Britain Opens Its First Subsidy-Free Solar Power Farm (reuters.com)

AmiMoJo quotes Reuters: Britain's first solar power farm to operate without a government subsidy is due to open in eastern England on Tuesday, as a sharp fall in costs has made renewable energy much more economical. Britain needs to invest in new energy capacity to replace aging coal and nuclear plants that are due to close in the 2020s. But it is also trying to reduce subsidies on renewable power generation... The 10 megawatt (MW) solar farm, in Clayhill, Bedfordshire, can generate enough electricity to power around 2,500 homes and also has a 6 MW battery storage facility on site.

Comments

Re:Subsidies

[Anonymous Coward]

This is one of those products not yet ready for the mainstream. It therefore "can't survive without government subsidies.*"

*e.g. throw public money at it, and you will end with the public trillions in debt, the project will take longer than desired, and so much market INEFFICIENCY was added that you would have gotten the same results at the same time never subsidizing it to begin with.

I agree that subsidizing Hinckley Point C, already $2 Billion USD over budget and projected to be late, is a very bad idea

Cost comparison

[Solandri]

Usually these renewable reports are grossly exaggerated to make it seem like renewable is more capable than it really is. But this one is actually fairly accurate.

10 MW * 0.097 capacity factor = 970 kW
970 kW / 2500 homes = 388 Watts per home
Average UK home annual consumption is 3940 kWh
3940 kWh / 1 year = 450 Watts average consumption.

So their "homes powered" metric is fairly close to accurate (2150 homes would be exact). We'll go with the exact 450 Watts per home figure.

To put this in perspective, the proposed Hinkley C nuclear plant would have a 3.2 GW capacity. Using the 90% capacity factor for newer nuclear reactors, this would give an actual generation of 2.88 GW, or enough to power 6.4 million homes.

At a construction cost of 24.5 billion GBP (the UK has some of the most expensive nuclear in the world), this works out to 3828 GBP per home powered.

If you run the same calculation using the 70% capacity factor for the UK's older nuclear plants over the last 5 years, it works out to 2.24 GW. Enough to power 5 million homes at 4900 GBP per home powered.

Unfortunately none of the news reports on this new solar farm that I was able to find mention its cost. This site estimates a utility-scale solar installation in the UK costs about 1.1 GBP per Watt. That works out to 11 million GBP / 2150 homes = 5116 GBP per home powered. But it doesn't include the cost of the 6 MW battery.

Re:Cost comparison

[Phillip2]

The 24 billion for Hinkley is, I think, construction costs. The lifetime costs vary depending on who you ask, of course, but 35+billion. And, of course, Hinkley is already significantly over budget. Given that the decommissioning costs have only ever gone up, twice the price doesn't seem so far off.

And, of course, Hinkley C is in one place -- so you have to distribute the power to 6 million people over a wide area. WIth solar, this is less true -- you can site it in many places often more locally, so it might well be more stable than nuclear. Although the grid is currently designed for nuclear type power with most generation at few locations.

Conclusion -- the headline figure is just that -- a headline. The actual costs are very, very difficult to estimate. Having solar in the UK (the UK!) being somewhat mroe expensive or somewhat less expensive than nuclear is, indeed, big news. Especially as nuclear is second or third generation. Move this equation to Texas, or Brazil, or anywhere sunnier than the UK, and the figures change again,

Re:Cost comparison

[AmiMoJo]

You forgot to factor the massive subsidy that nuclear gets. Hinckley is guaranteed massive subsidies for life, while this wind farm is subsidy free.

Including subsidy the cost of Hinkly C is expected to be around £37bn, which is just under 6000 GBP per household. That's assuming it comes in on budget, which is unlikely to say the least.

Re:Cost comparison

[Maxo-Texas]

One can assume that the british electric plant will produce power at a competitive rate.

https://www.theecoexperts.co.u...

So 9-17p/kwh (avg 13.37 p/kwh).

Nuclear works out to about the same cost of electricity.

Nuclear plants are notorious for underestimating decommissioning costs AND for collecting profits during lifecycle and then dumping those decommissioning costs on the public by going bankrupt/"selling" the plant to a fake company which then goes bankrupt. (one plant had estimated decommissioning costs of $39 million and ended up over 640 million).

Texas power is a little cheaper but not much. I pay 11c/kwh and some is offered for 15c/kwh- some for 8c/kwh.

Given sufficient battery power, solar is also stable.

Humans have a bad record managing nuclear power plants. Cautious at first and then increasingly cutting corners and getting sloppy as the decades pass.

The failure cost of a solar plant does not include losing the use of 525+ square miles of prime real estate for a few centuries.

Re:Whatever

[LynnwoodRooster]

Maybe, but it's still planning on 700+ new coal plants. Oh, and 60+ nuclear plants over the next 10 years, too... When you plan to build a massive number of power plants, a small cut can still be the "largest" in the world - but a drop in the bucket compared to what is actually happening (much like having a $100 billion deficit, and "cutting it" to only $95 billion).

Re:Whatever

[whoever57]

You should not uncritically believe the NY Times:
https://unearthed.greenpeace.o...