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SMRs

Dave Elliott: There has of late been a lot of promotion of the idea of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) of a few tens or hundreds of megawatts, which it is claimed will be cheaper than conventional gigawatt scaled plants since they can benefit from economies of mass production in factories. Much has been promised for SMRs, including the delivery of power at £40-60/MWh, but there is still some way to go before any project actually goes ahead and we can see if the promises hold upon practice. In the past, the nuclear industry had tried to improve the economics of nuclear plants by going for larger plants, without too much success: the on-site construction costs have escalated. However, it is not clear if small plants will have any more success. Scaling down does not necessarily reduce complexity, and, given the need to ensure safety, it is that which may drive costs most. Nevertheless, developers are trying their luck, with many proposals for devices emerging around the world. Back on this planet, we’ve got plenty of renewables to get on with, and in that context, arguably, small nuclear, of whatever sort, does not really offer anything different from big nuclear. Just another costly distraction from getting on with renewables…

Renew Extra 27th Feb 2021 read more »

Centrica

Centrica has suspended the sale of its nuclear business while booking a GBP525 million impairment on its power assets, the UK utility reported in annual results Feb. 25. The company’s nuclear output for the year was down 10% year on year to 9.134 TWh, while nuclear’s achieved price was up 4% to GBP51.30/MWh ($72.66/MWh). The segment made an operating loss of GBP17 million, down from a GBP17 million operating profit in 2019. A GBP525 million impairment charge on power assets included GBP481 million relating to nuclear, “largely as a result of a reduction in price forecasts and availability issues at the Hunterston B, Dungeness B and Hinkley Point B power stations,” Centrica said. It also included a GBP23 million charge relating to gas-fired and battery power assets, again as a result of lower price forecasts, and a GBP21 million charge relating to a forced outage at the 445 MW Whitegate gas-fired power station in Ireland. Centrica owns a 20% interest in the UK’s 8.25 GW of operational nuclear power generation fleet. In 2018 it announced it was looking for a buyer for the stake. “We continue to consider options for a sale however the divestment process is currently paused given operational issues on a number of the power stations,” it said. Graphite cracking is seen as a life-limiting factor in the UK’s nuclear fleet of advanced gas-cooled reactors, while pipe corrosion has raised safety concerns at the 1.12 GW Dungeness B plant in Kent, which has been offline since September, 2018. The two units at Dungeness are due to return to service in May. Both units at the 965 MW Hinkley Point B in Somerset are currently shut for graphite cracking inspection. They are due back on March 21 and March 25.

S&P Global 25th Feb 2021 read more »

Centrica ought to be a business school case study in value destruction on an epic scale. About seven eighths of its value — £20 billion or so — has gone up in smoke since the British Gas owner was in its pomp in 2013. The former blue chip now languishes in the FTSE 250 — with a market value smaller than that of Genus or Games Workshop. Some of the decline was not its fault — the energy price cap was outside its control, though it might have done more to anticipate it. Some of it was entirely self-inflicted, like the decision to pull out of wind power. Or the premature bet on connected homes.

Times 26th Feb 2021 read more »

Profits at British Gas fell to a record low of £80 million last year as customers used less energy in the warmer weather and as the pandemic left people struggling to pay their bills.

Times 26th Feb 2021 read more »

Hinkley

Workers across Britain occupied the offices of EDF energy today over its plan to hire untrained electricians to carry out work at Hinkley Point nuclear power station. The electricians have accused their bosses of “multi-skilling” at the site in Bridgwater, where the station is being built at an estimated cost of £22.5 billion. An agreement to employ about 500 electrical apprentices has been reneged on, the workers said, and replaced with training courses for “support operatives.” The plan would mean that lower-paid unskilled workers will be employed instead of skilled electricians, they said. Workers waved Unite flags at the offices in Glasgow and London today, but the union said the protest was not official Unite action.

Morning Star 24th Feb 2021 read more »

Hinkley site hit by “deskilling” row over electricians. Rank-and-file electricians have started a series of demonstrations against plans to “deskill” the industry.

Construction Enquirer 24th Feb 2021 read more »

Sizewell

More than 100 thousand people have now signed a petition calling for the proposed Sizewell C power station to be scrapped over fears it will damage Minsmere Nature Reserve. Plans to build a new nuclear reactor in Suffolk have split opinion, both in the locally and further afield, ever since they were first announced. Last year the RSPB and Suffolk Wildlife Trust launched their Love Minsmere campaign – asking people to pledge their support to concerns over Sizewell C nuclear power station. The conservation charities say the building process – which will be the largest construction site in Europe and last for a decade or more – will have a massive impact on the reserve. But EDF refute the claims and say they’re putting mitigating measures in place and creating new habitats.

ITV 23rd Feb 2021 read more »

Sizewell

Sizewell C uncertainty mounts as potential backer rules out support for nuclear plant. Legal & General (L&G) has ruled out helping to fund the new Sizewell C nuclear power plant in Sussex.

New Civil Engineer23rd Feb 2021 read more »

A planned nuclear power station at the Sizewell facility on the Suffolk coast has suffered a significant setback after major investors have ruled out providing funding for the £20bn project, according to reports. Legal and General Capital – the investment arm of the financial services company – has reportedly said it is not backing French energy firm EDF’s Sizewell C plans, which involve building two new reactors at the site. L&G has not made a public announcement, but according to The Daily Telegraph, in a written response to a pension-holder, one of its investment service consultants said: “I have had it confirmed that Legal & General will not be investing in the Sizewell C nuclear power plant.”

Independent 22nd Feb 2021 read more »

Nuclear Hydrogen

Nuclear power could generate 33% of UK hydrogen by 2050; Renewable capacity could push nuclear out of the mix. Nuclear capacity in Britain may well drop over the coming decade due to ambitious renewable targets. However, a roadmap from the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA) indicates the power source could be crucial to UK hydrogen up to 2050. The NIA roadmap, launched on 17 February 2021, states that nuclear power could help generate 75TWh of low-carbon hydrogen by 2050, 33% of the Climate Change Committee’s target of 225TWh to support decarbonisation efforts. However, this figure is based on 12-13GW of installed nuclear capacity – a figure ICIS analysts forecast may not be available under two-out-of-three future scenarios for UK power up to 2050. One of the key benefits to nuclear generation is its ability to consistently power electrolysers over long periods of time, meaning lower risk of price fluctuation. Comparatively, changes in renewable output can lead to spikes in power prices and supply tightness, subsequently reducing output of green hydrogen production and increasing its price. According to the NIA roadmap, nuclear hydrogen could be as cheap as $2.5/kgh2, putting it close to the cost of blue hydrogen.

ICIS 19th Feb 2021 read more »

Sizewell

Sizewell C proves to be a turn-off for City giant Legal & General. Legal & General has ruled out helping to fund the new Sizewell C nuclear power plant, dealing a blow to EDF as it seeks backers for the £20bn project. EDF is in negotiations with the government about taxpayer support for the planned plant in Suffolk but will also need institutional investors, which it argues can make stable returns over the decades of a reactor’s life. L&G has not spoken publicly about its plans but in a written response to a pension-holder, one of its investment service consultants said: “I have had it confirmed that Legal & General will not be investing in the Sizewell C nuclear power plant.” L&G declined to comment further. It comes after Aviva Investors expressed concerns about the potential ESG (environmental, social and governance) risks of nuclear power. It said the ESG impact of nuclear was “far from clear at this time.” L&G’s boss Nigel Wilson reportedly described Hinkley in 2016 as a “£25bn waste of money”.

Telegraph 20th Feb 2021 read more »

Electricity Supplies

Blackouts in energy-rich Texas are a wake-up call for knife-edge Britain. We must be careful that the rush to decarbonise doesn’t mean you can no longer keep the lights on. If you are going to call your quango the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas, it is not a good sign when your website goes down. Contacting electricity providers is just one of the problems that the people of the second most populous US state have had to contend with in the past week as blackouts followed record cold temperatures. At one point on Tuesday, half the state’s normal power capacity was out of action. Predictably enough, Texas’s frosted landscape has become a battleground between climate change sceptics, who blame iced-up wind farms for the power outages and say the cold weather disproves theories of a warming climate, and the green brigade, who point out that the greater part of the problem this week has been frozen gas infrastructure, and claim that freezing temperatures are actually evidence of an overheating Earth. In America as in Britain, debate is becoming fixated on decarbonising energy without thinking enough about resilience. We have targets for closing coal-fired power stations and for achieving net zero; we spend rather less time thinking about how to keep the lights on during times of stress, whether it be through natural or man-made disaster. We invest in more and more intermittent forms of energy such as wind and solar while the provision of energy storage lags well behind, resulting in several close shaves recently as the wind dropped and the sun went down. The problem of resilience is only going to get worse as we become ever more reliant on the electricity grid. At the moment, if the power goes down, you can still drive your car, and you might have an open fire or a gas-powered Aga which still keeps you warm. In future, most homes and vehicles will be entirely electric.

Telegraph 19th Feb 2021 read more »

Sizewell

Ros Coward: The government’s relentless push for development is destroying rural England. The government’s infrastructure policies are an even more blatant assault on local democracy. They are truly a wrecking ball to the countryside. Alongside HS2, think Minsmere, the RSPB’s jewel in the crown, threatened by Sizewell C, or the proposal for a million houses on “the Oxford-Cambridge arc”, most of which would be on green belt. And let’s not forget Guston lorry park, dumped on the unsuspecting residents of Dover. Local opposition is virtually irrelevant at Planning Inspectorate inquiries into these developments. I know this first-hand having attended one such inquiry where local experts were openly mocked by some of the developers present. It felt like a sham of democracy.

Guardian 17th Feb 2021 read more »

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