
Offshore windfarms will be built for a record low price in the UK - ljf
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/11/huge-boost-renewable-power-offshore-windfarm-costs-fall-record-low
======
ealexhudson
This is nothing but good news. Yes, it's not the same type of generation, we
can't be 100% wind etc., etc., but the cost of wind & solar is dropping
quickly and the two combined regularly contribute 40%+ of our energy needs.

I doubt there will be another nuclear agreement after Hinkley C, and we should
be thinking more about how we can starting creating storage and/or redesigning
the grid to take account of a highly-renewable production system.

~~~
Robotbeat
I don't think people realize how critical nuclear power is to achieving
decarbonization _in a timely manner_.

Nuclear enables decarbonization about a decade sooner.

Yes, solar and wind are inexpensive _when penetration is low_. I'm fully in
favor of them. And YES, most of the world could fully rely on them if given
enough money. You do this by building enough solar power to provide
electricity even during cloudy winter days then enough storage to go through
the night.

BUT: The UK is high latitude. That means that during the cloudy winter, it's
just not feasible to build enough PV. And building enough storage for weeks is
also not feasible. So you're going to burn gas, and not get to full
decarbonization, or you're going to have to pull geothermal power from Iceland
or something else very expensive. Going from 0 to 20% of electricity from
solar/wind is cheap. 20-50% becomes more expensive. 50 to 70% is really
expensive because you have to curtail a lot.

Going from 70% renewable to 100% is insanely expensive (think of that last
20-30% as being about 5-10 times as expensive per kWh) because you have to
curtail MOST OF THE TIME.

But if instead you have nuclear, you can stretch your batteries and demand-
response enough that you don't actually have to curtail so much. So in a world
where we care about decarbonization, even 20-30% of nuclear is very valuable.

I've done the calculation. Hinkley C, even with the cost overruns, is a
bargain if you're shooting for full decarbonization.

...but a lot of greens aren't. Many are being disingenuous as they care more
about stomping out nuclear than they do about fighting climate change. They
don't care much that it means building more gas in the near term.

Ask yourself: is throwing away nuclear worth a decade of delay in
decarbonization?

~~~
Robotbeat
Look at it this way. Average solar capacity factor usually about 10% in the
UK. Average electricity output is about 38GW. So you already need about 380GW
of solar before taking into account variation from cloud days and seasonal
variation. Add in cloudy winter days, you need at least 5 times overbuild, so
you need to build about 1900GW of solar. Even with low, $2 per watt utility
scale solar, you're looking about about $3.5-4 trillion to go full solar not
counting batteries for night time. For nuclear, on the other hand, you got a
really high capacity factor like 90.9% (in the US recently). So a 3.2GW
Hinkley C gets you about 3GW on average. So you need about 13 of them to power
the whole of UK on average. Even at $26 billion each, that's only $340
billion, a tenth the cost of 100% solar not counting batteries (nuclear may
want batteries for smoothing loads anyway). Even at $1/Watt, solar still not
attractive in UK for 100% scenario... But if mixed with some amount of
nuclear, then solar does look good again.

Note that in countries closer to the equator, you can get like 20-25% capacity
factor with solar... You also have less seasonal variation (so need less over-
build) and install costs may be lower due to cheaper labor and lower land
prices (so, 25/10%, 2.5x overbuild vs 5x overbuild, half the install costs...
could be factor of ~10 cheaper in 100% PV install scenario). So I think solar
is going to be a huge boon to the "global south" even if they rely on it 100%.
But high latitude countries like the UK and Germany would be out of their
minds to shut down nuclear.

------
ljf
Also cheers to the mod who updated the title - I didn't want to editorialise
it myself - though not sure if either the original or new encapsulates what is
on offer here:

"the “exceptionally low” results of a government auction on Monday for subsidy
contracts show two offshore windfarms will be built for £57.50 per MWh, way
below even the most extreme predictions. The price is half of what new
offshore windfarms were being awarded just two years ago."

This is really something considering where the figures came in 5 or 10 years
ago, and amazing to compare against the number from 2015:

Estimated UK LCE for projects starting in 2015, £/MWh Power generating
technology (Lowest 2015 figures in £)

Nuclear PWR (Pressurized Water Reactor)(a) 82

Solar Large-scale PV (Photovoltaic) 71

Wind Onshore 47

Offshore 90

Biomass 85

Natural Gas Combined Cycle Gas Turbine 65

CCGT with CCS (Carbon capture and storage) 102

Open-Cycle Gas Turbine 157

Coal Advanced Supercritical Coal with Oxy-comb. CCS 124

IGCC (Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle) with CCS 137

(a) new nuclear power: guaranteed strike price of £92.50/MWh for Hinkley Point
C in 2023[49][50]) (from:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source)
)

Also love this line towards the end of the article: "The lower the price, the
more electricity generating capacity can be built. The government had
allocated £240m-a-year for the subsidies but the competitive prices mean it
now expects them to hit £176m-a-year at most."

~~~
raverbashing
Great summary. Still, it's not clear where the subsidies are getting paid to
those wind farms

Are they paying more for generation than the consumer is paying for
electricity?

~~~
kieranmaine
Good summary here on strike prices. It talks about nuclear power, but it
applies to wind as well -
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22772441](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22772441)

------
ljf
Hugely excited about the price point - though obviously still has the issues
of intermittency and dependability - but at this price, even the losses from
storage become less of an issue, so I hope it can kick start more wholesale
power storage initiatives.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Part of the drop in price is because the newer turbines are less intermittent
and more reliable.

Capacity factors have been rising for years as the industry matures.

And this is offshore wind, one of the benefits of which is higher capacity
than onshore.

