Hinkley
DG Competition has lost any rational argument on the Hinkley Point C (HPC) state aid case. If approved, the UK gov’t deal would allow around €20 billion subsidy over next 45 years for two new nuclear power plants in south-west England. Reading the draft decision, on which the college of Commissioners may vote next week, it is clear that single market and competition rules, environmental protection goals, and even general treaty principles such as consistency and continuity have all been set aside. Changes to the original plan (reported in the FT this morning) are largely cosmetic. Compatible state aid can only be “necessary, proportionate and time-limited“, the recently-retired EC director-general Philip Lowe told a hundred Brussels audiences in recent years. The draft Hinkley Point decision describes none of these. Instead we see the opposite: weak analysis based on vague concepts outside the law such as “de-carbonisation”, whatever that means. Creeping regulatory and governance failure is allowing industry players such as EDF to milk policy and rule-making to their own advantage. I may be angry but I’m not despondent. What happens in the next five days could still surprise us. First, there could be a delay; other commissioners will not appreciate Almunia bouncing them into a bad precedent Second, as more Commissioner realise what is at stake (end of single market, damage to rule of law, weaker climate protection) more will rally against it. If a meaningful Europe itself is on the line here, a critical mass of commissioners could emerge at least to delay if not to resolve. It happened once before in July 2010, where (again) Barroso and Almunia, faced with revolt and possibly losing a vote over coal eight more years of coal subsidies, caved-in and accepted to table a legislative proposal to end coal aid in half that time. Even though the anti-democrat Barroso hates voting, the College decides by simple majority and has voted once already on a state aid file recently. Even before any Court action is considered, we could still be in for some surprises.
Mark Johnston 3rd Oct 2014 read more »
Tougher profit claw-back clauses are to be added to Britain’s Hinkley Point nuclear power plant contract, as ministers try to convince Brussels to approve Europe’s biggest state-backed infrastructure project. A draft European Commission decision, seen by the Financial Times, backs the UK government’s support for the project subject to provisions giving taxpayers a bigger slice of the upside from Hinkley Point over its full lifespan of more than 60 years. The leaked terms are more stringent than originally envisaged by the UK and French utility EDF, which owns the site and the existing Hinkley Point reactors, but will disappoint critics who fear that billions will be wasted on subsidising a wave of new nuclear plants across Europe. Greenpeace, the campaigning environmental group, described the Hinkley Point project as “the heist of the century”. The new conditions for the Hinkley Point project were enough to win the backing of Joaquín Almunia, the EU’s competition chief, but the decision still needs support from the outgoing college of EU commissioners, which is divided over nuclear issues. Any delays could disrupt efforts by EDF to find outside investors for the project. A commission state aid investigation this year raised serious objections to £17.6bn of potentially wasteful public support for the new Hinkley Point C nuclear power station in Somerset, southwest England, casting doubt on a project that could provide 7 per cent of the UK’s electricity. The commission has now dropped most its objections and, critically for EDF, there has been no change to the “strike price” of the contract for difference which guarantees a minimum revenue for low carbon power generators.
FT 2nd Oct 2014 read more »
A WEEK after it emerged that EU commissioners investigating the deal to build Hinkley C were set to approve the deal, Austria’s government says it will challenge the decision. The warning of a legal challenge from Austria follows reports suggesting that the EU Commissioner Joaquin Almunia, who is responsible for ruling on competition, has found in favour of the deal to build the £16billion project.
This is the West Country 2nd Oct 2014 read more »
An outbreak of wailing and gnashing of teeth is predicted imminently in the parish. The reason: the resubmission of plans for a solar farm, a development of some 20 acres or so on land which hitherto has been used for conventional farming purposes. On the face of it the scheme has a lot going for it: it will generate enough electricity for 1,280 homes and there will be a £4,000 annual sweetener over the next decade for the parish council. Whoever farms the site – part of the Wyndham Estate – will still be able to graze livestock on the grade 3b land for the 25-year anticipated lifetime of the farm while the megawatts are silently clocked up above the animals’ heads. Oddly enough, just a few miles from the site of the proposed new solar farm, work is shortly to get under way on Hinkley Point C, a project woefully behind schedule thanks to the dilatory antics of everyone from local authorities to the European Commission. There is now little or no prospect of it being completed in time to help fill – as was originally the intention – the widening energy gap that is clearly opening up on the horizon as outdated generation centres are shut down and our use of electricity increases. Concerns about Hinkley Point have, indeed, all but disappeared from the radar screen since the days when debates about nuclear power in general and the station itself were raised to hysterical levels by the Lib Dem administration at county hall in the 80s and 90s; when certain councillors worked assiduously to scupper earlier plans for Hinkley Point C; and when the matter of nuclear ‘safety’ was elevated to such ridiculous levels that the plant’s operators were obliged to issue a public statement and carry out a stewards’ inquiry every time someone dropped a spanner. Hinkley Point C is going to deliver huge benefits, both during construction and after, but it won’t be enough. We are still going to have to have other sources of energy production and common sense tells us that renewables clearly have a very large role to play.
Western Daily Press 1st Oct 2014 read more »
A leaked paper disclosed by German magazine der Spiegel has shown the European Commission is on the verge of approving eye-watering amounts of public funding to build nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point, in the United Kingdom, saddling taxpayers with the financial and environmental cost. Without opposition from a majority of European commissioners at a vote on 8 October, only days before the current Commission leaves office, the European Union could for the first time allow taxpayers to fund the construction of nuclear power plants in Europe. Austria has already reacted angrily to the plan, threatening to challenge it at the European Court of Justice. Outgoing energy commissioner Günther Oettinger last year described the plan as “Soviet”.
EU Business 3rd Oct 2014 read more »
Dungeness
Britain’s 550-megawatt Dungeness B-22 nuclear reactor returned to the power grid on Oct. 2, operator EDF Energy said on Thursday. The plant was taken offline on Sept. 19.
Reuters 2nd Oct 2014 read more »
Hunterston
Britain’s nuclear power industry regulator has given EDF approval to restart power generation at its Hunterston B4 nuclear reactor. The 460 megawatt capacity reactor has been offline since August 1 due to a periodic maintenance shutdown which takes place every three years. Specialists have completed their inspections of the work carried out and are satisfied that the licensees justification to start-up the reactor and operate for a further period of three years is adequate,” Britain’s Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) said in a statement on Wednesday. The reactor is expected to resume operations on October 8, according to EDF’s website.
Reuters 1st Oct 2014 read more »
Sellafield
Lord Chris Smith is pro nuclear and pro fracking. He is giving a lecture tonight to Friends of the Lake District on the threats to our fragile natural environment….his pro nuclear stance while Head of the Environment Agency has been instrumental in facilitating the biggest threat to the Lake District….the proposal for nuclear geological dumping and new build. Meanwhile there is a Morecambe Bay Parnership conference on in Barrow today which presents dangerous new nuclear build as a fait accompli. New nuclear build would double the Sellafield footprint and would include massive cooling towers as big as New York skyscrapers. The Morecambe Bay conference pretends that the pylons would be the worst impact. The Morecambe Bay conference also exhorts us to “Love My Beach” while ignoring the continued radioactive crapola being spewed out from Sellafield reprocessing and washed back to the beaches with every tide.
Radiation Free Lakeland 2nd Oct 2014 read more »
Aldermaston
Britain’s nuclear bomb factories have been reprimanded by two government watchdogs for breaking safety rules on radioactive waste. AWE, the private consortium that operates Trident nuclear weapons facilities at Aldermaston and Burghfield in Berkshire for the Ministry of Defence, has come under fire from the Environment Agency (EA) and the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) for failures in managing its hazardous waste. The EA has issued AWE with a non-compliance notice because key posts meant to ensure the safe handling of wastes have been vacant for months. These include waste officers, radioactive specialists and the head of environment. AWE blamed security requirements – which can include the vetting of prospective employees – for delays in filling the vacancies. According to the EA, AWE has breached conditions imposed in 2012 to ensure that enough skilled staff were employed to look after radioactive waste safely.
Guardian 2nd Oct 2014 read more »
New Reactors
There’s an Alice in Wonderland flavour to the nuclear power debate, writes Jim Green. Lobbyists are promoting all sorts of new reactor types – an implicit admission that existing reactors aren’t up to the job. But the designs they are promoting have two severe problems. They don’t exist. And they have no customers.
Ecologist 2nd Oct 2014 read more »
Uranium
Australia’s agreement to sell uranium to India differs substantially from past nuclear deals and risks weakening safeguards, the former head of Australia’s nuclear safety agency has warned. When uranium is used to generate electricity, weapons-grade plutonium can be recovered as a byproduct and “reprocessed” to create more energy or to produce nuclear weapons.“Where Australia has given reprocessing consent in the past, it’s on the basis that we approve downstream facilities where the plutonium will be used,” Carlson said. “But under the India agreement, we’re just not doing that.”
Guardian 3rd Oct 2014 read more »
Waste Transport
PROTESTERS claim towns and cities are at risk from trains carrying nuclear fuel through Gloucestershire. They called for a halt to trains carrying radioactive fuel from Hinkley nuclear power station to Sellafield through the county. They staged a protest and leafleted outside Gloucester railway station on Friday, saying that Nuclear Trains carrying highly radioactive fuel from Hinkley Nuclear Power Station to Sellafield go through Gloucestershire every week.
Stroud Life 2nd Oct 2014 read more »
North Korea
North Korea is ready to resume six-party talks on its nuclear programme but must maintain its readiness in the face of joint US-South Korean military exercises, a senior envoy in Geneva said on Thursday.
Guardian 3rd Oct 2014 read more »
Reuters 2nd Oct 2014 read more »
Japan
A nuclear risk research centre has been established in Japan to carry out research and development necessary for utilities to improve safety on their own initiative. The Nuclear Risk Research Centre (NRRC) – set up by Japan’s Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI) in Tokyo – was officially opened on 1 October. It has a staff of some 110. Most of NRRC’s research activities will be conducted at CRIEPI’s facilities in Tokyo and Chiba.
World Nuclear News 2nd Oct 2014 read more »
Renewables Funding
The government has extended its budget for renewable energy subsidy payouts by £95 million from the levels suggested in July this year, to a total of £300 million in funding for the Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme. The Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) said on Thursday morning that the £300 million included in its Levy Control Framework (LCF) will be divided into two separate pots for established technologies such as onshore wind and solar farms, and less established technologies such as offshore wind and marine power. The budget for biomass support is not included in the £300 million LCF, Decc said. Established technologies will compete for a total of £65 million of which £50 million will be awarded to projects which begin operations in 2015/16, with a further £15 million reserved for projects commissioning from 2016/17 onwards. Less established technologies will compete for a larger pot size of £235 million of which £155 million is earmarked for projects beginning operations from 2016/17 with a further £80 million for those projects commissioning from 2017/18 onwards.
Utility Week 2nd Oct 2014 read more »
Renewable electricity projects will compete for £300 million in support this autumn – an increase of £95 million from the indicative budget published in July, Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey announced on Thursday.
Scottish Energy News 3rd Oct2014 read more »
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has confirmed that it will scrap support for solar over 5MW from April 2015 in its consultation response published on Tuesday. Despite the majority of respondents opposing the government’s proposals to close support under the renewable obligation (RO) for utility-scale solar early, DECC will press ahead with the controversial move.
Solar Portal 2nd Oct 2014 read more »
The government has today announced it has increased the budget for supporting the UK’s next wave of renewable energy projects by £95m, arguing that the shift to a system of auctioning support contracts to renewables developers will curb costs for billpayers while mobilising clean energy investment. However, Ministers risked the ire of the solar industry as they also confirmed they were sticking with controversial proposals to bar solar farms with more than 5MW of capacity from taking part in the existing Renewables Obligation (RO) subsidy scheme from next April.
Business Green 2nd Oct 2014 read more »
The Government has published critical decisions on solar power, including the finalised budget for Contracts for Difference (CfDs). The decisions taken are all particularly damaging for solar power, the UK’s most popular energy technology, which has gone from near zero contribution at the start of this government to providing 9.4% of renewable power in 2014 Q2 DECC claims it is moving solar out of the Renewables Obligation (RO) two years early because of pressures on the RO budget, but the announcement today reveals the cost of the RO had been lower than expected, and DECC’s latest figures show solar power took just 1.3% of the RO budget in 2013/14. No other energy technology has ever delivered cost reductions at the speed and scale seen in solar power. The industry is asking for just one more push of stable policy support to deliver parity with fossil fuels towards the end of next Parliament.
Scottish Energy News 3rd Oct 2014 read more »
The government on Thursday outlined plans to provide £300m worth of support subsidies to the renewable power industry this autumn but has angered the solar industry and been accused of not providing value for money. The budget for a new auction system for green electricity schemes was expected to be a little over £200m but has been raised using cash that was underspent in previous funding rounds.
Guardian 2nd Oct 2014 read more »
The government’s decision to award billions of pounds of renewable energy contracts without a proper tendering process has left consumers out of pocket, MPs have said. The Public Accounts Committee said the Department of Energy and Climate Change failed to protect consumers’ interests. The five offshore wind and three biomass project contracts were awarded without competition to avoid delays. MPs said Decc’s own case showed no benefits to awarding contracts early. They added that it was not clear if the early contracts were needed in order to meet 2020 renewable energy targets. The government has set a target of producing 15% of the UK’s energy from renewable sources by this date.
BBC 3rd Oct 2014 read more »
FT 3rd Oct 2014 read more »
Families face paying up to £40 extra each year for wind and solar farms to meet climate change targets after the government revised its energy price forecasts. The subsidy required for each unit of renewable electricity will rise after the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) conceded that gas was much cheaper than it had predicted. A glut of gas on the world market means gas-fired power stations have become cheaper to run, making wind and solar farms comparatively even more expensive. The new forecasts undermine the government’s claim that renewable energy is becoming more competitive. Analysts said that ministers could be forced to increase the budget for renewable energy subsidies, set at £7.6 billion in 2020, so that they meet the EU’s legally binding renewable energy target.
Times 3rd Oct 2014 read more »
Gas and electricity will be significantly cheaper this decade than previously thought, according to new official estimates that undermine the Government’s case for backing expensive green energy. Burning gas for power is currently far cheaper than electricity from wind farms, which receive billions of pounds in subsidies from consumers. But ministers have repeatedly argued that gas prices will keep on rising, eventually making green energy good value for money. Yesterday however the Department of Energy and Climate Change released new forecasts slashing its power and gas price forecasts for later this decade by as much as 20 per cent.
Telegraph 2nd Oct 2014 read more »
Investor interest in clean energy is starting to rise around the world after two years of decline largely thanks to growth in China and Japan. But concern about the ratcheting back of renewable energy subsidies in Europe led investment there to sink to the lowest level in eight years, new figures show, notably in the UK and Italy where spending in the third quarter sank to less than half what it was in the same period one year ago. Globally, just over $175bn was poured into solar plants, wind farms and other forms of green power in the first nine months of 2014, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a research group. That is 16 per cent more than in same period last year, with China’s solar boom accounting for the biggest single contribution to the increase.
FT 2nd Oct 2014 read more »
Renewables – wave & tidal
Wave and tidal power companies are being invited to bid for a share of €7m (£5.4m) to invest in research projects that can help advance the fledgling maket. Scotland’s Energy Minister Fergus Ewing will today confirm Scottish Enterprise’s £450,000 contribution to the fund, which is being run by the Ocean Energy European Research Area Network (ERA-NET) – a consortium of 16 research, economic development and energy agencies from nine EU member states.
Business Green 2nd Oct 2014 read more »
Economic development agency Scottish Enterprise is putting £450,000 into an international fund which supports renewable energy projects. The fund, worth about £5.5m, aims to back ocean-related schemes like wave and tidal technology. Countries including the UK, Spain, France and Ireland will be able to apply for cash when the fund opens on 23 October.
BBC 2nd Oct 2014 read more »
Renewables – wind
Anti-wind campaigners have broken completely new ground today by using a piece of research that had absolutely nothing to do with wind power to claim that wind turbines damaged people’s hearing. Even though the story was nonsense, this hardly matters for the media involved. Just like the nonsensical europhobic story about capacity power auctions (see previous blog) this is an example of how there is an expanding market to cater for growing, feverish, hysteria among the backwoodsmen right wing in British politics. I reproduce part of a media release from RenewableUK, the trade association, below, which, as far as I can see, gives a reasonable summary of this affair:
Dave Toke’s Blog 2nd Oct 2014 read more »
American billionaire Donald Trump has claimed that the people of Scotland voted ‘No’ to independence because of Alex Salmond’s support of wind farms. Despite these claims the Scottish population seems to be very supportive of wind farms, thus the scenario that they voted against independence for this reason seems highly unlikely. According to the latest YouGov poll 62% of the people in Scotland said that they would support large scale wind projects in their local area. The poll also revealed that three-quarters of the people would prefer to see the majority of their electricity generated by low carbon sources.
Trillion Fund 2nd Oct 2014 read more »
The backer of plans for the largest wind farm on Lewis in the Western Isles has pulled out of the project. GDF blamed delays in laying a subsea cable needed to carry electricity generated on the isles to the mainland. The French energy giant was to invest in the planned 39-turbine scheme on Lewis’ Eisgein Estate. GDF, along with other renewable energy developers, had been expected to contribute to the cost of the estimated £780m cable. The Scottish government said the news of GDF’s decision was “disappointing”. Work to lay the cable has been dogged by delays and rising costs. Scottish Hydro-Electric Transmission Ltd, a division of SSE, is expected to complete work on the interconnector in 2019.
BBC 2nd Oct 2014 read more »
Herald 3rd Oct 2014 read more »
A community group is seeking urgent talks with a French energy company that abandoned plans to invest in a huge wind farm project, claiming that the company owes them £1 million. GDF Suez, the developer behind the £1 billion Beinn Mhor scheme on Lewis, said yesterday that it had withdrawn “very reluctantly” because of delays over a crucial cable connection to the mainland. GDF said it had placed its subsidiary companies responsible for the scheme “into the hands of an insolvency practitioner”. The company was to invest £230 million in the planned 39-turbine scheme on the island’s Eisgein estate, but required the installation of a subsea cable to carry the electricity generated on the isles to the mainland.
Times 3rd Oct 2014 read more »
Renewables – solar & storage
Investment bank Citigroup says the return on investment for solar and battery storage by 2020 will beat the payback from solar now. That means socket parity in some countries by 2020, and utility-scale grid parity in large parts of the world by 2030. Fossil fuel generators and utiliy business models will be terminally challenged. A major new report from researchers at investment bank Citigroup predicts that the payback for rooftop solar plus battery storage systems will, by 2020, beat the payback on solar-only systems now. Its forecasts are based on the assumption that battery storage costs will halve over the next 5, 6 or 7 years to around $230/KWh. That would make storage financially attractive enough to increase manufacturing and further accelerate the fall in battery storage system costs towards $150/KWh. This, in turn, will eliminate the need for subsidies, will deliver paybacks for solar plus storage of around 6-7 years in Australia and some European countries. And it will also become attractive at grid level, with solar and storage at grid parity in large parts of the world by 2030, meaning that network operators will be installing them in significant numbers.
Renew Economy 3rd Oct 2014 read more »
New Citigroup analysis says that energy storage will have a profound impact on traditional, fossil energy sources, with coal, oil, gas all affected. It’s good news for renewables though. As we reported here, Ciigroup expects the cost of batteries storage to fall significantly in coming years. By 2020, it predicts solar and battery storage will reach “socket parity” in some countries, and at the utility scale level it will reach “grid parity” in large parts of the world.
Renew Economy 3rd Oct 2014 read more »
Fuel Poverty
An extra 200,000 pensioners will get help with their energy bills this winter, the government has announced. The Warm Home Discount Scheme – paid for by the energy companies – is now worth £140 per household. The scheme is being expanded, to include everyone who receives Pension Credit Guarantee. Pensioner groups welcomed the move, but warned that thousands of elderly people who do not claim Pension Credit will miss out on the payments. Hundreds of thousands of people on low incomes are also eligible to claim the discount, which in most cases is applied automatically by energy suppliers. However many people do not get the discount, unless they ask for it.
BBC 3rd Oct 2014 read more »
