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

awesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet another nail in the coffin of fossil fuels. The sooner oil producing terrorist sponsoring states go broke, the better for our security - Saudi Arabia.

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:Whatever

[whoever57]

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