in 2028(ish) from a start date of 2012, is equal to 2yrs of additional RE, at the roughly 3.5% it has been growing for over a decade now.]
