EDF says the problem is limited to 150 cubic metres where pipes and cables are due to be laid. Weak, poor quality cleanliness and not wide enough.
Is Owl reassured? No. But our Local Enterprise Partnership, with its top-heavy nuclear interest Board members, will no doubt be …
Source: Times Business News (pay wall)
So NOW see just why our Local Enterprise Partnership – where many past and present board members have and had nuclear and arms industry interests – is pouring money into Hinkley C.
“Scientists tell MPs government is using expensive power project to cross-subsidise military by maintaining nuclear skills
“The government is using the “extremely expensive” Hinkley Point C nuclear power station to cross-subsidise Britain’s nuclear weapon arsenal, according to senior scientists.
In evidence submitted to the influential public accounts committee (PAC), which is currently investigating the nuclear plant deal, scientists from Sussex University state that the costs of the Trident programme could be “unsupportable” without “an effective subsidy from electricity consumers to military nuclear infrastructure”. …
“What our research suggests is that British low-carbon energy strategies are more expensive than they need to be, in order to maintain UK military nuclear infrastructures,” said Stirling.
“And without assuming the continuation of an extremely expensive UK civil nuclear industry, it is likely that the costs of Trident would be significantly greater.”
The Hinkley Point project has been criticised for its huge cost. The French electricity company EDF is currently in the early stages of constructing the plant near Bridgwater, Somerset, in partnership with the China General Nuclear Power Group.
The government has agreed a minimum price of £92.50 per megawatt hour (MWh) for electricity produced by Hinkley Point, the first new-build nuclear power plant in the UK since 1995. Under this agreement, if the usual wholesale price is lower, the consumer pays the difference in price. The current wholesale electricity price is around £42 per MWh, so the electricity consumer would pay EDF an extra £50 per MWh.
Last month, the government agreed a “strike price” of £57.50 per MWh for offshore windfarms off Scotland and Yorkshire, far below the Hinkley guaranteed price.
This week, the Green MP Caroline Lucas asked the government about the Ministry of Defence and the business department discussing the “relevance of UK civil nuclear industry skills and supply chains to the maintaining of UK nuclear submarine and wider nuclear weapons capabilities”.
Harriett Baldwin, the defence procurement minister, answered that “it is fully understood that civil and defence sectors must work together to make sure resource is prioritised appropriately for the protection and prosperity of the United Kingdom”.
Johnstone said the decision-making process behind Hinkley raised questions about transparency and accountability, saying: “In this ever more networked world, both civil and military nuclear technologies are increasingly recognised as obsolete. Yet it seems UK policymaking is quietly trying to further entrench the two – in ways that have been escaping democratic accountability.”
At a hearing held by the PAC in parliament on Monday, senior civil servants defended the Hinkley deal after a National Audit Office report concluded that it was “risky and expensive”. …”
Our Local Enterprise Partnership still puts all OUR eggs in the Hinkley C basket (case).
“Britain’s switch to greener energy will take another significant step forward this week with the opening of an industrial-scale battery site in Sheffield.
E.ON said the facility, which is next to an existing power plant and has the equivalent capacity of half a million phone batteries, marked a milestone in its efforts to develop storage for electricity from windfarms, nuclear reactors and gas power stations.
The plant, housed in four shipping containers, is the type of project hailed by the business secretary, Greg Clark, as crucial to transforming the UK’s energy system and making it greener.
At 10MW, the Blackburn Meadows battery is one of the biggest in Britain so far, but will soon be eclipsed by much larger plants.
Centrica, the parent company of British Gas, is building a 49MW facility on the site of a former power station in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, while EDF Energy is working on one of the same size at its West Burton gas power station in Nottinghamshire.
David Topping, the director of business, heat and power solutions at E.ON, said: “This is a milestone for E.ON in the new energy world and an important recognition of the enormous potential for battery solutions in the UK.”
The utility-scale batteries are being built in response to a request from National Grid, the owner of Britain’s power transmission network, for contracts to help it keep electricity supply and demand in balance, which is posing an increasing challenge for the grid as more intermittent wind and solar comes online. …”
We’ve had the Heart of the South West LEP!
We’ve had the “Golden Triangle” LEP (Exeter, Plymouth, Torquay)
We”ve even had the “Golden Quadrangle” LEP (Owl’s suggestion for adding in Cornwall or Dorset)
NOW we have the “Golden Pentangle” (adding in Cornwall AND Dorset)
yet ANOTHER unelected, unaccountable and non-transparent quango:
THE GREAT SOUTH WEST LEP!
first reported by Owl in August 2016 here:
https://eastdevonwatch.org/2017/08/26/forget-heart-of-the-south-west-hello-great-south-west/
An update …
It seems plans are well-advanced for the “super” Local Enterprise Partnership of Local Enterprise Partnerships! They now even have a (very poor) website!
Those who remember life BEFORE our own LEP will recall that it was preceded by the much-derided South-West Regional Development Agency (SWRDA) – so despised by the Tory/Lib Dem coalition that one of its first actions was to dispose of it and replace it with business-led, business-dominated, business-driven LEPs.
In our case it didn’t exactly work that way as OUR LEP (Heart of the South West – ie Devon and Somerset) decided to employ at a vast salary ex-SWRDA senior manager Chris Garcia – who is so beloved of our LEP that they raised his salary 26% last year!
However, he will perhaps be miffed that the job of CEO of the CEOs of all these LEPs has not gone to him but to Rozz Algar, a former Human Resources Manager:
http://herne.org.uk/pages/about-us/rozz-algar-cmgr-fcmi/101
Want to know what this “super” LEP is planning for us? Go to their NEW (riddled with grammar and spelling mistakes – OWL has spotted SIX spelling mistakes on its home page alone!) website at:
And hear LEP-speak like you’ve never heard it before! Including that old chestnut about how many hospitals it COULD (but won’t) build!
“AN INTRODUCTION TO GREAT SOUTH WEST?
[Yes there really IS a question mark at the end of that heading!!!]
The South West of England is a great place. It is poised for a step change in prospertiy and productivity. When the productivity in the South West of England matches that currently in the South East we will add over £18bn a year to the UK’s economy. That’s enough to build a new NHS hospital every week.
Our economy is already bigger than that of Manchester and more than two and a half times that of Birmingham – with the single largest infrastructure project in Europe already underway (generating billions of pounds of business opportunities) and the best natural capital in the country (attracting more visitors than anywhere else outside London).
[Just in case you don’t realise it, they are talking about Hinkley C nuclear power plant – that great white elephant in North Somerset]
The pubication of the SW Growth Charter in 2016 started our journey to promote our great region and we welcome the continuing support of stakeholders across the region to hlep in shaping our opportunities and building the momentum.
Our strategy for greater prosperity is to collaborate to promote
a self-sustaining and resillient South West ….
with innovation, enterprise and infrastructure ….
with productive people and rewarding careers …
utilising our natural and entreprenurial capital …
and sharing the benefits for all
We are focused towards having a clear and consistent strategy in time for the Autumn Statement.
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN IN PRACTICE?
Great South West looks to build on existing good practice and collaborative working such as the science and innovation audit
By working together as a region will ensure that the South West has a strong voice to highlight investment opportunities to national and international private and public investors; as well as projecting a positive and progressive image for all
It will help to support the economic growth and prosperity of the whole region by linking up programmes and ensuring that the asks and priorities are consistent and reflect the strengths of the region
The Great Southwest does not intend to impede individuals or groups from their own initiatives or joining with others. We will not be a bureaucracy; but look to support and add value where it can.
It aims to support a flourishing private sector and a highly skilled population able to make the most of the great opportunities that the South West has to offer
Note: The name Great South West is a working title at present and may alter as the intiative gains momentum in order to be appropriate and resonate with all parties. This is not a brand used by the West of England LEP for their local authority areas.”
Yep, all on the back of Brexit!
The question
When will the Heart of the South West LEP offer something to small town, rural and coastal Devon?
The response:
“This was the question I asked Chris Garcia, of the Heart of the South West LEP, when he appeared before the Corporate Infrastructure and Regulatory Services Scrutiny Committee (CIRS) at Devon County Council yesterday. Mr Garcia said that Government funding was geared mainly to urban areas, but the LEP has a ‘rural growth commission’ which will publish a report shortly. I shall look out for it.
Mr Garcia didn’t reply, however, to my criticism that the LEP is itself skewed by the ‘white elephant’ new nuclear power station at Hinkley C in Somerset. This project, rashly endorsed by Theresa May who had a chance to halt it, will cause British consumers pay over the odds for electricity for decades to come, based on an unproved type of nuclear station which is not supported even by many who believe nuclear energy is necessary for national energy needs, and in the control of French and Chinese state companies! As renewables get cheaper and electric storage becomes viable, this is a project we don’t need. True, it will bring some jobs to Somerset, but not to most of Devon.
Mr Garcia came with a powerpoint and brandishing the LEP’s latest glossy annual report. I asked that in future, we had proper written reports circulated in advance which members could scrutinise.
Mr Garcia didn’t mention the word ‘devolution’. HoTSW is leaving all that to Devon and Somerset county councils, who are apparently now planning to establish a Joint Committee. What that will involve is something else county councillors will need to scrutinise carefully.”
“Under pressure from Brexit and the declining costs of renewable energy, Britain‘s nuclear industry is increasingly relying on supportive government policy to plough on with high-profile — and controversial — projects.
With four big projects due for completion by 2025, the country is at the forefront of a global industry left shaken by the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima nuclear site in Japan.
“The UK is the best place in the world to build nuclear” as the sector does not face the political opposition found elsewhere, David Powell, Hitachi’s Europe vice-president for nuclear power plant sales, told AFP on the sidelines of a conference in London this month.
Britain’s Conservative government has made the decommissioning of the country’s coal-fired power stations and ageing nuclear reactors — many of which were built in the 1950s — a pillar of its energy security policy and low-carbon commitments.
Only one of Britain’s 15 existing reactors is expected to be in use by 2030.
But British anti-nuclear campaigners have denounced the government’s steadfast commitment to nuclear power, urging it to focus instead on renewable sources like wind and solar.
“The contrast between the nuclear industry and the renewables industry could not be starker,” said Doug Parr, policy director at Greenpeace UK.
“Offshore wind, in particular, is dramatically falling in cost and rapidly improving in technology,” he said.
“It is clear that new nuclear will only be built with substantial government support not required by renewable energy technologies like wind and solar.”
Two new windpower projects announced last week appeared to confirm that it has become cheaper to harness energy from wind than nuclear.
But Tom Greatrex, chief executive of the Nuclear Industry Association, says he is not convinced, and that harnessing atomic energy still has its advantages.
“For nuclear energy, as with offshore wind, the more you build the more the price falls,” he told AFP at the conference, which was also attended by senior delegates from the French giant Areva, China’s CGN and the US group Westinghouse.
“Nuclear delivers what offshore wind can’t deliver, which is constant, always available power. It does not matter what the weather is like,” he said.
Nuclear ‘must have its place’
But the industry also faces an entirely different obstacle in the form of Brexit, with Britain having to decide on whether to remain in Euratom, the European nuclear regulator.
In recent written evidence submitted to the UK parliament, French energy group EDF warned continued access to skilled labour from the EU, and the development of an alternative regulatory framework for Britain, would both be necessary for major projects like Hinkley Point to go ahead.
Last March, the first pouring of concrete at the Hinkley Point C power plant in western England brought the vision of a nuclear future for Britain one step closer to reality.
The site’s two reactors, due to be built by 2025 in conjunction with EDF and China’s CGN, will be Britain’s first in more than two decades.
EDF is also considering building a reactor at Sizewell in eastern England as a counterpart to Hinkley, while CGN has its eyes on a similar project nearby.
Elsewhere, two reactors being built in Wales by the Japanese conglomerate Hitachi are expected to gain regulatory approval before the end of the year.
Increased demand for electric cars, trains and heating are contributing to the growing electricity demand, meaning a surge in new capacity is required, according to industry experts.
“No one says it should all be nuclear, but it must have its place,” Greatrex said.
But the competition from wind and solar power threatens to severely test the viability of British nuclear projects across the board in the coming years.
Official figures show nuclear energy represented 21.2 percent of Britain’s energy production last year, compared with 24.4 percent from renewable energy sources.”
The Local Enterprise Partnership for Devon and Somerset (Heart of the South West LEP) is investing heavily in Hinkley C nuclear power station in Somerset.
This is not surprising, as many of its members are making money, now and in the future, in providing services and infrastructure for the massively expensive French/Chinese project. Making THEIR money with OUR money – whether the white elephant gets built or not.
Now we hear that the infrastructure costs of offshore wind power have plummeted – making it much more cost-effective than nuclear power, particularly Hinkley C nuclear power:
Now, solar energy is operating at zero subsidy and onshore costs for wind power are also falling – and energy storage batteries are also becoming nearer to cost-neutral for homeowners.
So, what is/was our LEP’s Plan B for this eventuality?
Er ….. they don’t need one or want one, because THEIR profits aren’t based on what’s best for us, or what costs least but what’s best for them.
” … On 21st August 2017, Balfour Beatty announced that it had now been awarded that very contract from under Costain’s nose.
Today Costain chief executive Andrew Wyllie said this on the matter: “Costain continues to undertake a number of enabling works contracts at Hinkley Point C. However, the group will cease its involvement in the marine works contract at Hinkley Point C following completion of a further circa £20m of existing obligations, anticipated to be concluded by the end of December 2017. Since Costain announced its initial appointment in October 2013, there was a significant delay in the approval for Hinkley Point C. While Costain has worked closely with EDF through the £40m of early contractor involvement phase to date, it was not possible to reach agreement on the final terms and conditions for the overall completion of the works.”
Mr Wyllie said that the company was still committed to, and involved in, the nuclear sector. “Costain remains involved in the planned UK new nuclear power plants and has started to develop opportunities in the small modular reactors market,” he said. “At Sellafield the Evaporator D contract is near completion and we have fully mobilised our team in support of the Decommissioning Delivery Partnership Framework. We have recently been awarded a major construction and programme management contract for AWE in the development of one of its nuclear facilities.”
http://www.theconstructionindex.co.uk/news/view/costain-explains-loss-of-hinkley-point-contract
and it seems workers at the site prefer to rent cheaply rather than buy in the area – not a sign of confidence:
“… workers on site at Hinkley seemed to be looking to rent as cheaply as possible, with many of them even travelling home on weekends.
… The people working on Hinkley at the moment are mainly construction workers and they are mainly opting to rent rather than buy,” Mr Zorab said.
“This has pushed up prices for buy to let properties but house prices in general have not been affected in a major way yet.”
He said the majority of the people who would be on site in the long term had not arrived yet, and expected a more noticeable increase when they started to arrive in year three of the project.”
“Billions of dollars spent on two new nuclear reactors in South Carolina went up in smoke Monday when the owners nixed plans to finish them after years of delays and cost overruns, dealing a severe blow to the industry’s future.
South Carolina’s state-owned public utility has voted to stop construction on two billion-dollar nuclear reactors. The reactors were set to be among the first new nuclear reactors built in the U.S. in decades, but the vote by Santee Cooper’s board on Monday, July 31, 2017 likely ends their future.
The reactors were set to be among the first built in the U.S. in decades. While the decision will save customers billions in additional costs, customers of the two utilities — Santee Cooper and South Carolina Electric & Gas — may get little to nothing refunded of the billions they’ve already paid for the now-abandoned project.
“I’m disappointed today not just for Santee Cooper and its customers but for our country and the industry as a whole,” said Santee Cooper CEO Lonnie Carter. “If you really believe we need to reduce carbon, this was the way to do it.”
Energy demands are far less than the utility’s pre-Great Recession projections that factored into the initial decision to build.
But Monday’s decision may eventually result in the utility putting a coal-fired unit idled earlier this year back in operation. Another option for supplying power needs in the decades to come include building a natural gas unit.
“Absolutely, this pushes us back to more carbon, whether it’s natural gas or coal,” Carter said.
Santee Cooper’s board said the decision to end construction will save customers an estimated $7 billion. The utility had already spent about $5 billion for its 45 percent share of the project, and completing it would have cost an additional $8 billion, plus $3.4 billion in interest.
“I’m not celebrating,” said Tom Clements of Friends of the Earth, which has questioned the project from the outset. “This is a sad day for South Carolina. So much money has been wasted. Ratepayers are losers any way you take it.”
He said the group will work to “get to the bottom line of how this happened, who’s responsible” and what that means for customers.
Gov. Henry McMaster called for legislators to hold hearings to get customers’ questions answered.
The project has been shrouded in doubt since earlier this year, when primary contractor Westinghouse filed for bankruptcy protection.
The utilities have since determined the project likely wouldn’t have been finished until 2024. Under a timeline adopted in 2012, the first reactor was supposed to be operational earlier this year. Westinghouse hasn’t been forthright since, according to Santee Cooper.
South Carolina Electric & Gas, which owns 55 percent, announced its plans shortly after Santee Cooper’s unanimous vote. SCANA, SCE&G’s parent company, will seek approval from regulators Tuesday about their abandonment plans.
Under the approved Santee Cooper resolution, all work will end within six months. How quickly within that timeframe workers at the site will lose their jobs is uncertain.
About 5,000 people are employed at the site by contractors and subcontractors. SCE&G employs an additional 600 workers for the project, according to the utility.
The utilities announced last week that Westinghouse’s parent company, Toshiba Corp., agreed to jointly pay them $2.2 billion regardless of whether the reactors are ever completed.”
“Britain’s energy policy keeps picking losers
by Matt Ridley
The public have paid the price for years of missteps: it’s time to scrap Hinkley Point C and support the shale revolution
Shortly before parliament broke up this month, there was a debate on a Lords select committee report on electricity policy that was remarkable for its hard-hitting conclusions. The speakers, and signatories of the report, included a former Labour chancellor, Tory energy secretary, Tory Scottish secretary, cabinet secretary, ambassador to the European Union and Treasury permanent secretary, as well as a bishop, an economics professor, a Labour media tycoon and a Lib Dem who was shortlisted for governor of the Bank of England.
Genuine heavyweights, in short. They were in general agreement: energy policy is a mess, decarbonisation has been pursued at the expense of affordability and, in particular, the nuclear plant at Hinkley Point C in Somerset is an expensive disaster. Their report came out before the devastating National Audit Office report on Hinkley, which said the government had “locked consumers into a risky and expensive project [and] did not consider sufficiently the risks and costs to the consumer”.
Hinkley is but the worst example of a nationalised energy policy of picking losers. The diesel fiasco is another. The wind industry, with its hefty subsidies paid from the poor to the rich to produce unreliable power, is a third. The biomass mess (high carbon, high cost and environmental damage) is a fourth.
The liberalised energy markets introduced by Nigel Lawson in 1982, embraced by the Blair government and emulated across Europe, delivered both affordability and reliability. But they were abandoned and, in the words of the Lords committee, “a succession of policy interventions has led to the creation of a complex system of subsidies and government contracts at the expense of competition. Nobody has built a power station without some form of government guarantee since 2012.”
All three parties share the blame. Labour’s Climate Change Act of 2008 made Britain the only country with mandatory decarbonisation targets, a crony-capitalist’s dream. The Lib Dems who ran the energy department for five years, Chris Huhne and Ed Davey, negotiated the disastrous Hinkley contract. The Tories reviewed the decision in 2016, by which time it was clear we had managed the unique feat of finding a technology that was untested yet already obsolete. They decided to go ahead anyway, missing the chance to blame the other parties for it. As the energy analyst Peter Atherton put it, the three parties “have managed to design possibly the most expensive programme for delivering nuclear power we could have come up with”.
The chief Lib Dem mistake was to ignore the shale gas and oil revolutions under way in America and assume that fossil fuel prices would rise from already high levels. By 2011, influenced by peak-oil nonsense and lobbied by professors of “sustainability”, the department of energy and climate change was projecting that the oil price would be between $97 and $126 per barrel in 2017. Today it is about $50 a barrel, roughly half the lowest of the 2011 projections. Gas prices were expected to be about 76p per therm by now, whereas they are actually about half that: 37p.
The shale revolution is gathering pace all the time. Britain has very promising shales and could prosper and cut emissions if it joins in, so let us hope the first wells about to be drilled in Lancashire by Cuadrilla, against the determined opposition of wealthy, middle-class protesters, prove successful. (No, I don’t have a commercial interest in shale.)
American industry pays about half as much for its electricity as we do
This forecasting mistake is behind much of the rising cost of Hinkley. In 2015 the whole-life cost of its power was expected to be £14 billion. Now it is £50 billion. Because consumers are on the hook to pay the difference between the wholesale price of electricity and the “strike price” for Hinkley, we must hope that the project is badly delayed, because that way our children will at least spend fewer years paying inflated electricity prices.
These bad forecasts, widely criticised at the time, make all strike prices horribly expensive, for onshore and offshore wind and solar as well. Lib Dem ministers kept saying at the time that subsidies for renewables and Hinkley would protect the consumer against “volatile” gas prices. Yes, they have done so: by guaranteeing high prices. Oh for a little downward volatility!
Britain’s industrial and commercial users now have some of the highest electricity prices in the developed world, which find their way to households in cost of living and a downward pressure on wages. American industry pays about half as much for its electricity as we do, and everyone benefits. Energy prices are not just any consumer price: they determine the prosperity of the entire economy.
It is just possible some new arrangement could be salvaged
Well, no use crying over spilt future money. What are we to do? Here is where it could get interesting. Almost nobody wants Hinkley to go ahead, apart from the contractors who get to build it. EDF and Areva, the French owner and developer, are in trouble over the only two comparable reactors in Europe. The one at Flamanville is still to start working, many years behind schedule. The French unions want Hinkley cancelled. Lord Howell of Guildford, the former energy secretary, wisely pointed out in the Lords that the key player is China, a partner in the project. Rather than cost, the government’s excuse for revisiting Hinkley last year was partly worries about security. This was a silly worry and bad diplomacy. However, it is not clear China wants to go ahead, and subtle negotiation could tease this out. The great prize for China was regulatory approval through Britain’s gold-standard “generic design assessment” process, which could unlock foreign markets and give a green light for a Chinese-built reactor at Bradwell in Essex.
But Lord Howell says the Chinese increasingly realise that the Hinkley design is a dead end, as costs escalate and delays grow. And they know that the future for nuclear power must lie in smaller, modular units, mass-manufactured like cars rather than assembled from scratch like Egyptian pyramids. Their “Nimble Dragon” design could slot into both the Hinkley and Bradwell sites, perhaps beside the larger Hualong design.
Cancellation would cost some £20 billion. But if the initiative comes from Beijing it is just possible that some new arrangement could be salvaged from the certain wreckage of the EDF scheme, without seriously damaging both livelihoods and our relations with China.”
Not looking like a good idea …
“Earnings at energy giant EDF have plummeted by a fifth in the first half of this year due to ongoing woes in its French fleet of nuclear reactors and lower profits from those in the UK.
The French state-backed group behind the UK’s first new nuclear plant in a generation, Hinkley Point C, has suffered a major setback to its domestic reactors, some of which have been closed for safety checks since October.
French nuclear power output fell by 3.9pc from the first half of last year to 197.2TWh in the six months to June 30, the group said. Despite a 4.2pc rise in UK EDF’s nuclear generation to 32.2TWh, the fleet of reactors were still a drain on earnings due to the weaker market price for electricity.
The slump in its two core markets wiped more than 20pc from its underlying earnings before interest, tax, debt and amortisation to €7bn (£6.3bn) but the group has assured investors that it remains on track to meet its guidance of between €13.7bn to €14.3bn for the year.
Jean-Bernard Lévy, EDF’s chairman and chief executive, underlined the “unfavourable market context” but said the group’s move towards renewable energy was accelerating.
The roll-out of subsidised renewables in the last decade has effectively driven the wholesale price of power down, cutting revenue for existing nuclear power plants, which sell their electricity into the market.
The decline in income highlights the need for a guaranteed set price for the new Hinkley Point plant in order to recover its eye-watering costs.
Earlier this month EDF confirmed that the cost of developing Hinkley had gone from £18bn to £19.6bn but was quick to point out that this would not be borne by customers because of the fixed price of £92.50 per megawatt-hour already agreed with the Government.
However, the declining wholesale market price means the top-up payment needed to meet this set price, which is paid by consumers, has spiralled to £50bn over the lifetime of the project from the £6bn bill estimated in 2013.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/07/28/edf-profits-dented-nuclear-woes/
“Tories urged to look at onshore windfarms which can be built as cheaply as gas plants and deliver the same power for half the cost of Hinkley Point, says Arup.
Onshore windfarms could be built in the UK for the same cost as new gas power stations and would be nearly half as expensive as the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant, according to a leading engineering consultant.
Arup found that the technology has become so cheap that developers could deliver turbines for a guaranteed price of power so low that it would be effectively subsidy-free in terms of the impact on household energy bills.
France’s EDF was awarded a contract for difference – a top-up payment – of £92.50 per megawatt hour over 35 years for Hinkley’s power, or around twice the wholesale price of electricity.
By contrast, Arup’s report found that windfarms could be delivered for a maximum of £50-55 per MWh across 15 years.
ScottishPower, which commissioned the analysis, hopes to persuade the government to reconsider its stance on onshore windfarms, which the Conservatives effectively blocked in 2015 by banning them from competing for subsidies and imposing new planning hurdles.
Keith Anderson, the firm’s chief operating officer, told the Guardian that onshore wind could help the UK meet its climate targets, was proven in terms of being easy to deliver, and was now “phenomenally competitive” on price.
“If you want to control the cost of energy, and deliver energy to consumers and to businesses across the UK at the most competitive price, why would you not want to use this technology? This report demonstrates it’s at the leading edge of efficiency,” he said.
The big six energy firm believes that with a cap on top-up payments so close to the wholesale price, onshore windfarms would be effectively subsidy-free – but the guaranteed price would be enough to de-risk projects and win the investment case for them.
“What we are asking for is a mechanism that underpins the investment risk,” said Anderson.
The group believes that any political sting for Tory MPs concerned about public opposition to turbines in English shires would be removed because such a low guaranteed price would see only the windiest sites coming in cheap enough – which means windfarms in Scotland.
“You put these projects in the right place, you will get the correct level of resource out of them to keep the costs down and you will get public acceptance of people liking them,” Anderson said, citing the example of the company’s huge Whitelee windfarm near Glasgow.
Dr Robert Gross, director of the centre for energy policy and technology at Imperial College, said: “Onshore wind has been coming in at remarkably low prices internationally, so a contract for difference price of around £50-60 per MWh looks perfectly feasible for a good location in the UK, one of the windiest countries in Europe. …”
Well, at least it’s not just Devon and Somerset, though Owl suspects we will be paying far more than pur fair share:
“UK households could pay £50bn for the new Hinkley Point C nuclear plant in Somerset, new government figures reveal. That number is more than eight times greater than the National Audit Office’s initial 2013 estimate that a public investment of £6bn would be required.
The spiralling costs are due to the terms of the Government’s agreement with EDF, the French state-owned electricity company, which is building the plant in conjunction with China General Nuclear Power.
That deal guarantees EDF a £92.50 “strike price” for every megawatt hour of electricity that the new plant generates, a figure that critics have said is far too high. …”
“A row has broken out in Paris after the French-state-backed group building Britain’s new nuclear plant was ordered to scale down its production of atomic energy in France.
Nicolas Hulot, the minister for ecological change, said that Eléctricité de France (EDF) would have to close up to 17 reactors over the next eight years under a government plan to reduce the country’s dependence on nuclear power.
His announcement unnerved investors and EDF’s share price fell almost 2 per cent to €8.57 in afternoon trading in Paris, its lowest value since May. …”
Owl says: Perhaps our LEP will underwrite the Hinkley C nuclear risks post-Brexit!
“Brexit will create “an alarming mess” for nuclear power stations in the UK, experts have warned, saying it could even cause major power cuts.
Scientists say leaving the Euratom agency that oversees nuclear safety in Europe will cause widespread confusion and have a potentially devastating impact on the industry in Britain.
Possible consequences include a reduction in foreign investment in UK nuclear power facilities, the loss of thousands of jobs and Britain losing its place as a world leader in new nuclear technologies.
UK-US trade deal won’t undo damage of Brexit, cabinet minister says
Professor Roger Cashmore, chair of the UK Atomic Energy Agency, told Buzzfeed News the current situation was “alarming” and “a mess”.
Although the treaties relating to Euratom are separate to those keeping Britain in the EU, the agency requires members to be under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which Theresa May has insisted the UK must withdraw from as part of Brexit.
It is unclear how the UK will replace the procedures and regulations currently managed by Euratom. These cover the transportation of nuclear materials around Europe. Britain is a major producer of enriched uranium, which is used in nuclear fuel, and exports much of the material to other EU countries. The UK Government also owns a third of Urenco, the European uranium-enrichment company.
Unless new treaties relating to the transportation of nuclear materials between Britain and the EU are agreed quickly, the UK could run out of nuclear fuel within two years, meaning nuclear power stations would be unable to produce energy.”
But we don’t need to worry – our nearest nuclear plant will be owned by the Chinese and French – who will totally protect us. Won’t they?
“… The hackers appeared to be attempting to map out computer networks for future attacks, according to the DHS report seen by the Times.
They sent highly targeted emails to senior engineers at operating firms behind the nuclear plants, mimicking job applications but laced with malicious code, the newspaper said.
Officials told the Times that the techniques resembles those used by Russian specialists linked to previous attacks on energy facilities. …”
RENEWABLE SOURCES OF ELECTRICITY OUTPACE NUCLEAR PLANTS
“WASHINGTON (AP) — Nuclear power has taken a back seat to renewable sources of electricity for the first time in decades.
Electricity production from utility-scale renewable sources exceeded nuclear generation in March and April. That’s the first time renewable sources have outpaced nuclear since 1984.
The growth in renewables has been fueled by scores of new wind turbines and solar farms. Recent increases in hydroelectric power as a result of heavy snow and rain in Western states last winter also provided a boost.
Experts predict output from the nation’s nuclear plants will still outpace renewables for the full year. One reason is seasonal variation. Less water flows through dams in the drier summer months. Also, nuclear plants tend to undergo maintenance during spring and fall months, when overall electricity demand is lower.”
Following on from the article below (which basically says metro-mayors/combined authorities/LEPs don’t work), Owl has a question:
If, as it appears, our LEP wants to take credit for any and all good that arises in Devon and Somerset for whatever reason (eg economic growth, Hinkley C) will it be taking the blame if it all goes horribly wrong – and would our local authorities accept their share of blame for going along with a dangerously flawed model where, not only does the Emperor have no clothes, the local authorities bought the clothes the Emperor doesn’t have?
First, the latest report:
“Hinkley Point C in Somerset will cost £1.5bn more than planned, says developer EDF, and completion could be delayed by 15 months beyond the 2025 target date. In one sense, this news lacks any element of surprise. EDF only seems to build nuclear reactors that are late and over-budget, as witnessed in Finland and on its own patch at Flamanville in Normandy.
Yet the timing of EDF’s “clarifications” is a shock. It is very early in the life of this £18.1bn (now £19.6bn, possibly rising to £20.3bn) project to be recasting the numbers. The tricky stages of construction, like pouring the right mix of concrete, lie ahead. The additional costs relate to mundane matters, such as “a better understanding” of UK regulators’ requirements and “the volume and sequencing of work on site”.
These are planning areas in which EDF would surely have made allowances for uncertainties. That all that slack, and more, has been used up is puzzling. Sceptics within EDF who argued that Hinkley is too big and too financially risky will feel vindicated already. EDF’s projected rate of return on the project was never high at 9%; now it is down to 8.5% and will fall to 8.2% if the delays materialise.
Still, it’s a French problem, right? Didn’t the UK government insulate us by making EDF and its Chinese co-financier shoulder the construction risks? Wasn’t that the trade-off for the UK guaranteeing to buy all Hinkley’s electricity for 35 years at twice the current wholesale price?
Well, yes, that’s how the contract is structured, and EDF’s UK boss was full of reassurance on Monday that UK taxpayers remain protected. But no contract of this size is ever so straightforward, as the National Audit Office pointed out in its blistering report last week.
“If the HPC [Hinkley Point C] project or developer runs into difficulties, the UK government could come under pressure to provide more support or take on additional risk, particularly given HPC’s potential importance to ensuring energy security,” said the NAO.
That dire circumstance remains some way off, but it can’t be ignored. What if real engineering problems follow? What if EDF’s projected returns fall to 7%, which would be closer to the company’s cost of capital? Would EDF seek better terms knowing that Hinkley is scheduled to provide 7% of our electricity?
“The [UK] government will hold a stronger negotiating position if it maintains alternative ways of ensuring energy security if HPC runs late or is not completed,” said the NAO. That advice was sound last week, now it looks prescient.
It is bad enough that UK consumers are locked into this “expensive and risky” project, as the NAO called Hinkley. It would be calamitous if we end up being bullied into paying more. Ministers need to draw up a proper contingency plan – starting now.”
And why does this matter to us in Devon? Hinkley C is Somerset isn’t it? Ah, but our Local Enterprise Partnership covers Devon AND Somerset, so masses of money that used to go directly to our councils for local projects is pouring into their (unaccountable and non- transparent) coffers.
And because these are the projects our LEP is putting OUR money into on the assumption everything is hunky-dory:
Bicton (Cornwall College) – this project is a dedicated Skills Centre for Engineering and Construction, including nuclear.
£300,000 from Growth Deal.
Bridgwater – HPTA – National College for Nuclear (Southern Hub). This project is to base the National College for Nuclear (NCfN) – Southern Campus on Bridgwater College’s newly developed University Centre in Cannington.
£3 million from Growth Deal
Exeter College – a Centre for Advanced Industrial Automation to address the LEP priorities for the HPTA, Hinkley Point C supply chain and the New College for Nuclear advanced manufacturing and Business Incubation.
£3 million from Growth Deal
South Devon College – The project is a suite of small capital investments that will enable the College to extend and enhance the range and quality of our provision to meet the direct and indirect skills needs for the new nuclear development at Hinkley and address the replacement skills resource needs locally.
Already received and spent £213,980 from Growth Deal
Yeovil College – Addressing skills gaps in Construction/Civils and Facilities Management
Provisional allocation of £637,500 from Growth Deal.
Of which our LEP says:
“This project forms part of the Nuclear South West strategy – a strong partnership between three south west LEPs (Heart of the South West, West of England and GFirst) the nuclear industry, local authorities, academic and skills sectors and business support agencies – generating £55bn of nuclear opportunities over the next decade”
The above does NOT include the massive numbers of houses to be built in the Hinkley C area by companies such as Midas (LEP board member).
Check out the nuclear and other interests of LEP Board Members (including EDDC Leader Paul Diviani and non-Board member Mark Williams, EDDC CEO) here:
http://heartofswlep.co.uk/about-the-lep/lep-board/
AND IF THERE IS NO NUCLEAR INDUSTRY? WHAT THEN?
East Devon Watch 