Hinkley/EDF
EDF is considering the sale of a €3bn (£2.2bn) stake in its British nuclear business in a bid to raise cash for new Hinkley Point reactors. Possible buyers would be state-owned Chinese companies, who are already committed partners on the £18bn Somerset project. EDF could unveil details of a sell-off plan on 16 February, when it is scheduled to release annual financial figures and is expected to give a final investment decision on building Britain’s first new reactors for 20 years. The French daily, Les Echos, reported on Thursday that EDF may reduce its stake in the eight existing nuclear reactors it owns from 80% to (sic) 29% (Should say by 29% to 51%) by bringing in a new investor as part of a wider €6bn disposal programme. Industry sources told the Guardian that the possible sell off was only one of a number of different options that were under consideration as the group looked at financing Hinkley Point C and other projects. They said it was still likely EDF would give the go ahead to Hinkley next month even though it did not have all the financing in place. EDF is also said by Les Echos to be considering disposing of a half stake in the Constellation Energy nuclear group in the US, plus a similar option to ditch its 50% holding in power transmission business RTE.
Guardian 7th Jan 2016 read more »
Oldbury
Magnox today dispatched its final flask of fuel from Oldbury for reprocessing at Sellafield, completing the site’s program of defuelling and removing 99% of radioactive material from there. Receiving and shipping fuel since it began operations in the 1960s, this final dispatch enables Oldbury to move into its decommissioning phase with the aim of reaching care and maintenance by 2027.
World Nuclerar News 7th Jan 2016 read more »
ITV 7th Jan 2016 read more »
BBC 7th Jan 2016 read more »
Gloucestershire Gazette 7th Jan 2016 read more »
Springfield/SMR
Westinghouse announced today that its Springfields nuclear fuel fabrication facility in the UK has “reached the requirements necessary” for manufacturing fuel assemblies for its Small Modular Reactor (SMR). Last year the company proposed a partnership with the UK government to deploy SMR technology. The company said the Springfields plant achieved this “crucial milestone” following a “readiness assessment” based upon fabrication data for two proprietary SMR fuel assemblies produced at its fuel fabrication plant in Columbia, South Carolina, USA. Westinghouse Springfields managing director Mick Gornall said, “Manufacturing Westinghouse SMR fuel at Springfields will secure the future of a strategic national asset of nuclear fuel manufacturing capability and safeguard highly skilled and paid UK jobs – something that no other SMR technology provider currently offers.”
World Nuclear News 7th Jan 2016 read more »
Nukes vs Climate
Hansen and a handful of other climate scientists I also greatly respect — Ken Caldeira, Tom Wigley, and Kerry Emanuel — present a mostly handwaving argument in which new nuclear power achieves and sustains an unprecedented growth rate for decades. The one quantitative “illustrative scenario” they propose — “a total requirement of 115 reactors per year to 2050 to entirely decarbonise the global electricity system” — is far beyond what the world ever sustained during the nuclear heyday of the 1970s, and far beyond what the overwhelming majority of energy experts, including those sympathetic to the industry, think is plausible. They ignore the core issues: The nuclear power industry has essentially priced itself out of the market for new power plants because of its 1) negative learning curve and 2) inability to avoid massive delays and cost overruns in market economies. This is doubly problematic because the competition — renewable power, electricity storage, and energy efficiency — have seen steady, stunning price drops for a long time. Hansen et al also continue the myth that somehow nuclear power is being held back by environmental opposition, rather than its own marketplace failures, a point I will return to later.
Climate Progress 7th Jan 2016 read more »
Nuclear Safety
Letter David Lowry: Your report on the industrial implications for the UK of the first proposed Chinese designed nuclear power plant rightly raised safety concerns. Guo Ruiting, China General Nuclear Power Corp’s deputy chief engineer for the Taishan EPR-design nuclear plant near Hong Kong, which would be the “reference plant” for the projected new build plant at Hinkley Point in Somerset, may be “bullish” in calling his reactor “ the safest”. Other Chinese nuclear safety experts are not so sanguine about Chinese nuclear safety. Nuclear industry veteran Li Yulun, a former vice-president of China National Nuclear Corp, observed two years ago: “Our state leaders have put a high priority on [nuclear safety] but companies executing projects do not seem to have the same level of understanding.” The world’s first AP1000 third-generation nuclear power plant — the competitor for the Taishan design — being built in Sanmen, China, has fallen behind schedule, and questions have increasingly been raised over its safety standards. Just as the EPR and Japanese-design Advanced Boiling Water Reactor developed by Hitachi (with US company GE) have had to undergo painstaking independent safety and security evaluation by the UK’s independent Office for Nuclear Regulation, so too will the Chinese nuclear plant design, in a process known as generic design assessment. This scrutiny may come as a rude shock to the Chinese nuclear plant manufacturers, who are used to what is effectively self-regulation inside China, as state-owned companies. It will be especially interesting to see if the ONR subjects the CGN reactor design to intrusive probing on its claimed security status, both in terms of physical robustness against external malevolent intrusion, and internally with its cyber security for its complex computer systems.
FT 7th Jan 2016 read more »
Energy Policy
Amber Rudd has acknowledged the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) will have to introduce new measures during this parliament to ensure the UK meets legally binding emissions and renewables targets. Speaking during energy and climate change questions in the House of Commons this morning, Rudd said she did “accept this government needs to put in place more policies to meet our carbon budgets”. Responding to a series of questions from Labour and SNP MPs on the government’s recent admission the UK was currently on track to miss its EU renewable energy target for 2020 and its fourth carbon budget target for the mid-2020s, Rudd said she did not accept “depressing” suggestions the targets would be missed. She reiterated the government’s desire to meet all its legally binding targets, but failed to respond to calls from Labour’s Barry Gardiner to provide details on how the government plans to meet its goals. She added that there have been concerns about meeting the fourth carbon budget for several years and promised measures for meeting it would be announced in the future.
Business Green 7th Jan 2016 read more »
Opposition MPs have accused the government of double standards in its energy policy, particularly in relation to differing levels of support offered to solar and nuclear power. The suggestions were put to secretary of state Amber Rudd during this morning’s oral questions session which gave parliament the first opportunity for it to scrutinise the government’s new feed-in tariff regime since it was unveiled on 17 December 2015. The secretary of state was quizzed over a number of topics relating to the solar industry and was forced to defend the cuts under a tough line of questioning by Labour MP and Shadow DECC minister Clive Lewis, who asked for a new year’s message for the 18,000 solar industry employees who stand to lose their jobs as a result of the cuts. Rudd replied that the regime would still support circa 23,000 jobs and enable as many as 220,000 installations to be made. She also said it would be “unfair” for subsidies – paid for through levies added onto energy bills – to be used to support jobs in the industry. It was followed by an equally tough question from Green Party MP Caroline Lucas who accused the government of double standards in its energy policy. While solar subsidies have been cut, nuclear subsidies have been increased and energy minister Andrea Leadsom remarked during the session of the need to support nuclear and jobs within that industry with subsidies.
Solar Portal 7th Jan 2016 read more »
There’s a problem – whether new gas can come onto the system in time to cover for coal’s removal. Right now –and here the capacity auctions shamble onto the stage – there is not much evidence that they will. As I’ve previously outlined, the capacity auctions were confidently expected to establish a chain of new build through competitively priced 15 year capacity deals: but nothing much emerged from the first auction to suggest that such deals would emerge. One deal only was struck – which now seems bogged down in investor uncertainty, and won’t be on line by 2018. This year NO new large capacity cleared inside the final price: one new power station, Carrington, got a one year deal, but is largely built anyway. The new capacity that did get longer term deals largely consisted of small diesel sets, widely estimated to produce emissions, if used at all extensively, round about those of coal. My fear right now is that staying within ‘market signals’ will have only one outcome as the wreckage of the Capacity Market is reviewed. This is that it will be decided that, well, sorry and all that, it worked to put Britain in a good place as far as the Paris talks were concerned, but in the end we can’t get coal off the system by 2025 after all, because you know, we’ve got to stick with the market and keep the lights on.
Alan Whitehead 7th Jan 2016 read more »
Energy Governance
IGov is exploring the link between innovation and energy governance, where governance is taken to be policies, institutions, rules and incentives. We are interested not only in these policies, institutions and rules and incentives – but how they develop – the politics behind their creation and implementation. IGov is putting together a framework for energy governance suitable for the 21st Century. This includes arguments for the restructuring, or creation, of institutions and the altering of rules and incentives within the GB energy system – and we are provisionally calling this Output Based Regulation. Our latest addition to this framework was our recommendations for Code Governance reform (see page 44 for figure), which includes our argument to get rid of self-regulation of codes. The energy world is changing rapidly and it is clear that current GB energy governance is no longer fit for purpose. We argue (as shown in Figure 1) that the roles and relationships between the GB energy institutions need to change – hence the need for: an energy policy committee (EPC); an integrated and independent system operator (IISO) which is the body tasked with transformation and ensuring security and which combines complementary market and network functions; that Ofgem be restructured so that it becomes an economic regulator, and that it is on the same level of hierarchy as the IISO. We think the IISO and the Economic Regulator should be overseen by the EPC which both advises the Secretary of State but also executes the Secretary of State’s decisions, thereby bringing in more legitimacy to decision-making.
IGov 8th Jan 2016 read more »
Chernobyl
SPECTACULAR drone footage reveals the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster at Chernobyl.
Daily Star 7th Jan 2016 read more »
Finland
Finnish energy company Fortum said early this week production that its Loviisa nuclear plant in southern Finland accounted for 13% of the country’s total electricity generation in 2015. With a 92.9% load factor last year, the 1,020-megawatt (MW) plant, located in Espoo, is believed to be among the best performing pressurized water reactor power plants in the world in 2016. The combined output for units 1 and 2 was 8.47 terawatt-hours.
Kallanish Energy 8th Jan 2016 read more »
North Korea
Analysis of seismic waves created by North Korea’s fourth nuclear test on Wednesday shows they were almost identical to those generated in its last test, according to an analyst, undermining its claim to have tested a hydrogen bomb.
Reuters 8th Jan 2016 read more »
Kim Jong-un celebrates his birthday today as the world is still reeling from North Korea’s claims it has successfully tested a hydrogen nuclear bomb.
Mirror 8th Jan 2016 read more »
North Korea’s claim to have successfully tested a hydrogen bomb has been widely denounced as both irresponsible and irrational – proof of the folly of an inexperienced but power-hunger leader eager to celebrate his 33rd birthday. Yet it is always worth remembering that the regime has a very clear strategy in mind.
Guardian 7th Jan 2016 read more »
Biomass
Energy giant RWE has sold Lynemouth power plant to Energeticky a Prumyslovy holding (EPH), the Czech-based company that owns Eggborough power station, for an undisclosed sum. Lynemouth, a 420MW coal plant in Northumberland, stopped generating in December under environmental rules but is due to be converted to burn wood pellets and reopen within about 18 months. Neil O’Hara, of EPH’s UK subsidiary, said it would work with the team at Lynemouth to try to reach a final investment decision on the project within the next month or two and believed it would “achieve its ambitions”. However, he cautioned it was “working under tight time constraints and challenging foreign exchange conditions”. The economics of the project hinge on a subsidy contract awarded by the Government in April 2014, at which time Lynemouth was expected to be converted by the end of 2015 and receive subsidies for the power it generated until 2027. However, the project only won state aid approval from the European Commission last month, eating into the value of the contract.
Telegraph 7th Jan 2016 read more »
Renewables – solar
Many in the solar industry have returned from the festive break still uncertain over how the new feed-in tariff system will work, according to senior industry figures. With just over a week to go until the current Feed-in Tariff (FiT) ends ahead of the introduction of a new regime in February, solar industry representatives have warned the industry is still in the dark over how many areas of the new incentive regime will work.
Business Green 7th January 2016 read more »
Energy Storage
Hertfordshire-based company Renewable Energy Systems (RES) has announced its first UK contract to build and support a battery energy storage system. The company will install and maintain a 640kWh battery system next to a 1.5MW solar park just south of Glastonbury in Somerset. The £1m system will help balance supply and demand between the solar park and the local grid. The project is part of a major initiative being run by Western Power Distribution (WPD) – the electricity distributor for the Midlands, the South West and South Wales – to investigate the technical and commercial feasibility of battery energy storage combined within distributed generation installations in the UK. According to RES, using energy storage in this way offers huge potential to increase the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of grid operations without the need for public or Government subsidy. It also has the potential to improve access to the grid for low-carbon energy sources at the least cost to consumers. RES already operates nine similar projects around the globe, with total energy storage capability of up to 48MWh.
Edie 7th Jan 2016 read more »
Business Green 7th Jan 2016 read more »
One of the first industrial-scale battery storage facilities is to be developed in the UK in a joint project by British Solar Renewables (BSR) and Western Power Distribution (WPD). This £1 million project will demonstrate the technical and commercial feasibility of directly linking a major battery storage facility, a solar park and the electricity network.
Scottish Energy News 8th Jan 2016 read more »
Energy Efficiency
The UK Green Building Council (UK-GBC) has embarked on a new drive to ensure the country’s commercial buildings live up to the performance standards promised by developers. The trade body yesterday launched a research project to examine how better design and construction practices can boost the performance of non-domestic buildings during their lifetime.
Business Green 7th Jan 2016 read more »
Fossil Fuels
Energy Secretary Amber Rudd has been forced to defend her decision to allocate a new subsidy to back-up ‘diesel farms’ in Parliament today (7 January). The £175m funding, announced last month, is part of the capacity market scheme which provides payments to power plants to keep them on standby in case of power shortages. In this afternoon’s Energy Questions session in the House of Commons, Rudd was grilled on the policy by shadow energy secretary Lisa Nandy. Nandy said: “Last month, the Secretary of State agreed to hand out hundreds of millions of pounds in new public subsidies to diesel and coal power generators through her capacity market scheme. “Can you tell the House how much family energy bills will rise as a consequence?” Rudd responded by claiming that the capacity scheme is in fact needed “because of Labour’s woeful underinvestment in energy infrastructure during their Government,” adding that energy security is a “non-negotiable priority” for the Conservative Government. When pressed by Nandy on exactly how much the subsidies would add to household energy bills, Rudd replied: “It is a few pounds – it will be under £10”.
Edie 7th Jan 2016 read more »
British families will be forced to fork out up to £10 a year through their energy bills to fund subsidies paid out to polluting diesel generators, the energy secretary admitted yesterday. Amber Rudd told the Commons that the £175 million subsidy scheme, which is designed to boost the UK’s access to back-up electricity generation, would be funded from household energy bills, saying that it would add “less than £10” to average bills.
Times 8th Jan 2016 read more »
An energy company that had hoped to extract gas from under the Firth of Forth has said it will now focus on projects outside Scotland. Cluff Natural Resources planned to build the UK’s first deep offshore underground coal gasification (UCG) plant at Kincardine in Fife. But its plans were put on hold last year ahead of the Scottish government imposing a moratorium on UCG. Cluff said it had now stopped all expenditure related to the project. It said this was despite its expectation that the moratorium on UCG would ultimately be lifted after a government study and consultation on its potential impact ends in the spring of next year.
BBC 7th Jan 2016 read more »
Energy Voice 7th Jan 2016 read more »
Times 8th Jan 2016 read more »
Scotsman 8th Jan 2016 read more »
Herald 8th Jan 2016 read more »
