NuGen
Iberdrola has agreed to sell its 50% stake in the UK’s NuGeneration (NuGen) consortium to Toshiba for £85 million ($139 million). NuGen is the would-be developer of the proposed Moorside nuclear power plant.
World Nuclear News 23rd Dec 2013 read more »
Guardian 23rd Dec 2013 read more »
FT 23rd Dec 2013 read more »
The Government’s nuclear programme received a rejuvenating boost yesterday when the Spanish owner of ScottishPower sold its stake in the NuGen domestic nuclear consortium to Toshiba. The sale means that most of the world’s big nuclear players now have a foothold on British soil. The Government hopes to use nuclear as a central plank in its energy policy and wants to replace aged and polluting power plants with modern technology, including at a site in Sellafield. The coalition has said that it is keen to encourage outside investment in new nuclear plants and the arrival of Toshiba will fuel speculation that the Japanese group will play a role in future ventures. It already owns Westinghouse, which builds nuclear plants.
Times 24th Dec 2013 read more »
Telegraph 24th Dec 2013 read more »
Aldermaston
AWE have requested and been granted an extension to the period of the improvement notice served by ONR in November 2012. ONR issued AWE with an improvement notice in November 2012 following AWE’s discovery of significant corrosion to structural steelwork on a safety significant building at Aldermaston. The notice placed requirements on AWE to carry out suitable repairs to the structure to bring it back up to the required standard. The closure date for this notice was the end of December 2013.
ONR 23rd Dec 2013 read more »
Trawsfynydd
Nuclear decommissioning work at Magnox’s Trawsfynydd nuclear power station in North Wales has started, under the direction of the Doosan Keltbray consortium.
Plant Engineer 23rd Dec 2013 read more »
World Nuclear
This year has been the nuclear power industry’s annus horribilis and the nuclear renaissance can now be pronounced stone cold dead. Nuclear power suffered its biggest ever one-year fall in 2012 − nuclear generation fell 7% from the 2011 figure. Nuclear generation fell in no less than 17 countries, including all of the top five nuclear-generating countries. Nuclear power accounted for 17% of global electricity generation in 1993 and it has steadily declined to 10% now. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has downwardly revised its nuclear power projections, and now anticipates growth of 23% to 100% percent by 2030. Historically, the IAEA’s upper projections have been fanciful, and its lower projections are usually much closer to the mark. So annual growth of a little over 1% is about as much as the industry can realistically hope for.
Online Opinion 23rd Dec 2013 read more »
Energy Costs
In October 2013 the row over the profits of the UK’s largest energy suppliers entered the level of a political crisis. Amidst a public clamour over rising bills the opposition leader, Ed Miliband, called for a price freeze – at the cost, if necessary, of utility profits. The same utilities which Mr Miliband wants split up if he wins the election. As the government floundered the former Prime Minister, John Major, surprised most of his party by urging a windfall tax on big six profits. But the industry were prepared. A year earlier lobby group Energy UK had chosen a former spokesperson for the banks – Angela Knight – to make their case. The move had baffled many at the time – but with the big utilities now facing the same sort of threat to their right to operate as the banks had a few years earlier, the reasons soon became clear. As long as the UK remains dependent on a few big firms for power and investment then, just like the banks, those firms will have a right to dictate the terms of the debate. After all, when the fuss died down the government didn’t announce a windfall tax – much as it may have wanted to. It announced a policy change long demanded by British Gas.
Greenpeace 23rd Dec 2013 read more »
Manufacturers are launching a lobbying campaign to persuade the Chancellor to exempt them from green energy levies in the Budget. The steel companies’ trade body is warning that the coalition’s green levies will make industry unable to compete with lower-cost rivals overseas. In a letter to The Times today, Ian Rogers, the director of UK Steel, warns that jobs and investment will be lost if the “economically unsustainable” situation persists. Executives from the British-based SSI UK, Sheffield Forgemasters and Outokumpu met at the offices of UK Steel on Friday to discuss their campaign. They want George Osborne to extend a £125 million annual compensation scheme from the green levies from 2017 until 2021.
Times 23rd Dec 2013 read more »
Energy Supplies
Electricity margins, the cushion of spare supply over peak demand, could fall to 2-5 per cent next winter, down from 15 per cent in 2011-12, as ageing coal-fired power plants are shut down. That has sparked fears the UK could face 1970s-style blackouts. Mr Williams acknowledges that margins are looking “tighter than in previous years” but he insists talk of power shortages is scaremongering. “The tight periods are just a few half hours a year,” he says. “The market works well in terms of making generation available for us to dispatch.”
FT 23rd Dec 2013 read more »
Finland
The Finnish company Fennovoima has signed a contract with Rosatom to build a 1200 MW greenfield nuclear power plant, Hanhikivi I, in Pyhäjoki in northern Finland. It is the first time in the post-Soviet era that the Russian company will be building a new nuclear power station in the EU. The plant will cost roughly €6 billion and will deliver electricity at “no more than €50 per MWh”, says Pekka Ottavainen, Chairman of Voimaosakeyhtiö, the cooperative of Finnish companies that own Fennovoima, in an interview with Energy Post. Although construction permits have yet to be granted, Ottavainen says he now has “very strong confidence” that the plant will be built as planned.
Energy Post 21st Dec 2013 read more »
Nucnet 21st Dec 2013 read more »
Fennovoima has firmed up its selection of Rosatom to supply a nuclear power plant at the new Hanhikivi site, but a final investment decision remains to be made. A round of agreements was announced on 21 December as the result of exclusive negotiations between Fennovoima and Rosatom that began in July. The Russian supplier said the deals “define areas of cooperation… the terms of liability and the ratio of shares in the project.” Another agreement between Fennovoima and TVEL covers the nuclear fuel required by the plant.
World Nuclear News 23rd Dec 2013 read more »
Spain
Spain’s power industry rounded on the Government yesterday for annulling an auction that would have increased electricity bills by 11 per cent in January and added to the misery of a country suffering from 25 per cent unemployment and its worst economic crisis in decades. Iberdrola, Spain’s biggest power company that also owns Scottish- Power, took out full-page advertisement in daily newspapers yesterday, which said: “Your electricity bill could not be more transparent.” It reckoned that generation and transmission costs accounted for only 38 per cent of bills, with the remainder made up of taxes and subsidies awarded to renewable energy before Spain’s economy sank into crisis in 2008. Nevertheless, consumers groups such as Facua have called for Spaniards to turn off the lights for an hour on the evening of December 30 in protest at electricity prices and to demand that consumers in arrears are not cut off in winter.
Times 24th Dec 2013 read more »
Renewables – solar
Renewable energy supplier, Good Energy has been granted provisional planning permission for a 49.9MW solar plant – the largest in the UK following the cannon of announcements for a 40MW and 41MW solar park in recent weeks. The proposed 91.1-hectare site used to be an RAF airfield but has been disused for 20 years. The site is in West Raynham near Fakenham in Norfolk.
Solar Portal 23rd Dec 2013 read more »
