Tag Archives: power

UK faces serious winter blackout risk – National Grid’s rosy nuclear forecast fails reality test Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




National Grid says that the country has the electricity generating capacity to meet the average maximum need over the course of the UK winter.

But this calculation critically depends on the reliability of power stations as well as an accurate assessment of the true generating capacity of each plant.

This article looks at National Grid’s assumptions on power station availability over the next months and casts a somewhat surprised eye on its apparent errors, particularly in calculating the likely output from nuclear stations.

These mistakes – if they are mistakes – may not matter. The Grid has introduced new payments for cutting electricity demand, meaning that the spare capacity margin is around 3.4 GW or 6% of maximum expected demand in the average year.

However what I believe may be its errors over nuclear power reduce this number by at 50% at the very least. It seems strange that the business at the centre of the electricity industry in this country appears to be substantially over-optimistic in its assessment of power supply.

If you don’t like the evidence – ignore it

It seems that National Grid has ignored evidence published by EdF that its nuclear power stations cannot possibly reach the output that the Grid projects over the winter months.

Last year, National Grid estimated that the average availability of electricity generators would be 79.4% of rated capacity over winter 2013/14.

The figures ranged from a low 25% for wind (for obvious meteorological reasons) to 97% for pumped storage plants. For plants subject to the possibility of mechanical or other failure, such as coal power stations, the number tends to be between 80 and 90%.

This year, even in the face of strong, repeated and growing evidence of declining mechanical performance of our ageing power stations, National Grid has increased its estimate of the reliability of the main types of power station, coal, gas and nuclear. Across all power plants, the expected availability rises from 79.4% to 81.8%.

Perhaps this seems a small change. However it raises the amount of capacity the Grid expects to be ready to meet peak winter demand by about 1.7 GW. This is half the buffer that the Grid says will be available on the day of highest demand in the average winter. When margins are tight, apparently small changes really matter.

The striking errors in National Grid’s nuclear forecast

Perhaps most strikingly, National Grid has raised its assessment of the nuclear fleet’s availability, and by more than any other major type of power station. It predicts that 90% of the UK nuclear capacity will be working at the point of maximum demand, up from 84% last year.

In the face of repeated unplanned shut downs at EdF’s plants this year, I can think of absolutely no reason for this enhanced optimism. And, indeed, National Grid’s cheery forecast is not shared by Ofgem, which held its estimate at 81% availability, in its report in mid-summer.

The Ofgem document actually predates the unplanned closures at Hartlepool and Heysham 1 that started a couple of months ago and I doubt Ofgem would be as optimistic today.

I looked at the performance of the UK’s nuclear fleet from early December to mid-February this year. Only for a couple of days did it actually achieve the 90% output that National Grid – based on information from operator EdF – suggested it will for 2014 /2015. Average performance was 81% of potential, in line with Ofgem’s more conservative forecasts for this winter and last.

As I write this, only three of EdF’s nuclear generating units out of 16 (in eight power stations on seven sites) are working to their full rated capacity. A further four are operating at 20% below maximum power as a precaution.

Sizewell (one station but two turbine units) is on a planned refuelling stop. Two other units are suffering from mechanical faults and four are being inspected for a possible problem in their boiler units and will return to operation between now and the end of December – although at a lower output than previously. Another plant is returning to full power after refuelling.

The current state of the UK’s nuclear power stations as at 29th October 2014

 

The claimed 90% availability of nuclear plants is impossible

The total nuclear output, including from Wylfa (which is not owned by EdF), is currently (18.00 GMT on October 29th 2014) around 4.5 GW, or less than 50% of potential capacity. Only three stations (and I cannot even be sure about Wylfa) are working to full capacity).

It certainly seems that National Grid is unrealistic in thinking that 90% of nuclear power will be available at the moment of peak need, which typically happens about seven weeks from today in mid-December.

In fact, we already know that 90% is actually not achievable. The total rated capacity of UK nuclear is – according to National Grid – about 9.6 Gigawatts. Both EdF itself and Ofgem give lower figures, and National Grid surely should have noticed this, although the differences are small.

More significantly, 90% of the National Grid figure is slightly more than 8.6 Gigawatts. But, according to EdF’s own public statements, 8.6 GW is unattainable at any point this winter.

  • Heysham 1, Unit 1, is said by EdF to be out until the end of December, past the point of likely peak demand. This reduces maximum output by about 0.6 GW.
  • As Heysham 1, Unit 1 returns to service, the second unit at Hinkley Point B moves offline, cutting power by almost 0.5 GW. So even if peak demand occurs in January, there won’t be additional capacity to meet it.
  • The other unit at Heysham and the two units at Hartlepool are subject to a 20% restriction on output when they return to service at some point during November or December. This cuts maximum output by just under 0.5 GW.
  • The working power stations at Hinkley Point and Hunterston are also subject to precautionary power reductions of about 20%. This reduces potential output by about 0.5 GW.

In total, EdF’s fleet can only produce a maximum of 1.6 GW less than their rated output, or about 8.0 GW. This means that the availability of UK nuclear during winter 2014 / 2015 can only be 85% of the maximum potential, much less than the central National Grid assumption of 90%.

This is before any additional mechanical or electrical problems. The reality is that nuclear output at critical times is, if recent experience is any guide, likely to be little more than 7 GW.

A real prospect of winter blackouts may lie ahead

This reduces the UK’s spare capacity at winter peak by about 1.6 GW, cutting the safety margin by about 50%. A more conservative view of the reliability of gas and coal power stations would have an effect similar in size.

If these numbers are correct, National Grid is being too optimistic in its Winter Outlook and the true position is that a typical winter will bring the UK far closer to power cuts than the company admits. A colder than average winter will make the UK’s position worse.

National Grid hasn’t responded to my written questions on Tuesday afternoon about the overstatement of nuclear availability and other issues.

 

 

Chris Goodall is an expert on energy, environment and climate change. He blogs at Carbon Commentary.

This article was originally published on Carbon Commentary.

 

 




386198

UK faces serious blackout risk this winter – National Grid’s rosy forecast fails reality test Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




National Grid says that the country has the electricity generating capacity to meet the average maximum need over the course of the UK winter.

But this calculation critically depends on the reliability of power stations as well as an accurate assessment of the true generating capacity of each plant.

This article looks at National Grid’s assumptions on power station availability over the next months and casts a somewhat surprised eye on its apparent errors, particularly in calculating the likely output from nuclear stations.

These mistakes – if they are mistakes – may not matter. The Grid has introduced new payments for cutting electricity demand, meaning that the spare capacity margin is around 3.4 GW or 6% of maximum expected demand in the average year.

However what I believe may be its errors over nuclear power reduce this number by at 50% at the very least. It seems strange that the business at the centre of the electricity industry in this country appears to be substantially over-optimistic in its assessment of power supply.

If you don’t like the evidence – ignore it

It seems that National Grid has ignored evidence published by EdF that its nuclear power stations cannot possibly reach the output that the Grid projects over the winter months.

Last year, National Grid estimated that the average availability of electricity generators would be 79.4% of rated capacity over winter 2013/14.

The figures ranged from a low 25% for wind (for obvious meteorological reasons) to 97% for pumped storage plants. For plants subject to the possibility of mechanical or other failure, such as coal power stations, the number tends to be between 80 and 90%.

This year, even in the face of strong, repeated and growing evidence of declining mechanical performance of our ageing power stations, National Grid has increased its estimate of the reliability of the main types of power station, coal, gas and nuclear. Across all power plants, the expected availability rises from 79.4% to 81.8%.

Perhaps this seems a small change. However it raises the amount of capacity the Grid expects to be ready to meet peak winter demand by about 1.7 GW. This is half the buffer that the Grid says will be available on the day of highest demand in the average winter. When margins are tight, apparently small changes really matter.

The striking errors in National Grid’s nuclear forecast

Perhaps most strikingly, National Grid has raised its assessment of the nuclear fleet’s availability, and by more than any other major type of power station. It predicts that 90% of the UK nuclear capacity will be working at the point of maximum demand, up from 84% last year.

In the face of repeated unplanned shut downs at EdF’s plants this year, I can think of absolutely no reason for this enhanced optimism. And, indeed, National Grid’s cheery forecast is not shared by Ofgem, which held its estimate at 81% availability, in its report in mid-summer.

The Ofgem document actually predates the unplanned closures at Hartlepool and Heysham 1 that started a couple of months ago and I doubt Ofgem would be as optimistic today.

I looked at the performance of the UK’s nuclear fleet from early December to mid-February this year. Only for a couple of days did it actually achieve the 90% output that National Grid – based on information from operator EdF – suggested it will for 2014 /2015. Average performance was 81% of potential, in line with Ofgem’s more conservative forecasts for this winter and last.

As I write this, only three of EdF’s nuclear generating units out of 16 (in eight power stations on seven sites) are working to their full rated capacity. A further four are operating at 20% below maximum power as a precaution.

Sizewell (one station but two turbine units) is on a planned refuelling stop. Two other units are suffering from mechanical faults and four are being inspected for a possible problem in their boiler units and will return to operation between now and the end of December – although at a lower output than previously. Another plant is returning to full power after refuelling.

The current state of the UK’s nuclear power stations as at 29th October 2014

 

The claimed 90% availability of nuclear plants is impossible

The total nuclear output, including from Wylfa (which is not owned by EdF), is currently (18.00 GMT on October 29th 2014) around 4.5 GW, or less than 50% of potential capacity. Only three stations (and I cannot even be sure about Wylfa) are working to full capacity).

It certainly seems that National Grid is unrealistic in thinking that 90% of nuclear power will be available at the moment of peak need, which typically happens about seven weeks from today in mid-December.

In fact, we already know that 90% is actually not achievable. The total rated capacity of UK nuclear is – according to National Grid – about 9.6 Gigawatts. Both EdF itself and Ofgem give lower figures, and National Grid surely should have noticed this, although the differences are small.

More significantly, 90% of the National Grid figure is slightly more than 8.6 Gigawatts. But, according to EdF’s own public statements, 8.6 GW is unattainable at any point this winter.

  • Heysham 1, Unit 1, is said by EdF to be out until the end of December, past the point of likely peak demand. This reduces maximum output by about 0.6 GW.
  • As Heysham 1, Unit 1 returns to service, the second unit at Hinkley Point B moves offline, cutting power by almost 0.5 GW. So even if peak demand occurs in January, there won’t be additional capacity to meet it.
  • The other unit at Heysham and the two units at Hartlepool are subject to a 20% restriction on output when they return to service at some point during November or December. This cuts maximum output by just under 0.5 GW.
  • The working power stations at Hinkley Point and Hunterston are also subject to precautionary power reductions of about 20%. This reduces potential output by about 0.5 GW.

In total, EdF’s fleet can only produce a maximum of 1.6 GW less than their rated output, or about 8.0 GW. This means that the availability of UK nuclear during winter 2014 / 2015 can only be 85% of the maximum potential, much less than the central National Grid assumption of 90%.

This is before any additional mechanical or electrical problems. The reality is that nuclear output at critical times is, if recent experience is any guide, likely to be little more than 7 GW.

A real prospect of winter blackouts may lie ahead

This reduces the UK’s spare capacity at winter peak by about 1.6 GW, cutting the safety margin by about 50%. A more conservative view of the reliability of gas and coal power stations would have an effect similar in size.

If these numbers are correct, National Grid is being too optimistic in its Winter Outlook and the true position is that a typical winter will bring the UK far closer to power cuts than the company admits. A colder than average winter will make the UK’s position worse.

National Grid hasn’t responded to my written questions on Tuesday afternoon about the overstatement of nuclear availability and other issues.

 

 

Chris Goodall is an expert on energy, environment and climate change. He blogs at Carbon Commentary.

This article was originally published on Carbon Commentary.

 

 




386198

New wave generator brightens ocean power prospects Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




Generating electricity from the waves in Britain took a step closer to reality this week after an innovative device – Searaser – successfully completed its first stage testing.

A 1:14 scale model of the device went through exhaustive tests at Plymouth University’s CoastLAB wave tank to verify its computed outputs in Britain’s coastal waters, and to ensure its sturdiness under extreme sea conditions.

The brainchild of British inventor Alvin Smith, Searaser is designed to overcome two of the biggest hurdles in the deployment of renewable energy on a scale that fulfils Britain’s future electricity needs – cost and variable output.

Green energy company Ecotricity and the Searaser team have spent the past 18 months optimising the design of the device and modelling outputs in real word conditions around the coast of Britain – with the assistance of marine energy consultants DNV GL Group.

Resilience to extreme conditions is essential

The determining factor in making wave power viable is resilience to often violent sea conditions, said Smith: “We’ve put Searaser through the most extreme testing regime here at CoastLAB and it’s passed every challenge.”

“This week’s wave tank testing was carried out to validate the extensive computer modelling we’ve been undertaking”, he added.

Unlike other marine energy technologies, Searaser won’t generate electricity out at sea but will simply use the motion of the ocean swell to pump high pressure seawater ashore, where it will be used to make electricity.

The motion of the waves drives a piston between two buoys – one on the surface of the water, the other suspended underwater and tethered to a weight on the seabed.

As waves move past, the surface buoy moves the piston up-and-down, pumping volumes of pressurised seawater through a pipe to an onshore hydropower turbine to produce electricity.

The Searaser could also be used to pump seawater into coastal reservoirs elevated well above sea level. The stored water could then be released at any time of the day or night to make renewable electricity on demand.

The sea could produce a significant proportion of the UK’s power

Ecotricity founder Dale Vince said: “Our vision is for Britain’s electricity needs to be met entirely from our big three renewable energy sources – the wind, the sun and the sea.

“Out of these three energy sources, generating electricity from the sea is by far the most difficult due to the hostile ocean environment – it’s also the least advanced of the three technologies but it has enormous potential.

“We believe these ‘Seamills’ have the potential to produce a significant amount of the electricity that Britain needs, from a clean indigenous source and in a more controllable manner than currently possible.”

Ecotricity hopes to have a full scale prototype in the ocean in the next 12 months or so, measuring some 12m deep and 1m wide. A first commercial array of ‘Searasers’ could be producing electricity within a few years. Each device will be rated at 1.5 MW electrical capacity – similar to a large wind turbine.

“The potential is enormous”, said Dale. “This is a British invention that could transform the energy market not just here in Britain but around the world. Our plan is to develop the technology and make them here in Britain, bringing green jobs as well as green energy to our country.”

Ecotricity now powers almost 150,000 homes and businesses from a growing fleet of wind and sun parks. The company prides itself on building more green electricity generation capacity than any other energy company in Britain.

 

 




385906

Germany’s green power surges ahead – at a price that’s finally falling Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




Germany is well on its way towards having a predominantly green electricity supply.

The transition from nuclear and fossil-fuel electricity to using renewables is happening faster than anyone had anticipated. This is a success, but there is a downside: it is hugely expensive.

The energy transition is an explicit policy goal in Germany, having been made a priority project by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel.

It has four strands: reducing CO2 emissions, improving energy efficiency, promoting renewable energy and the gradual phase-out of nuclear power.

Nuclear phase-out is actually an old story that started in 2000 when the Schroeder administration first announced a 20-year timetable.

It was a bit of a ‘yes-no’ rollercoaster until the Fukushima incident, after which the decision in favour was final. This is widely supported by the German public, meaning that nuclear power is politically not an option at the moment.

Installed renewable capacity now equals demand

Yet without a doubt, the most significant development within the energy transition project has been the growth of Germany’s renewable energy sources (RES). Chart 1 (right) shows how it has developed in the past few years and where the government expects it to be by 2050.

The horizontal black line depicts the approximate maximum demand at any time, which is about 85GW (this will not change much in the future).

This shows that installed renewable capacity is now already more or less equal to maximum demand. On a very sunny and windy day, renewables are now capable of meeting the demands of the entire country.

But as we all know, the weather is notoriously unreliable and variable. So a secure system needs more renewable capacity and also more reserve capacity from conventional power plants (mainly fuelled by natural gas) to make sure it can always meet demand.

As Chart 1 (above right) indicates, installed renewable capacity in 2050 is expected to be 180GW, which is roughly twice maximum demand. By that time, the target is that 80% of electricity supply will be from renewables (basically this is how much renewable power you need to meet this level of supply on a regular basis).

Great benefits – but also high costs

In common with other countries moving in the same direction, the government has various motives for this big shift. Renewables are carbon-free and rely on no fossil fuels, so they are an essential component of meeting European emissions targets.

The government hopes for positive spin-off effects on exports, innovation and new jobs. And once the investment cost of the transition has been incurred, we would hope that electricity supply is actually quite cheap. After all, sun and wind are free. Germany sees the energy transition as an investment in the future: we pay for the next generation.

The move to renewables has been a success. It has happened at high speed since the late 1990s. The debate is no longer whether it will succeed, but rather what do we do with ‘too much’ renewable power. But behind this positive story, the dark side is the huge expense.

Early in 2013, the then minister of environment Peter Altmaier mentioned the staggering amount of €1 trillion as the potential cost of the overall transition.

This relied on a quick-and-dirty back-of-the-envelope calculation, which raises many questions and was never confirmed, but it does give a feel for the order of magnitude. The end-users – and thus the voters in Germany – are starting to feel the pain.

Since the installation costs mean that renewables currently cost more per unit of power than conventional power, they are subsidised by a surcharge on the electricity price. In other words, electricity end-users directly pay for it.

As you can see from Chart 2 (above right), the surcharge for small end-users has soared since 2009 to cope with the rapid growth of installed capacity (the step-change that year reflected a sudden big rise in solar power, which is particularly expensive).

The total subsidy is currently about €20bn / year, which amounts to €218 / year per household on top of the normal electricity bill. Whether this is still affordable is a key question in the country right now.

Corporate punishment

The energy transition has meanwhile changed the face of the electricity market, with severe consequences for traditional firms like E.ON and RWE. They are suffering badly at the moment and are having to rethink their business models completely.

In short, they face three challenges. The nuclear phase-out means they have to make very significant write-downs on their nuclear plants, at a loss to the shareholders. They are still fighting the government for compensation payments.

Second, renewable power is suppressing electricity wholesale prices – essentially because they are cheaper to run per unit of power, which under the rules for calculating the wholesale price tends to bring them down across the board.

This means that the revenues for conventional power plants are low and no longer cover the investment costs.

Third, conventional power from gas and coal is being pushed out of the market. This means that a lot of conventional power plants are largely standing idle and not making any money.

Since the future business model for such plants is looking bleak, the power companies are sitting on investments which are not going to be profitable. Of course, RWE and E.ON are adjusting their long-term strategies.

Consumer surcharge for 2015 reduced

While this has been going on, the rising costs for residential end-users have become a political problem.

In 2014 the government responded with a reform package, which slows down the energy transition in an attempt to control the costs. Basically the annual growth of new renewables has been capped to a pre-determined level.

This seems to be working. The surcharge for 2015 has been calculated at 6.17 €c / kWh, which is a small decline compared to 2014. Politically, this may well have been a wise policy, as public support for the energy transition was dwindling. It means that green energy development will happen more slowly.

So far the government appears to be standing by the same targets, perhaps because the explosion in development over the past few years had put it on an even faster track.

Whatever happens from here, one thing remains key: without public support, the energy transition will not work.

 

 

Gert Brunekreeft is Adjunct Professor for Energy Economics at Jacobs University Bremen. He does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

 




385722

Germany’s green power surges ahead – at a price that’s finally falling Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




Germany is well on its way towards having a predominantly green electricity supply.

The transition from nuclear and fossil-fuel electricity to using renewables is happening faster than anyone had anticipated. This is a success, but there is a downside: it is hugely expensive.

The energy transition is an explicit policy goal in Germany, having been made a priority project by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel.

It has four strands: reducing CO2 emissions, improving energy efficiency, promoting renewable energy and the gradual phase-out of nuclear power.

Nuclear phase-out is actually an old story that started in 2000 when the Schroeder administration first announced a 20-year timetable.

It was a bit of a ‘yes-no’ rollercoaster until the Fukushima incident, after which the decision in favour was final. This is widely supported by the German public, meaning that nuclear power is politically not an option at the moment.

Installed renewable capacity now equals demand

Yet without a doubt, the most significant development within the energy transition project has been the growth of Germany’s renewable energy sources (RES). Chart 1 (right) shows how it has developed in the past few years and where the government expects it to be by 2050.

The horizontal black line depicts the approximate maximum demand at any time, which is about 85GW (this will not change much in the future).

This shows that installed renewable capacity is now already more or less equal to maximum demand. On a very sunny and windy day, renewables are now capable of meeting the demands of the entire country.

But as we all know, the weather is notoriously unreliable and variable. So a secure system needs more renewable capacity and also more reserve capacity from conventional power plants (mainly fuelled by natural gas) to make sure it can always meet demand.

As Chart 1 (above right) indicates, installed renewable capacity in 2050 is expected to be 180GW, which is roughly twice maximum demand. By that time, the target is that 80% of electricity supply will be from renewables (basically this is how much renewable power you need to meet this level of supply on a regular basis).

Great benefits – but also high costs

In common with other countries moving in the same direction, the government has various motives for this big shift. Renewables are carbon-free and rely on no fossil fuels, so they are an essential component of meeting European emissions targets.

The government hopes for positive spin-off effects on exports, innovation and new jobs. And once the investment cost of the transition has been incurred, we would hope that electricity supply is actually quite cheap. After all, sun and wind are free. Germany sees the energy transition as an investment in the future: we pay for the next generation.

The move to renewables has been a success. It has happened at high speed since the late 1990s. The debate is no longer whether it will succeed, but rather what do we do with ‘too much’ renewable power. But behind this positive story, the dark side is the huge expense.

Early in 2013, the then minister of environment Peter Altmaier mentioned the staggering amount of €1 trillion as the potential cost of the overall transition.

This relied on a quick-and-dirty back-of-the-envelope calculation, which raises many questions and was never confirmed, but it does give a feel for the order of magnitude. The end-users – and thus the voters in Germany – are starting to feel the pain.

Since the installation costs mean that renewables currently cost more per unit of power than conventional power, they are subsidised by a surcharge on the electricity price. In other words, electricity end-users directly pay for it.

As you can see from Chart 2 (above right), the surcharge for small end-users has soared since 2009 to cope with the rapid growth of installed capacity (the step-change that year reflected a sudden big rise in solar power, which is particularly expensive).

The total subsidy is currently about €20bn / year, which amounts to €218 / year per household on top of the normal electricity bill. Whether this is still affordable is a key question in the country right now.

Corporate punishment

The energy transition has meanwhile changed the face of the electricity market, with severe consequences for traditional firms like E.ON and RWE. They are suffering badly at the moment and are having to rethink their business models completely.

In short, they face three challenges. The nuclear phase-out means they have to make very significant write-downs on their nuclear plants, at a loss to the shareholders. They are still fighting the government for compensation payments.

Second, renewable power is suppressing electricity wholesale prices – essentially because they are cheaper to run per unit of power, which under the rules for calculating the wholesale price tends to bring them down across the board.

This means that the revenues for conventional power plants are low and no longer cover the investment costs.

Third, conventional power from gas and coal is being pushed out of the market. This means that a lot of conventional power plants are largely standing idle and not making any money.

Since the future business model for such plants is looking bleak, the power companies are sitting on investments which are not going to be profitable. Of course, RWE and E.ON are adjusting their long-term strategies.

Consumer surcharge for 2015 reduced

While this has been going on, the rising costs for residential end-users have become a political problem.

In 2014 the government responded with a reform package, which slows down the energy transition in an attempt to control the costs. Basically the annual growth of new renewables has been capped to a pre-determined level.

This seems to be working. The surcharge for 2015 has been calculated at 6.17 €c / kWh, which is a small decline compared to 2014. Politically, this may well have been a wise policy, as public support for the energy transition was dwindling. It means that green energy development will happen more slowly.

So far the government appears to be standing by the same targets, perhaps because the explosion in development over the past few years had put it on an even faster track.

Whatever happens from here, one thing remains key: without public support, the energy transition will not work.

 

 

Gert Brunekreeft is Adjunct Professor for Energy Economics at Jacobs University Bremen. He does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

 




385722

Germany’s green power surges ahead – at a price that’s finally falling Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




Germany is well on its way towards having a predominantly green electricity supply.

The transition from nuclear and fossil-fuel electricity to using renewables is happening faster than anyone had anticipated. This is a success, but there is a downside: it is hugely expensive.

The energy transition is an explicit policy goal in Germany, having been made a priority project by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel.

It has four strands: reducing CO2 emissions, improving energy efficiency, promoting renewable energy and the gradual phase-out of nuclear power.

Nuclear phase-out is actually an old story that started in 2000 when the Schroeder administration first announced a 20-year timetable.

It was a bit of a ‘yes-no’ rollercoaster until the Fukushima incident, after which the decision in favour was final. This is widely supported by the German public, meaning that nuclear power is politically not an option at the moment.

Installed renewable capacity now equals demand

Yet without a doubt, the most significant development within the energy transition project has been the growth of Germany’s renewable energy sources (RES). Chart 1 (right) shows how it has developed in the past few years and where the government expects it to be by 2050.

The horizontal black line depicts the approximate maximum demand at any time, which is about 85GW (this will not change much in the future).

This shows that installed renewable capacity is now already more or less equal to maximum demand. On a very sunny and windy day, renewables are now capable of meeting the demands of the entire country.

But as we all know, the weather is notoriously unreliable and variable. So a secure system needs more renewable capacity and also more reserve capacity from conventional power plants (mainly fuelled by natural gas) to make sure it can always meet demand.

As Chart 1 (above right) indicates, installed renewable capacity in 2050 is expected to be 180GW, which is roughly twice maximum demand. By that time, the target is that 80% of electricity supply will be from renewables (basically this is how much renewable power you need to meet this level of supply on a regular basis).

Great benefits – but also high costs

In common with other countries moving in the same direction, the government has various motives for this big shift. Renewables are carbon-free and rely on no fossil fuels, so they are an essential component of meeting European emissions targets.

The government hopes for positive spin-off effects on exports, innovation and new jobs. And once the investment cost of the transition has been incurred, we would hope that electricity supply is actually quite cheap. After all, sun and wind are free. Germany sees the energy transition as an investment in the future: we pay for the next generation.

The move to renewables has been a success. It has happened at high speed since the late 1990s. The debate is no longer whether it will succeed, but rather what do we do with ‘too much’ renewable power. But behind this positive story, the dark side is the huge expense.

Early in 2013, the then minister of environment Peter Altmaier mentioned the staggering amount of €1 trillion as the potential cost of the overall transition.

This relied on a quick-and-dirty back-of-the-envelope calculation, which raises many questions and was never confirmed, but it does give a feel for the order of magnitude. The end-users – and thus the voters in Germany – are starting to feel the pain.

Since the installation costs mean that renewables currently cost more per unit of power than conventional power, they are subsidised by a surcharge on the electricity price. In other words, electricity end-users directly pay for it.

As you can see from Chart 2 (above right), the surcharge for small end-users has soared since 2009 to cope with the rapid growth of installed capacity (the step-change that year reflected a sudden big rise in solar power, which is particularly expensive).

The total subsidy is currently about €20bn / year, which amounts to €218 / year per household on top of the normal electricity bill. Whether this is still affordable is a key question in the country right now.

Corporate punishment

The energy transition has meanwhile changed the face of the electricity market, with severe consequences for traditional firms like E.ON and RWE. They are suffering badly at the moment and are having to rethink their business models completely.

In short, they face three challenges. The nuclear phase-out means they have to make very significant write-downs on their nuclear plants, at a loss to the shareholders. They are still fighting the government for compensation payments.

Second, renewable power is suppressing electricity wholesale prices – essentially because they are cheaper to run per unit of power, which under the rules for calculating the wholesale price tends to bring them down across the board.

This means that the revenues for conventional power plants are low and no longer cover the investment costs.

Third, conventional power from gas and coal is being pushed out of the market. This means that a lot of conventional power plants are largely standing idle and not making any money.

Since the future business model for such plants is looking bleak, the power companies are sitting on investments which are not going to be profitable. Of course, RWE and E.ON are adjusting their long-term strategies.

Consumer surcharge for 2015 reduced

While this has been going on, the rising costs for residential end-users have become a political problem.

In 2014 the government responded with a reform package, which slows down the energy transition in an attempt to control the costs. Basically the annual growth of new renewables has been capped to a pre-determined level.

This seems to be working. The surcharge for 2015 has been calculated at 6.17 €c / kWh, which is a small decline compared to 2014. Politically, this may well have been a wise policy, as public support for the energy transition was dwindling. It means that green energy development will happen more slowly.

So far the government appears to be standing by the same targets, perhaps because the explosion in development over the past few years had put it on an even faster track.

Whatever happens from here, one thing remains key: without public support, the energy transition will not work.

 

 

Gert Brunekreeft is Adjunct Professor for Energy Economics at Jacobs University Bremen. He does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

 




385722

Germany’s green power surges ahead – at a price that’s finally falling Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




Germany is well on its way towards having a predominantly green electricity supply.

The transition from nuclear and fossil-fuel electricity to using renewables is happening faster than anyone had anticipated. This is a success, but there is a downside: it is hugely expensive.

The energy transition is an explicit policy goal in Germany, having been made a priority project by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel.

It has four strands: reducing CO2 emissions, improving energy efficiency, promoting renewable energy and the gradual phase-out of nuclear power.

Nuclear phase-out is actually an old story that started in 2000 when the Schroeder administration first announced a 20-year timetable.

It was a bit of a ‘yes-no’ rollercoaster until the Fukushima incident, after which the decision in favour was final. This is widely supported by the German public, meaning that nuclear power is politically not an option at the moment.

Installed renewable capacity now equals demand

Yet without a doubt, the most significant development within the energy transition project has been the growth of Germany’s renewable energy sources (RES). Chart 1 (right) shows how it has developed in the past few years and where the government expects it to be by 2050.

The horizontal black line depicts the approximate maximum demand at any time, which is about 85GW (this will not change much in the future).

This shows that installed renewable capacity is now already more or less equal to maximum demand. On a very sunny and windy day, renewables are now capable of meeting the demands of the entire country.

But as we all know, the weather is notoriously unreliable and variable. So a secure system needs more renewable capacity and also more reserve capacity from conventional power plants (mainly fuelled by natural gas) to make sure it can always meet demand.

As Chart 1 (above right) indicates, installed renewable capacity in 2050 is expected to be 180GW, which is roughly twice maximum demand. By that time, the target is that 80% of electricity supply will be from renewables (basically this is how much renewable power you need to meet this level of supply on a regular basis).

Great benefits – but also high costs

In common with other countries moving in the same direction, the government has various motives for this big shift. Renewables are carbon-free and rely on no fossil fuels, so they are an essential component of meeting European emissions targets.

The government hopes for positive spin-off effects on exports, innovation and new jobs. And once the investment cost of the transition has been incurred, we would hope that electricity supply is actually quite cheap. After all, sun and wind are free. Germany sees the energy transition as an investment in the future: we pay for the next generation.

The move to renewables has been a success. It has happened at high speed since the late 1990s. The debate is no longer whether it will succeed, but rather what do we do with ‘too much’ renewable power. But behind this positive story, the dark side is the huge expense.

Early in 2013, the then minister of environment Peter Altmaier mentioned the staggering amount of €1 trillion as the potential cost of the overall transition.

This relied on a quick-and-dirty back-of-the-envelope calculation, which raises many questions and was never confirmed, but it does give a feel for the order of magnitude. The end-users – and thus the voters in Germany – are starting to feel the pain.

Since the installation costs mean that renewables currently cost more per unit of power than conventional power, they are subsidised by a surcharge on the electricity price. In other words, electricity end-users directly pay for it.

As you can see from Chart 2 (above right), the surcharge for small end-users has soared since 2009 to cope with the rapid growth of installed capacity (the step-change that year reflected a sudden big rise in solar power, which is particularly expensive).

The total subsidy is currently about €20bn / year, which amounts to €218 / year per household on top of the normal electricity bill. Whether this is still affordable is a key question in the country right now.

Corporate punishment

The energy transition has meanwhile changed the face of the electricity market, with severe consequences for traditional firms like E.ON and RWE. They are suffering badly at the moment and are having to rethink their business models completely.

In short, they face three challenges. The nuclear phase-out means they have to make very significant write-downs on their nuclear plants, at a loss to the shareholders. They are still fighting the government for compensation payments.

Second, renewable power is suppressing electricity wholesale prices – essentially because they are cheaper to run per unit of power, which under the rules for calculating the wholesale price tends to bring them down across the board.

This means that the revenues for conventional power plants are low and no longer cover the investment costs.

Third, conventional power from gas and coal is being pushed out of the market. This means that a lot of conventional power plants are largely standing idle and not making any money.

Since the future business model for such plants is looking bleak, the power companies are sitting on investments which are not going to be profitable. Of course, RWE and E.ON are adjusting their long-term strategies.

Consumer surcharge for 2015 reduced

While this has been going on, the rising costs for residential end-users have become a political problem.

In 2014 the government responded with a reform package, which slows down the energy transition in an attempt to control the costs. Basically the annual growth of new renewables has been capped to a pre-determined level.

This seems to be working. The surcharge for 2015 has been calculated at 6.17 €c / kWh, which is a small decline compared to 2014. Politically, this may well have been a wise policy, as public support for the energy transition was dwindling. It means that green energy development will happen more slowly.

So far the government appears to be standing by the same targets, perhaps because the explosion in development over the past few years had put it on an even faster track.

Whatever happens from here, one thing remains key: without public support, the energy transition will not work.

 

 

Gert Brunekreeft is Adjunct Professor for Energy Economics at Jacobs University Bremen. He does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

 




385722

Germany’s green power surges ahead – at a price that’s finally falling Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




Germany is well on its way towards having a predominantly green electricity supply.

The transition from nuclear and fossil-fuel electricity to using renewables is happening faster than anyone had anticipated. This is a success, but there is a downside: it is hugely expensive.

The energy transition is an explicit policy goal in Germany, having been made a priority project by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel.

It has four strands: reducing CO2 emissions, improving energy efficiency, promoting renewable energy and the gradual phase-out of nuclear power.

Nuclear phase-out is actually an old story that started in 2000 when the Schroeder administration first announced a 20-year timetable.

It was a bit of a ‘yes-no’ rollercoaster until the Fukushima incident, after which the decision in favour was final. This is widely supported by the German public, meaning that nuclear power is politically not an option at the moment.

Installed renewable capacity now equals demand

Yet without a doubt, the most significant development within the energy transition project has been the growth of Germany’s renewable energy sources (RES). Chart 1 (right) shows how it has developed in the past few years and where the government expects it to be by 2050.

The horizontal black line depicts the approximate maximum demand at any time, which is about 85GW (this will not change much in the future).

This shows that installed renewable capacity is now already more or less equal to maximum demand. On a very sunny and windy day, renewables are now capable of meeting the demands of the entire country.

But as we all know, the weather is notoriously unreliable and variable. So a secure system needs more renewable capacity and also more reserve capacity from conventional power plants (mainly fuelled by natural gas) to make sure it can always meet demand.

As Chart 1 (above right) indicates, installed renewable capacity in 2050 is expected to be 180GW, which is roughly twice maximum demand. By that time, the target is that 80% of electricity supply will be from renewables (basically this is how much renewable power you need to meet this level of supply on a regular basis).

Great benefits – but also high costs

In common with other countries moving in the same direction, the government has various motives for this big shift. Renewables are carbon-free and rely on no fossil fuels, so they are an essential component of meeting European emissions targets.

The government hopes for positive spin-off effects on exports, innovation and new jobs. And once the investment cost of the transition has been incurred, we would hope that electricity supply is actually quite cheap. After all, sun and wind are free. Germany sees the energy transition as an investment in the future: we pay for the next generation.

The move to renewables has been a success. It has happened at high speed since the late 1990s. The debate is no longer whether it will succeed, but rather what do we do with ‘too much’ renewable power. But behind this positive story, the dark side is the huge expense.

Early in 2013, the then minister of environment Peter Altmaier mentioned the staggering amount of €1 trillion as the potential cost of the overall transition.

This relied on a quick-and-dirty back-of-the-envelope calculation, which raises many questions and was never confirmed, but it does give a feel for the order of magnitude. The end-users – and thus the voters in Germany – are starting to feel the pain.

Since the installation costs mean that renewables currently cost more per unit of power than conventional power, they are subsidised by a surcharge on the electricity price. In other words, electricity end-users directly pay for it.

As you can see from Chart 2 (above right), the surcharge for small end-users has soared since 2009 to cope with the rapid growth of installed capacity (the step-change that year reflected a sudden big rise in solar power, which is particularly expensive).

The total subsidy is currently about €20bn / year, which amounts to €218 / year per household on top of the normal electricity bill. Whether this is still affordable is a key question in the country right now.

Corporate punishment

The energy transition has meanwhile changed the face of the electricity market, with severe consequences for traditional firms like E.ON and RWE. They are suffering badly at the moment and are having to rethink their business models completely.

In short, they face three challenges. The nuclear phase-out means they have to make very significant write-downs on their nuclear plants, at a loss to the shareholders. They are still fighting the government for compensation payments.

Second, renewable power is suppressing electricity wholesale prices – essentially because they are cheaper to run per unit of power, which under the rules for calculating the wholesale price tends to bring them down across the board.

This means that the revenues for conventional power plants are low and no longer cover the investment costs.

Third, conventional power from gas and coal is being pushed out of the market. This means that a lot of conventional power plants are largely standing idle and not making any money.

Since the future business model for such plants is looking bleak, the power companies are sitting on investments which are not going to be profitable. Of course, RWE and E.ON are adjusting their long-term strategies.

Consumer surcharge for 2015 reduced

While this has been going on, the rising costs for residential end-users have become a political problem.

In 2014 the government responded with a reform package, which slows down the energy transition in an attempt to control the costs. Basically the annual growth of new renewables has been capped to a pre-determined level.

This seems to be working. The surcharge for 2015 has been calculated at 6.17 €c / kWh, which is a small decline compared to 2014. Politically, this may well have been a wise policy, as public support for the energy transition was dwindling. It means that green energy development will happen more slowly.

So far the government appears to be standing by the same targets, perhaps because the explosion in development over the past few years had put it on an even faster track.

Whatever happens from here, one thing remains key: without public support, the energy transition will not work.

 

 

Gert Brunekreeft is Adjunct Professor for Energy Economics at Jacobs University Bremen. He does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

 




385722

Germany’s green power surges ahead – at a price that’s finally falling Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




Germany is well on its way towards having a predominantly green electricity supply.

The transition from nuclear and fossil-fuel electricity to using renewables is happening faster than anyone had anticipated. This is a success, but there is a downside: it is hugely expensive.

The energy transition is an explicit policy goal in Germany, having been made a priority project by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel.

It has four strands: reducing CO2 emissions, improving energy efficiency, promoting renewable energy and the gradual phase-out of nuclear power.

Nuclear phase-out is actually an old story that started in 2000 when the Schroeder administration first announced a 20-year timetable.

It was a bit of a ‘yes-no’ rollercoaster until the Fukushima incident, after which the decision in favour was final. This is widely supported by the German public, meaning that nuclear power is politically not an option at the moment.

Installed renewable capacity now equals demand

Yet without a doubt, the most significant development within the energy transition project has been the growth of Germany’s renewable energy sources (RES). Chart 1 (right) shows how it has developed in the past few years and where the government expects it to be by 2050.

The horizontal black line depicts the approximate maximum demand at any time, which is about 85GW (this will not change much in the future).

This shows that installed renewable capacity is now already more or less equal to maximum demand. On a very sunny and windy day, renewables are now capable of meeting the demands of the entire country.

But as we all know, the weather is notoriously unreliable and variable. So a secure system needs more renewable capacity and also more reserve capacity from conventional power plants (mainly fuelled by natural gas) to make sure it can always meet demand.

As Chart 1 (above right) indicates, installed renewable capacity in 2050 is expected to be 180GW, which is roughly twice maximum demand. By that time, the target is that 80% of electricity supply will be from renewables (basically this is how much renewable power you need to meet this level of supply on a regular basis).

Great benefits – but also high costs

In common with other countries moving in the same direction, the government has various motives for this big shift. Renewables are carbon-free and rely on no fossil fuels, so they are an essential component of meeting European emissions targets.

The government hopes for positive spin-off effects on exports, innovation and new jobs. And once the investment cost of the transition has been incurred, we would hope that electricity supply is actually quite cheap. After all, sun and wind are free. Germany sees the energy transition as an investment in the future: we pay for the next generation.

The move to renewables has been a success. It has happened at high speed since the late 1990s. The debate is no longer whether it will succeed, but rather what do we do with ‘too much’ renewable power. But behind this positive story, the dark side is the huge expense.

Early in 2013, the then minister of environment Peter Altmaier mentioned the staggering amount of €1 trillion as the potential cost of the overall transition.

This relied on a quick-and-dirty back-of-the-envelope calculation, which raises many questions and was never confirmed, but it does give a feel for the order of magnitude. The end-users – and thus the voters in Germany – are starting to feel the pain.

Since the installation costs mean that renewables currently cost more per unit of power than conventional power, they are subsidised by a surcharge on the electricity price. In other words, electricity end-users directly pay for it.

As you can see from Chart 2 (above right), the surcharge for small end-users has soared since 2009 to cope with the rapid growth of installed capacity (the step-change that year reflected a sudden big rise in solar power, which is particularly expensive).

The total subsidy is currently about €20bn / year, which amounts to €218 / year per household on top of the normal electricity bill. Whether this is still affordable is a key question in the country right now.

Corporate punishment

The energy transition has meanwhile changed the face of the electricity market, with severe consequences for traditional firms like E.ON and RWE. They are suffering badly at the moment and are having to rethink their business models completely.

In short, they face three challenges. The nuclear phase-out means they have to make very significant write-downs on their nuclear plants, at a loss to the shareholders. They are still fighting the government for compensation payments.

Second, renewable power is suppressing electricity wholesale prices – essentially because they are cheaper to run per unit of power, which under the rules for calculating the wholesale price tends to bring them down across the board.

This means that the revenues for conventional power plants are low and no longer cover the investment costs.

Third, conventional power from gas and coal is being pushed out of the market. This means that a lot of conventional power plants are largely standing idle and not making any money.

Since the future business model for such plants is looking bleak, the power companies are sitting on investments which are not going to be profitable. Of course, RWE and E.ON are adjusting their long-term strategies.

Consumer surcharge for 2015 reduced

While this has been going on, the rising costs for residential end-users have become a political problem.

In 2014 the government responded with a reform package, which slows down the energy transition in an attempt to control the costs. Basically the annual growth of new renewables has been capped to a pre-determined level.

This seems to be working. The surcharge for 2015 has been calculated at 6.17 €c / kWh, which is a small decline compared to 2014. Politically, this may well have been a wise policy, as public support for the energy transition was dwindling. It means that green energy development will happen more slowly.

So far the government appears to be standing by the same targets, perhaps because the explosion in development over the past few years had put it on an even faster track.

Whatever happens from here, one thing remains key: without public support, the energy transition will not work.

 

 

Gert Brunekreeft is Adjunct Professor for Energy Economics at Jacobs University Bremen. He does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

 




385722

Nuclear power trumps democracy Updated for 2026

Leave a reply




Why is our democracy failing to tackle the horrific urgency of the climate crisis and the decimation of our eco-systems?

And why are all the main political parties betting the farm on nuclear power in spite of its madhouse economics – and against all their promises to either oppose nuclear power altogether, or to refuse subsidies for it?

In my new book, The Prostitute State – How Britain’s Democracy Has Been Bought, I set out my view that there is a single problem at the root of our nation’s difficulties.

A corporate elite have hijacked the pillars of Britain’s democracy. The production of thought, the dissemination of thought, the implementation of thought and the wealth arising from those thoughts, are now controlled by a tiny, staggeringly rich elite.

As a result the UK is no longer a functioning democracy but has become a  ‘Prostitute State’ built on four pillars: a corrupted political system, a prostituted media, a perverted academia and a thieving tax-haven system.

This has disastrously resulted in a flood of wealth from the poor and middle classes to the top 1%. This stolen wealth is built on the destruction of the planet’s ecosystems, which are essential for humanity’s survival.

Nuclear power defeats democracy

The reversal of government policy on nuclear power is a classic example of how the Prostitute State trumps democracy. Betrayed environmental activists must understand that – notwithstanding the noble form of democratic structures – what they are really up against is a corrupt corporate state.

The concept of lobbying is reasonably well known, but few of us understand how far lobbying has penetrated and hijacked the political parties themselves.

For example, most people are perplexed at how the nuclear industry managed to persuade the UK’s previous Labour government to build a fleet of hugely expensive experimental nuclear power stations on land prone to flooding from rising sea levels.

They also struggle to comprehend and why Labour’s shadow energy and climate change minister, Caroline Flint MP, having stated that she would only support nuclear power if built without public subsidies, now supports the £15-20 billion subsidy package for Hinkley C nuclear power station

Labour managed managed this policy U-Turn despite the Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear catastrophes; the failure to find safe waste-disposal sites capable of protecting radioactive waste for over 100,000 years; and insurance companies’ point blank refusal to provide nuclear accident insurance.

It’s the money, stupid

My simple answer is that the nuclear industry has poured millions of pounds year after year into a massive political lobbying campaign.

They bought a whole swathe of senior ex-politicians to work as nuclear lobbyists, spent a fortune on trying to manipulate public opinion through media and advertising, and even funded school trips to their nuclear plants.

As they managed to persuade a Labour government to abandon their 1997 election manifesto commitment to oppose new nuclear power stations, it is crucial to understand how deeply the nuclear lobby is embedded in the Labour party.

My personal belief is that a complex web of financial interests ensured that the Labour government served the nuclear industry – no matter what Labour party members or the British public wanted.

Just consider for example the following list of Labour Party politicians:

  • Former Energy Minister Brian Wilson became a non-executive director of Amec Nuclear, a client of BNFL, a nuclear operator.
  • Former Energy Minister Helen Liddell was hired to provide “strategic advice” by the nuclear corporation British Energy.
  • Former Secretary of State John Hutton, who as Business Secretary published the government White Paper announcing government plans to build new nuclear stations, was appointed Chair of the Nuclear Industry Association in 2011. He also joined the advisory board of US nuclear corporation Hyperion Power Generation in July 2010.
  • Colin Byrne, the Labour Party’s former chief press officer, headed up lobbying giant Weber Shandwick’s UK arm, which BNFL hired to lobby for new nuclear plants.
  • Gordon Brown’s brother, Andrew, was nuclear giant EdF’s head of media relations in the UK.
  • Yvette Cooper was the Planning Minister who introduced fast-track planning for nuclear power stations. Her father was chair of nuclear lobbyists The Nuclear Industry Association and is director of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.
  • Alan Donnelly, former leader of the Labour MEPs, runs the lobbying company Sovereign Strategy, which represented US nuclear engineering giant Fluor. His website promised “pathways to the decision makers in national governments”.
  • Former Labour Minister Jack Cunningham was legislative chair of the Transatlantic Nuclear Energy Forum, an organisation founded by lobbyist Alan Donnelly to foster “strong relationships” between nuclear power companies and governments.
  • The Tory Peer Lady Maitland was a paid member of Sovereign Strategy’s board.
  • Donnelly funded Labour leadership contender David Miliband’s constituency office refurbishment.
  • David Sainsbury, Labour Minister for Science from 1998 to 2006 told the House of Lords that he regarded nuclear power as a form of renewable energy.
  • Ed Miliband’s barrister wife Justine Thornton advised EdF Energy on its Development Consent Order for a new nuclear plant at Hinkley Point.

Of course I cannot say that the financial links of any individual with the nuclear industry had any bearing on the party’s change in policy. However this wholesale hiring of senior Labour Party figures by the nuclear lobby may have been influential in the fact that a number of key aims were achieved over the last ten years:

  • the reversal of Labour’s commitment to rule out new nuclear power stations.
  • Labour ministers’ introduction of a fast-track planning process for new nuclear plants without lengthy inquiries.


The saintly Lib Dems …

It is also noteworthy that whilst governments across the world were abandoning nuclear power after the Fukushima disaster, the new Tory / Lib Dem coalition abandoned their manifesto commitments to provide no public subsidy for new nuclear, by guaranteeing multi-billion pound annual subsidies.

The Tory / Lib Dem government also made the taxpayer liable for nuclear disaster costs, after the private insurers refused to do so – as just one catastrophic accident would bankrupt most global insurance companies.

    To understand the comparative power of political lobbying versus voting at elections, you need to realise that the final two aims above were achieved despite the Lib Dems having for decades supposedly opposed nuclear power and the Tories having opposed nuclear subsidies in the 2010 general election.

    I was never convinced by the Lib Dem leadership’s opposition to nuclear power after it successfully, in the late ’90s, squashed the adoption in policy papers of the phrase “a renewable energy economy” that I had proposed to replace “a low carbon economy” which they favoured.

    The latter of course allowed the switch to a pro-nuclear policy once the Lib Dems were in government.

    The prominent Lib Dem MP Ed Davey stood for election opposing nuclear energy, but as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, he became nuclear power’s chief cheerleader – announcing that the government’s entire industrial strategy was now based on new nuclear!

    The UK government is already spending the equivalent of 93% of the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s entire annual budget on nuclear subsidies! This was achieved despite polls indicating overwhelming support by the public for renewable energy over nuclear power.

    Lib Dem nuclear links

    Ed Davey’s brother, Henry Davey, works for the global law firm Herbert Smith Freehills which has advised EdF on its purchase of nuclear plants and the development application for a new nuclear plant at Hinkley Point.

    Also Lib Dem peer Tim Clement-Jones, Nick Clegg’s Party Treasurer at the last general election and the Party’s spokesman on culture and sport in the House of Lords, is founder and chairman of Global Government Relations, the lobbying arm of the huge multinational law firm DLA Piper, and serves as DLA Piper’s London Managing Partner.

    DLA Piper is listed as a member of the Nuclear Industry Association, and boasts of its widespread experience with many nuclear industry companies. According to its website it

    • advised AREVA SA on their investment in New Nuclear Build at Hinkley Point C including the new Contract for Difference regime, waste management strategy and HM Treasury Infrastructure Guarantee Scheme.
    • advised Sellafield Limited on all aspects of their waste management and decommissioning programme covering annual capital spend of £1billion.
    • is advising the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority on the application of the International Nuclear Liability Conventions in respect of the marine transport of high level radioactive waste from Europe to Japan.
    • is advising nuclear supply chain on tendering exercises in support of new nuclear build in the UK.
    • is advising Westinghouse, Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, Magnox Limited and International Nuclear Services Limited on all aspects of fuel supply contracts, enrichment, waste management and radioactive transportation in support of activities in UK and globally.

    Of course this could all be complete coincidence and we cannot conclude that Lord Clement-Jones had any influence on Lib Dem policy changes as regards nuclear power.

    But what we do know is that Davey won the battle yesterday at the European Commission to overthrow the Commission’s previous ban on state aid for new nuclear power, following intense political and industry lobbying of the 28 Commissioners.

    Thus the Lib Dems’ legacy will be to have thrown open the floodgates to new nuclear power right across Europe, despite their election manifesto having promised to oppose it.

     

     

    Donnachadh McCarthy FRSA is a former Deputy Chair of the Liberal Democrats. He can be reached via his website 3acorns.

    This article is based on an extract from Donnachadh McCarthy’s new book ‘The Prostitute State – How Britain’s Democracy Has Been Bought‘. 

    Copies of ‘The Prostitute State – How Britain’s Democracy Has Been Bought‘ are available from theprostitutestate.co.uk.

    E-book version available from www.Lulu.com.

     

     




    365529