Your renewables costs are missing the cost of dealing with intermittency and location.
You are missing the cost of storage and regeneration, the extra transmission costs and the cost of curtailment which is inevitable as more intermittent renewables are added to the system.
You also fail to point out that the gas plants have to be constructed to cover close to 100% of the expected demand for periods when the wind fails to deliver.
Showing only the raw generation costs doesn't provide any useful data as to the final costs of electricity, you must look at the whole system costs.
The costs of system balancing are system costs and exist whatever technologies are connected to the system. Batteries will increasingly provide system balancing. The batteries are not only self-financing but also reuce the need for peak gas generation
There is a cost associated with balancing supply and demand with all technologies, but the cost of doing so with wind and solar is an order of magnitude higher than it would be with nuclear.
Batteries will never be cheap enough to provide backup to cover a series of "dunkelflauten" where wind fails for long periods and doesn't recover sufficiently to charge batteries before the next wind failure. Since you never know when the wind will fail, or for how long, or whether you can charge the batteries in between wind failures, you will never have a system that can be reliable unless you add significant redundancy in the form of dispatchable power.
Batteries are only self-financing if you can charge and discharge them daily, but the major requirement for storage to backup renewables is in balancing seasonal and multi-year variations in wind and solar. A battery that sits for six months waiting for a wind drought is not self-financing.
The cost of redundancy, which is not needed with a nuclear option, must be included in the system costs for the renewables case.
You also need to include a massive increase in transmission costs because you have to transmit power to the end user from four different sources, wind, solar, batteries and backup gas, any of which could be providing 100% of generation at different times and two of which must be located at a distance from the end user.
You are providing misleading information by only showing raw generator costs without looking at the cost and reliability of the whole system.
The costs of batteries have fallen tremendously and will continue doing so. I can assure you that the battery developers and operators will make money out of what they do despite your assertions that they 'will never be cheap enough'. You may not lke it, but their business is sound - and you can inspect thier company balance sheets to make sure. Just repeating the same mantra over and over again will not change that. As for increasing transmission costs, well we are going to need a lot more electricity to power heat pumps and electric vehicles, so that's money that needs to be spent anyway. Ceetainly it will be more expensive to have a completely 100% renewable energy system than one where gas still provides, say 5% of average generation on an annual basis - although i suspect that better technologies will narrow these costs in the future. However, eliminating gas completely by using nuclear as an alternative is not only extremely expensive but on current evidence with western nuclear construction experience, undeliverable in practicwe.
Would be really interested in a post from you that considers the arguments set out in the post linked below, ignoring the silly stuff (2008 saw a fairly significant financial crash as well as the Climate Change Act... ) and focusing on the arguments about costs, baselines, assumptions :
Thanks- but I'm a believer in the idea that if you focus attention on sources that you think are wrong you largely serve to give further publicity to them. I note that he's suggesting a 'windfall tax' on renewables but meanwhile gas and nuclear power plant are not to be subject to any windfall taxes. Removing carbon taxes is suggested more frequently now, but of course would have to balanced by either higher taxes or cuts in spending elsewhere. And of course the need to combat climate change is forgotten.
How can you tell the difference between an analyst and an advocate? It is all in the handling of data that runs counter to assertion. To an analyst, being wrong is disappointing, but it is primarily an opportunity to learn—an expected element in a feedback loop of continuous improvement. When knowledge is your only objective, there is no such thing as a bad fact, only one which you do not yet understand. Not so for the advocate. The advocate has tied their hopes (and often their livelihoods) to a specific outcome and feels compelled, whether consciously or not, to rationalize away or attack inconvenient realities.
This article conveniently ignores the massive CfD subsidies being awarded to offshore wind, all of which are well above £200/MWh. Add those in and nuclear starts to look very cheap, for far superior power.
So am I. But if I wanted to power my home, I would choose 40 year old nuclear tech over the latest renewable, because I would have power whenever I needed it. That's worth paying for.
David, as much as I love the humour in any reasoned debate, your answer is deliberately designed to avoid the difficult truth.
For a renewable energy grid to work you need huge investment in infrastructure including the renewable sources, batteries, grid balancing and upgrades, and back up power facilities. This all costs a lot of money that ultimately reaches consumer bills.
It is also hugely carbon intensive for assets that have relatively limited useful lives, and therefore fails to lower global carbon emissions.
Overall renewables seem to be an expensive way to raise carbon emissions. So why do you think they make so much sense?
I’m fed up having to respond to a never ending stream of comments. The answers to your points are in my posts. Enough of this Thankyou. This is trolling.
How can you compare the cost of gas/nuclear to renewables? The former are available on demand 24/7 all year round, the latter only when the wond blows or the sun shines. It is deeply unserious to do a like for like cost comparison when the benefits are vastly different.
there are plenty of cheap batteries coming online to help with this that are largely self-funded, and which actually reduce the need for having so many gas-fired plant. See 'How cheaper batteries and renewables will slash electricity bills' https://davidtoke.substack.com/p/how-cheaper-batteries-and-renewables
You therefore need to add battery costs to the costs of renewables, alongside all the additional costs of grid balancing that gas/nuclear plants do for free.
That is not mentioning the human problems associated with mining for battery metals.
it's costs the the consumer that count and batteries only get the same incentives as gas fired power plant through the capacity mechanism - incentives of which that wind and solar get very little. So there isn't anything to add.
Because wind and solar get CfDs. Open your eyes and follow the money - if batteries are economical, they would be prevalent without need for subsidies.
But batteries are completely unnecessary UNLESS we want a more expensive (but no less carbon intensive) renewable based grid. So by definition you are adding cost where it didn't exist before.
The reality is renewables aren't cheap and never were that is false fallacy pedalled by too many people over the years to seduce govts into incentivising renewables onto the grid on the vein hope they were going to become cheaper. Pushing CfDs to 20 years is just another ruse if they were cheap none of this would be needed they would sweep the floor. Fortuitously for renewables the Ukraine debacle has saved the day with the increase in gas prices allowing renewables to jack up their prices and at least make most companies break even.
Anyhow given I'm agnostic on climate change I'm content to see us move to a renewable based system but we have gone about in a cack handed way that has saddled consumers with additional costs and Milibands CP2030 approach will only make matters worse as well as risking security of supply. Currently transmission is completely mismatched with renewables generation and will only get worse if we rush headlong into just adding more generation. Whats worse is very little of the rush of spending billions will benefit UK manufacturing at least in the 1930's when the grid was first constructed pretty well 100% of the investment went to UK suppliers and boosted the economy. This is plain wrong and i continue to be surprised why the unions haven't take up the issue about the lack of UK green jobs (that isn't digging holes for HV cables).
What is needed is a pause and a reassessment that coordinates new generation and transmission hand in hand and if that takes till 2035 or 2040 so be it.
it depends what you mean by cheap I suppose - I believe in the numbers I produced in the post showing that solar and wind are the cheapest option. I think also that climate change needs urgent action, so I see no contest in advancing as rapidly as possible into decarbonisation of the electricity system using energy efficiency and renenewables.
There is plenty of scope in this area for people to construct a scenario to speak to their preferred narrative and gloss over the assumptions, which makes it more difficult for non-experts looking to get their heads around the problem to understand the overall story.
What in your view is the best source for someone looking to understand total system costs under different levels of renewables contribution? This would include generation, back-up, storage, the grid investments needed for more decentralised generation, stabilisation, interconnectors, etc.
The same analysis for different levels of electrification would also be useful - the anti renewables camp often reject the need for electrification of heat, transport etc so are assuming different levels of electricity demand and required investment (and so carbon output, and climate risk).
For those trying to bring down total costs, part of the challenge, presumably, is that energy investments are subject to the factors that make building anything in the UK more expensive than in many other countries - land costs (for onshore), approvals / planning, etc. (The analysis of costs of UK vs German solar installations illustrate).
100 per cent renewable uk produced a report a couple of years ago on a fully 100%RE system https://100percentrenewableuk.org/ You're right about higher costs in the UK generally
There's a lot of pressure on the Government to get EDF to go ahead with Sizewell C, although I can't see much progress being made in building it whilst they are still dealing with Hinkley C. So I can't see Sizewell C generating electricity until sometime in the 2040s. That said, the Government will probably end up making some concessions over the Hinkley C contract. As for SMRs, one might be started at a guess.
Your renewables costs are missing the cost of dealing with intermittency and location.
You are missing the cost of storage and regeneration, the extra transmission costs and the cost of curtailment which is inevitable as more intermittent renewables are added to the system.
You also fail to point out that the gas plants have to be constructed to cover close to 100% of the expected demand for periods when the wind fails to deliver.
Showing only the raw generation costs doesn't provide any useful data as to the final costs of electricity, you must look at the whole system costs.
The costs of system balancing are system costs and exist whatever technologies are connected to the system. Batteries will increasingly provide system balancing. The batteries are not only self-financing but also reuce the need for peak gas generation
There is a cost associated with balancing supply and demand with all technologies, but the cost of doing so with wind and solar is an order of magnitude higher than it would be with nuclear.
Batteries will never be cheap enough to provide backup to cover a series of "dunkelflauten" where wind fails for long periods and doesn't recover sufficiently to charge batteries before the next wind failure. Since you never know when the wind will fail, or for how long, or whether you can charge the batteries in between wind failures, you will never have a system that can be reliable unless you add significant redundancy in the form of dispatchable power.
Batteries are only self-financing if you can charge and discharge them daily, but the major requirement for storage to backup renewables is in balancing seasonal and multi-year variations in wind and solar. A battery that sits for six months waiting for a wind drought is not self-financing.
The cost of redundancy, which is not needed with a nuclear option, must be included in the system costs for the renewables case.
You also need to include a massive increase in transmission costs because you have to transmit power to the end user from four different sources, wind, solar, batteries and backup gas, any of which could be providing 100% of generation at different times and two of which must be located at a distance from the end user.
You are providing misleading information by only showing raw generator costs without looking at the cost and reliability of the whole system.
The costs of batteries have fallen tremendously and will continue doing so. I can assure you that the battery developers and operators will make money out of what they do despite your assertions that they 'will never be cheap enough'. You may not lke it, but their business is sound - and you can inspect thier company balance sheets to make sure. Just repeating the same mantra over and over again will not change that. As for increasing transmission costs, well we are going to need a lot more electricity to power heat pumps and electric vehicles, so that's money that needs to be spent anyway. Ceetainly it will be more expensive to have a completely 100% renewable energy system than one where gas still provides, say 5% of average generation on an annual basis - although i suspect that better technologies will narrow these costs in the future. However, eliminating gas completely by using nuclear as an alternative is not only extremely expensive but on current evidence with western nuclear construction experience, undeliverable in practicwe.
Would be really interested in a post from you that considers the arguments set out in the post linked below, ignoring the silly stuff (2008 saw a fairly significant financial crash as well as the Climate Change Act... ) and focusing on the arguments about costs, baselines, assumptions :
https://open.substack.com/pub/davidturver/p/why-energy-prices-high-how-reduce-them-esnz-cost-of-energy?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=6g861
Thanks- but I'm a believer in the idea that if you focus attention on sources that you think are wrong you largely serve to give further publicity to them. I note that he's suggesting a 'windfall tax' on renewables but meanwhile gas and nuclear power plant are not to be subject to any windfall taxes. Removing carbon taxes is suggested more frequently now, but of course would have to balanced by either higher taxes or cuts in spending elsewhere. And of course the need to combat climate change is forgotten.
I've given some commentary on the breakdown of electricity bill costs and also how electricity prices have risen in an earlier recent post, see https://davidtoke.substack.com/p/how-cheaper-batteries-and-renewables
How can you tell the difference between an analyst and an advocate? It is all in the handling of data that runs counter to assertion. To an analyst, being wrong is disappointing, but it is primarily an opportunity to learn—an expected element in a feedback loop of continuous improvement. When knowledge is your only objective, there is no such thing as a bad fact, only one which you do not yet understand. Not so for the advocate. The advocate has tied their hopes (and often their livelihoods) to a specific outcome and feels compelled, whether consciously or not, to rationalize away or attack inconvenient realities.
you say 'one which you do not yet understand'. Really? How many papers have you had peer reviewed? In my case it is several dozen.
How many of those papers proposed arguments that were counter to your own hypothesis?
that's enough of this nonsense. Write your own blogs. Don't troll me
and you're not even a subscriber. Go away!
This article conveniently ignores the massive CfD subsidies being awarded to offshore wind, all of which are well above £200/MWh. Add those in and nuclear starts to look very cheap, for far superior power.
I'm talking about new plant, not about less technologically developed older plant
So am I. But if I wanted to power my home, I would choose 40 year old nuclear tech over the latest renewable, because I would have power whenever I needed it. That's worth paying for.
it's against the law to try to have your own nuclear plant, and I can assure you it would bankrupt you if you tried!
David, as much as I love the humour in any reasoned debate, your answer is deliberately designed to avoid the difficult truth.
For a renewable energy grid to work you need huge investment in infrastructure including the renewable sources, batteries, grid balancing and upgrades, and back up power facilities. This all costs a lot of money that ultimately reaches consumer bills.
It is also hugely carbon intensive for assets that have relatively limited useful lives, and therefore fails to lower global carbon emissions.
Overall renewables seem to be an expensive way to raise carbon emissions. So why do you think they make so much sense?
I’m fed up having to respond to a never ending stream of comments. The answers to your points are in my posts. Enough of this Thankyou. This is trolling.
David, if responding to reasonable questions of the hypothesis you are proposing is upsetting you, I'm sorry.
How can you compare the cost of gas/nuclear to renewables? The former are available on demand 24/7 all year round, the latter only when the wond blows or the sun shines. It is deeply unserious to do a like for like cost comparison when the benefits are vastly different.
there are plenty of cheap batteries coming online to help with this that are largely self-funded, and which actually reduce the need for having so many gas-fired plant. See 'How cheaper batteries and renewables will slash electricity bills' https://davidtoke.substack.com/p/how-cheaper-batteries-and-renewables
You therefore need to add battery costs to the costs of renewables, alongside all the additional costs of grid balancing that gas/nuclear plants do for free.
That is not mentioning the human problems associated with mining for battery metals.
it's costs the the consumer that count and batteries only get the same incentives as gas fired power plant through the capacity mechanism - incentives of which that wind and solar get very little. So there isn't anything to add.
Because wind and solar get CfDs. Open your eyes and follow the money - if batteries are economical, they would be prevalent without need for subsidies.
Batteries ARE becoming increasingly prevalent - see 'Batteries galore! How green energy schemes are surging through the UK's planning system' https://davidtoke.substack.com/p/batteries-galore-how-green-energy
But batteries are completely unnecessary UNLESS we want a more expensive (but no less carbon intensive) renewable based grid. So by definition you are adding cost where it didn't exist before.
The reality is renewables aren't cheap and never were that is false fallacy pedalled by too many people over the years to seduce govts into incentivising renewables onto the grid on the vein hope they were going to become cheaper. Pushing CfDs to 20 years is just another ruse if they were cheap none of this would be needed they would sweep the floor. Fortuitously for renewables the Ukraine debacle has saved the day with the increase in gas prices allowing renewables to jack up their prices and at least make most companies break even.
Anyhow given I'm agnostic on climate change I'm content to see us move to a renewable based system but we have gone about in a cack handed way that has saddled consumers with additional costs and Milibands CP2030 approach will only make matters worse as well as risking security of supply. Currently transmission is completely mismatched with renewables generation and will only get worse if we rush headlong into just adding more generation. Whats worse is very little of the rush of spending billions will benefit UK manufacturing at least in the 1930's when the grid was first constructed pretty well 100% of the investment went to UK suppliers and boosted the economy. This is plain wrong and i continue to be surprised why the unions haven't take up the issue about the lack of UK green jobs (that isn't digging holes for HV cables).
What is needed is a pause and a reassessment that coordinates new generation and transmission hand in hand and if that takes till 2035 or 2040 so be it.
it depends what you mean by cheap I suppose - I believe in the numbers I produced in the post showing that solar and wind are the cheapest option. I think also that climate change needs urgent action, so I see no contest in advancing as rapidly as possible into decarbonisation of the electricity system using energy efficiency and renenewables.
There is plenty of scope in this area for people to construct a scenario to speak to their preferred narrative and gloss over the assumptions, which makes it more difficult for non-experts looking to get their heads around the problem to understand the overall story.
What in your view is the best source for someone looking to understand total system costs under different levels of renewables contribution? This would include generation, back-up, storage, the grid investments needed for more decentralised generation, stabilisation, interconnectors, etc.
The same analysis for different levels of electrification would also be useful - the anti renewables camp often reject the need for electrification of heat, transport etc so are assuming different levels of electricity demand and required investment (and so carbon output, and climate risk).
For those trying to bring down total costs, part of the challenge, presumably, is that energy investments are subject to the factors that make building anything in the UK more expensive than in many other countries - land costs (for onshore), approvals / planning, etc. (The analysis of costs of UK vs German solar installations illustrate).
100 per cent renewable uk produced a report a couple of years ago on a fully 100%RE system https://100percentrenewableuk.org/ You're right about higher costs in the UK generally
Do you think any new nuclear plants will be built?
Sizewell has to be a possibility, given the money sunk into it so far?
And maybe two SMRs, one from each vendor? And then a long wait, so effectively nothing
FES2024 seemed to reluctantly include nuclear in the holistic pathway
There's a lot of pressure on the Government to get EDF to go ahead with Sizewell C, although I can't see much progress being made in building it whilst they are still dealing with Hinkley C. So I can't see Sizewell C generating electricity until sometime in the 2040s. That said, the Government will probably end up making some concessions over the Hinkley C contract. As for SMRs, one might be started at a guess.