The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has released a list of ten ways it will stimulate investor confidence in the UK’s energy market in the wake of widespread criticism aimed at numerous abrupt policy amendments. 1) Reforming the Capacity market to protect clean energy sources and send a clear signal to investors that the UK is building energy infrastructure fit for the 21st century. 2) Commit to the construction of the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant, which will power six million homes for 60 years and create 25,000 jobs in the UK. 3) Boost innovation funding to more than £500m which will include a £250m funding pot for nuclear innovation. 4) Support the 10GW capacity of new offshore wind projects scheduled for the 2020s, with a further three auctions scheduled if cost reduction conditions are met. 5) Close all unabated coal-fired power stations by 2025 if there is evidence that a shift to gas can compensate for the closures. 6) Allocate £295m to invest in energy efficient schools, hospitals and other public services through new designs and retrofitting. 7) Introduce a new five year energy efficiency supplier obligation set a £640m a year, which will help more than one million homes reduce carbon emissions. 8) Double the support given to households and businesses to decarbonise heating by raising support from £430m to £1.15bn. 9) Allocate more than £300m to deliver 200 heat networks which will raise more than £2bn through private investment alone. 10) Raise the UK’s climate finance commitment by 50% to £5.8bn over the next five years to help the world’s poorest countries adapt to climate change.
Edie 7th March 2016 read more »
Book Review: The Fall and Rise of Nuclear Power in Britain. In May 1965 Fred Lee, minister of power in Harold Wilson’s Labour government, announced that the next phase of Britain’s nuclear power programme would be based on the British-designed advanced gas-cooled reactor (AGR), in preference to the water-cooled reactors that were available from the US. Britain, Lee said, had “hit the jackpot”, with a design that was clearly superior on economic and technical grounds to its American rivals. This judgment, like that of the officials in the Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) who recommended the AGR, could not have been more wrong.
FT 7th March 2016 read more »