Renew On Line 99Extracts from the News section of Renew 199, Sept-Oct 2012

The full 36 page journal can be obtained on subscription (details below). The extracts here only represent about 25% of it.

This material can be freely used as long as it is not for commercial purposes and full credit is given to it as the source.

The views expressed should not be taken to necessarily reflect the views of all NATTA members. We don’t claim to be neutral (we are pro- renewables) but we do try to be critical and up to date..

Contents

1. Renewable Energy up: UK wind, PV and biogas 2. Energy Storage: heat and power options An Irish input?3. Marine Energy: wave and tidal projects 4. ROCs, RHI and FiTs: DECC finally get it together5. EMR policy challenges: Wind/RO battles6. UK Energy Policy: ‘not just nuclear’ 7. Local projects: Lancaster, Anglesey, Manchester 8. Global news : Climate Change and EU progress 9. Round the world: China, India, Japan, Mexico, US10. Nuclear News: UK and France

11. In the rest of Renew 19912. Renew and NATTA

Web Choice: Spanish pro-wind demo: www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXD7iz6-

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1.UK Renewable Energy up Renewables accounted for 11% of the UK's electricity in the first three months of 2012, compared with 7.7% from January to March 2011. And DECCs provisional estimates also say that renewable energy accounted for 4.1% of the UK’s total primary energy requirements in 2011, up from 3.3% in 2010, but only for 3.8% of energy consumption, as measured using the 2009 Renewable Energy Directive methodology. The latter is an increase from the revised 2010 position of 3.2%.

The amount of electricity generated from renewables in 2011was 34,410 GWh, a 33% rise on 2010. Wind generation saw the largest increases in output – offshore wind up 68%, and onshore wind up 45%. Hydro also saw a large rise, up 56%. Overall renewables generation capacity rose by 3.1 GW (33%) to 12.3 GW, led by solar PV (up 0.9 GW); folllowed by plant biomass (up 0.8 GW); onshore wind (up 0.6 GW) and offshore wind (up 0.5 GW). Load factors in 2011 were 27.2% for on-land wind, 35% for offshore.www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/statistics/publications/trends/trends.aspx

Clearly wind is doing well. RenewableUK noted that in the first quarter of 2012 the UK’s wind fleet produced an output of 5,044GWh - equivalent to the electricity demand of over a fifth of the homes in the UK. Ian Mays, Chief Executive Officer of RES Group believes the rising demand for gas around the world will push its prices up favourably compared with wind. While onshore wind is a ‘little bit more expensive at the moment’ at around 8.5p per kilowatt hour (kWh) in the UK compared with the cost for a new gas station of between 7-7.5p per kWh, he said, ‘that’s not going to be the case in the future’.

Meanwhile, the UKs massive offshore wind programe continues to move ahead- with 18GW by 2020 as the aim. Work continues on the 1GW London Array (see below) and the government has given a green light for Centrica and Warwick Energy to build offshore wind farms off the north Norfolk coast, at, respectively, Race Bank (580MW) and Dudgeon (550MW), but the 500MW Docking Shoal project was refused over bird population impact fears. Next up, Mainstream is planning a 450MW array off Scotland. and plans are being developed for the 278 turbine Atlantic Array off the N Devon /S Wales coast, although, despite the number of turbines having been reduced from an earlier proposal, the National Trust has objected to it as being too invasive.A YouGov opinion survey for EDF in June found that, although the public is generally in favour of wind energy, support for onshore wind now stands at 57%, down from 64% in 2011, while the 68% in favour of offshore wind farms is down from 74% last year. However, DECC recent Poll (see 5 below) found higher support levels for both- 66% (onland) and 76% (offshore).

*The EDF /YouGov poll also claimed that support for nuclear as part of the UK's energy mix had increased with 63% agreeing that it has a role to play, up from 61% last year. The proportion feeling that nuclear should not play any part fell to 11%, down from 15% in 2011. Net support for the construction of new nuclear plants to replace existing ones has risen from 46% to 50%, while opposition to building nuclear stations on the sites of existing ones has fallen to 22%, its lowest level since 2008. In March last year, shortly after Fukushima, it said, 30% of Britons were against the idea. But Energy Minister Ed Davey told the FT that he still had doubts on its economics: ‘Can nuclear consortia build power stations with no public subsidy? I don’t know, we’ll see.’

Offshore wind moves on: London Array

Work continues on the London Array, the 1GW wind farm in the outer Thames estuary, around 7 miles off the Kent /Essex coasts, in water up to 25m deep. When complete, it will be the largest in the world so far. It covers an area of about 230ksq m (90 square miles), and will have 341 turbines, each with a generating capacity of 3.6MW. The first phase, with 175 turbines, is about half complete, but the second phase, consisting of a further 370MW of capacity from 126 turbines, is currently awaiting studies of its effect on bird life, For a good account of progress so far, see www.theengineer.co.uk/sectors/energy-and-environment/in-depth/the-big-project-london-array/1012971.article#ixzz1zbzXUc9S

Solar PV gets big...

German developer Kronos Solar is considering a 25MW solar farm on 120 acres of Lower Wheatley Farm, north of Launceston in Cornwall. It would be about five times bigger than the largest existing UK solar farm. The local authority said Kronos was one of a number of firms considering 20-30MW farms in Cornwall, which already has 12, with permission for 24 more. Plans for a solar farm with nearly 30,000 panels have already been given the go-ahead in Devon. South Hams District Council approved plans from TGC Renewables for panels to be erected over a 37-acre area across five fields at Marley Thatch Farm, near South Brent. Domestic scale PV is also rising again says to the Solar Trade Association. The reductions in the Feed-in-Tariffs for PV led to a slow down, but a total of 1,788 installations in the first week of June according to provisional figures from DECC. The UK has now has 1GWof PV in place. DECC say we might even get to 22GW in the UK by 2050, but that opens up the issue of land use. Roof top mounting is much less environmentally provocative than ground- based systems, but there are economies of scale from installing large arrays in single projects on green field sites, and these can be community owned, like the Westmill Solar co-op's new 5MW array near Swindon. www.westmillsolar.coop/shareoffer.asp It's on  farm land, next door to Westmill wind co-op’s 5 Siemens 1.2 MW turbines. Given the higher load factors /lower capital costs/ kW, the annual output from that is likely to be higher, and the cost of energy lower, than for PV. And do we want huge on-land PV arrays in the UK? If so should we just use marginal non-farmable land?

..but biogas biggerAnaerobic Digestion (AD) already delivers four times more electricity in the UK than solar PV and could grow 800% by the end of the decade, the Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Association has claimed. And a new report published by the European Biofuels Technology Platform say the EU should back the implementation of Biomass energy with CO2 Capture and Storage (BECC) as it is the only large-scale technology that can result in carbon negative products. The report says biofuels can play an important role in the process; implementing biomass conversion methods like a bio-chemical biofuel production and/or biomass combustion for heat and power could be hugely successful.

2. Energy Storage Imperial College London has produced a ‘Strategic Assessment of the Role and Value of Energy Storage Systems in the UK Low Carbon Energy Future’ for the Carbon Trust, using a holistic system-wide modeling approach. It concludes that storage would allow significant savings to be made in generation capacity, interconnection, transmission and distribution networks and operating costs. In all it says that storage could provide up to £10 billion of added value in a 2050 high renewables scenario. However, the relative level and share of the savings changes over time and between different assumptions. In the high renewables ‘Grassroots pathway’ used by the research team, the value of storage increases markedly towards 2030 and further towards 2050, so that carbon constraints for 2030 and 2050 can be met at reduced costs when storage is available. For bulk storage cost of £50/kW per year, the optimal volume deployed grows from 2 GW in 2020 to 15 and 25 GW in 2030 and 2050 respectively. The equivalent system savings rise from modest £0.12bn p.a in 2020 to £2bn in 2030, and can reach over £10bn per year in 2050.

The value of storage is the highest in pathways with a large share of renewables, where it can deliver significant operational savings through reducing renewable curtailment: see graph. Storage could also lessen the even larger curtailment requirement that would result if there was significant amount of inflexible nuclear capacity on the grid. However CCS scenarios yield the lowest value for storage: ‘adding storage increases the ability of the system to absorb intermittent sources and hence costly CCS plant can be displaced.’

Crucially Imperial say that ‘A few hours of storage are sufficient to reduce peak demand and thereby capture significant value. The marginal value for storage durations beyond 6 hours reduces sharply to less than £10/kWh.year’. So we are talking about short storage cycles, ready for the next demand peak- not long term grid balancing to deal with long lulls in wind availability. That makes sense: storage is expensive so you want to use the hardware regularly to capture excess energy (when it’s cheap) and sell it soon after to meet peaks, when energy prices are high. Another option for short term grid balancing is flexible demand (e.g delaying peaks), which Imperial say ‘is the most direct competitor to storage and it could reduce the market for storage by 50%.’

This may all be fine for short cycles. But how then do you deal with longer lulls? Especially in areas where there is a lot of wind capacity? Imperial say ‘Bulk storage should predominantly be located in Scotland to integrate wind and reduce transmission costs, while distributed storage is best placed in England and Wales to reduce peak loads and support distribution network management.’ Anther option though would be interconnectors. They are expensive but Imperial say that cross channel links (maybe 12GW or more) can help limit curtailment. And also the need for storage..

This is all about electricity. What about rival modes of storage/ transmission e.g. heat or gas, including green gas? Much easier to store! That might improve the overall efficiency of the system and perhaps even reduce costs. Imperial do accept that the round trip efficiency of conventional storage systems can be low. But they say ‘higher storage efficiencies only add moderate value of storage’ although ‘with higher levels of deployment efficiency becomes more relevant’. And overall they make a good case for storage, even if they do not specify which type: they say more research is needed . www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/administration/energyfutureslab/newssummary/news_5-7-2012-14-8-41

More Heat storage DECC has launched a £3m competition in a drive to push heat storage technologies into commercial production. The competition will fund pre-commercial development and demonstration of storage devices. DECC wants to investigate how heat storage could even out demand on the electricity grid, which will become increasingly important with the growth of renewable heating. Under the renewable heat incentive (RHI), four million homes currently unconnected to the gas grid will be encouraged to switch from high-carbon heating sources, such as oil, to ground and air-source heat pumps, which rely on grid electricity. This will put greater strain on the electricity network, especially during peak demand in winter. DECC hopes heat storage will allow pumps to operate at off-peak times instead, such as at night. This could prevent the need to build new power plants to cover peak demands. However, its not clear if small domestic scale heat stores (or indeed

heat pumps) are the best bet. Larger community-based schemes can be more efficient. ETI backs energy storageThe Energy Technologies Institute is investing £14m in Isentropic’s gravel tank heat storage tech, to see if it can reduce strain on electricity sub - stations. A 6 MW unit will be installed at a Western Power Distribution substation in the Midlands. ETI says the system could be used at 5,000 more of them ultimately.

It’s long way to go... Mainstream Renewable Power has ambitious plans for a 5GW wind park in Ireland to ‘plug the energy gap in the UK’. It says 900 eligible landowners have been found in the midlands area of Ireland who could accommodate the necessary wind turbines. The ‘Energy Bridge’ project would export £2.5bn of power annually via new dedicated undersea cables between Ireland and Wales, and be completely separate from Ireland’s existing electrical infrastructure. www.mainstreamrp.comConfusingly Element Power’s version of the scheme, which it calls Greenwire, is smaller- only 3GW, with ‘over forty onshore wind farms across the Midlands of Ireland...linked together through underground cabling to a central collection point in the Midlands’ and generating ‘up to 10TWh of renewable power annually for direct transmission to the electricity grid of Great Britain, independent of the Irish grid system’. There will be new dedicated HVDC sub-sea cables crossing the Irish Sea of 2.5GW capacity each ‘connected into existing National Grid transmission infrastructure in Pentir in north Wales and Pembroke in south Wales’. It explains ‘As the Greenwire project is entirely independent of the Irish electricity grid it involves absolutely no cost to the UK or Irish taxpayer. It will however, provide a secure delivery of wind generated electricity annually to the UK and enable Ireland to export in excess of more than €1.2 bn of wind generated electricity annually to the UK’. It says ‘Britain’s energy challenge should be seen as Ireland’s opportunity. We have an abundance of wind energy and it should be harnessed for the good of both countries.’ It adds ‘The first UK 2GW connection has been confirmed for 2017 and the second, a 1GW connection, confirmed for 2018’. The full investment cost will be €8 bn,. http://greenwire.ie/

3. Marine Energy Environmental MonitoringFLOWBEC (Flow and Benthic Ecology 4D) is a three-year, £1.2 million project that brings together a consortium of researchers to investigate the effects of marine renewable energy devices by monitoring environment and wildlife behaviour at UK test sites, the first of which is the tidal energy test area of the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney. FLOWBEC is a National Oceanography Centre led project, linking scientists from the Universities of Aberdeen, Bath, Edinburgh, Exeter, Plymouth, Queens Belfast, along with Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Marine Scotland Science, the British Oceanographic Data Centre, EMEC, and tidal turbine developers OpenHydro Ltd. The researchers from the Universities of Bath and Aberdeen, together with the expert acoustic and technical teams at Marine Scotland Science, have combined two state-of-the-art sonar systems on a seabed frame placed within 25-metres of an OpenHydro structure. This monitors fish and diving seabirds that pass through or feed within the location; in particular, the study is assessing how fish and seabirds interact with the installation.

These sonars, which are normally mounted on ships as separate units looking down at the seabed, have been adapted to operate looking up, autonomously in combination for several weeks. Collecting the data in this way allows imaging of a full `acoustic curtain' along the tidal flow and around the turbine in a highly challenging environment. A marine radar, deployed by the NOC, has also monitored activity on and above the sea surface, mapping the extreme currents and waves at the site and tracking the behaviour of birds and marine mammals in the immediate area. More at:http://phys.org/news/2012-07-seabed-sonar-marine-energy-effect.html#jCp

Tidal SummitThis years Tidal Summit in London in late Nov., will be run as ever by Tidal Today.com, and will review the field globally. In the run up their web sites has provided some interesting prelimary coverage of developments in the field. Propellor type devices like MCT’s SeaGen dominate the scene, but some new ones are emerging and are being tested,. However vertical axis designs are also making their mark. On Tidal Todays useful e-conference, Peter Scheijgrond, from MET-support, pointed out that, although Darrius-type veritcal axis rotors, or similar ‘cross flow’ rotor designs mounted on a horizonatl axis, are held to be less efficient than propellors, because the blades are performing at their optimum only during part of their cycle and they incur drag from the supporting arms, in fact high Capacity Factors in the range of 40% to 50% and even higher with pitch regulation have been reported. Moreover, unlike with vertical axis wind devices, which have to be spun up to start working, the high density of water compared to air, mean that start-up is easily achieved. And with relatively slow moving water, tip speeds are limited to 10-13 m/s, so that problems with high centrifugal forces are avoided. Vertical axis/cross flow turbines are also omni- directional: they require no alignment with the flow and can be easily mounted under a floating pontoon. So turbine operation is unaffected when the floating structure changes orientation due to local flows. We’ll cover Tidal Summit in Renew On Line next year.

4. ROCs, RHI and FiTs:DECC finally get it together

The governments long awaited revision of support level under the Renewables Obligation (RO) was delayed by, it seems, battles between DECC, who wanted a 10% cut in support for on-land wind, and the Treasury, who it was said wanted a 25% cut. But with even the CBI complaining abut the cost of what it called the ‘political deadlock’, DECC evidently won out and, just after Scotland unilaterally announced a 10% cut, also opted for 10% . So, on land wind support will be cut to 0.9 ROCs/MWh, guaranteed until at least March 2014, but DECC will review it early in 2013, and change the ROC level in 2014 if costs have fallen significantly.

The wind lobby had said that, while a 10% cut was reasonable, given the improvement in perfomance, cuts beyond 10% would destroy the industry. It was also pointed out that, if it was costs that were the issue, it was odd to attack on land wind, which was cheaper than offshore wind. Then again the offshore wind resource is much larger, with much less potential for environmental objections. A DECC public opinion survey found that, 76% of those asked backed offshore wind projects, while 66% were in favour of onshore wind farms.

In the RO revisions offshore wind-the level of support has been left at 2 ROCs/MWh for 2014-15, but reducing to 1.9 ROCs in 2015-16 and to 1.8 ROCs 2016-17. DECC says ‘This is consistent with our consultation proposals, and reflects our expectation that the costs of offshore wind will fall as mass deployment takes place and industry innovates’.

DECC was clearly worried about exposing consumers to extra cost- they pay the extra cost of the RO. The wind cuts, and other smaller cuts in the ROC system, will lower bills by £6 p.a in 2013/14, $5 pa in 2014.15, but DECC says costs will rise after, by about £3 pa., as new projects emerge.

In addition to the RO re-banding, DECC issued details of the mechanism for avoiding overspend on the Renewable Heat Incentive budget in the short term-via a flexible price degression-based system, with quarterly tests to see whether price degression was needed. They clearly are still smarting from the problems they had with the PV solar Feed In tariff.

The non-domestic strand of the RHI was launched in Nov 2011, to help meet the ‘15% by 2020’ renewable energy target. DECC says that renewable heat will contribute about a third of this overall energy target, so that around 12% of total heat demand in 2020 will have to come from renewables, up from under 2% now. The interim demo scheme apart, the full domestic strand doesn’t start until next summer.

DECC has also announced details of the new Feed In Tariff levels for electricity micro generation, in the final stage in a review of the scheme, begun in Feb 2011, covering support for anaerobic digestion (AD), hydro, wind and micro combined heat and power (micro CHP), and its admin. It all comes into force in December. This follows on from the controversial cuts in solar PV tariffs and an associated cost control mechanism, which DECC announced in May and which are now in place.

DECC says ‘having reviewed the consultation responses and further industry data, the final tariffs will in most cases be implemented as proposed in the consultation’. These include cuts in wind tariffs and a small rise for micro CHP, reflecting its very low uptake to date. The other tariffs are largely stable and will continue the link to RO support levels for the largest installations.

As with solar PV, cost control will be achieved by price degression at fixed annual time points from April 2014, with a baseline (i.e. expected) degression of 5% each year, but . adjusted according to deployment in the previous year, with a minimum reduction of 2.5% annually for low deployment, and a maximum of 20% for very high deployment.

DECC also offered some backing for community projects, but no new separate Tariff. It said ‘Although we do not believe it is justifiable to offer a separate tariff level to such projects at the moment, we are clarifying that this would be technically possible in future, if we find that to be justified’. Meanwhile though, FiT-backed solar PV on schools and community energy projects on non-domestic buildings will be exempt from the current energy efficiency requirements, if they produce a valid Energy Performance Certificate.

DECC says ‘This exemption for schools is in recognition of the role that the microgeneration can play in educating young people about climate change and energy issues. To allow for the additional time needed by community organisations in setting up projects, we will also introduce a tariff guarantee system for community solar PV projects under 50kW on non-domestic buildings.’ More generally they say they will also ‘continue to work closely with the community energy sector where possible’ to help with finance and other barriers that are separate from FITs’.

However they add ‘we will not be implementing the proposal for the solar PV multi- installation tariff to be reduced to the stand-alone level for commercial aggregators. There is no evidence to support any financial difference between social housing PV projects and commercial “rent-a-roof” projects.’ Fair enough (some see the latter as a rip off), but shouldn’t co-ops and community groups etc get more?

Thankfully, given the likelyhood of it being a major uptake hurdle, there will be no energy efficiency requirements for technologies other than solar PV, although they say ‘we will consider the introduction of minimum energy efficiency standards for buildings with other technologies’. But they will raise the export tariff from 3.2p to 4.5p/kWh for new installations from the time of the tariff changes. That will be welcome.

All in all, despite its parallel commitment to nuclear making it even harder, DECC do seem to be trying hard to respond to the various pressures on them, not least from the Treasury. It may seem like the pre-emptive action by Alex Salmond pushed them into making the new RO announcement, but this is complex stuff and most of the final ROC allocations, like those for the RHI and FiTs, have ended up being pretty much what was proposed in the consultation documents.

Demand Reduction DECC’s new report ‘Capturing the full electricity efficiency potential of the UK’ identifies ~155 TWh (~40% of total) of demand reduction potential in 2030 in three key sectors, with current policy estimated to capture ~54 TWh (~35% of total potential).www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/emissions/edr/edr.aspx

5. EMR policy challengesThe battle over the Electricity Market Reforms continues, with in June Ian Marchant, the chief executive of SSE, telling the Commons Energy and Climate Change Select Committee that “If the EMR is passed in its current form, it’s a piece of legislation the UK will live to regret” since it would mean that the government would be agreeing long-term contracts “without any level of public scrutiny of what is being paid for, how much is being paid or why it is being paid at a particular level. Consumers will be liable to pay for contracts, potentially for up to 40 years, which they have no visibility of, and noinput into”. The Committee was certainly none to happy in its final report.

The UK government was ‘in danger of botching its plans to boost clean energy’ said Tim Yeo chair of Committee. In particular, the CfD framework and the Treasury insistence on a cap with companies bearing all the risk, would, the Committe feared, ‘ration the number of contracts available, creating uncertainty amongst investors about which projects will receive support’, and so ‘push-up energy costs for consumers.’ It could also reinforce the market dominance of the ‘Big Six’ energy companies and exclude new independent entrants/ co-ops. www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmenergy/275/27502.htm

The debate was given a new twist when Energy Secretary Ed Davey said that, contrary to widespread belief, backing for the proposed CfDs was always to be based on the flow of money from electricity consumers, without government guarantees. RWE npower had evidently been susurprised. Earier they had told the committee ‘there was an expectation that the CfD was backed by government. We are miles away from that now. A different path is being pursued by the government. Moving away from a triple A rated guaranteed contract (i.e., with government as counterparty) is a big shift in the process in the last six to nine months.’

The battle was joined by University of Exeter Energy Policy Group, SSE, FoE and WWF, along with 12 other groups, in a joint critique of the Government’s draft EMR Energy Bill, in which they say that it, and existing energy efficiency policies,would in their current state, fail to deliver a secure, clean and affordable power sector and would result in the UK missing key economic growth opportunities. They say managing primary energy demand must be the central to energy policy, not an afterthought to make decarbonisation easier. They called for measures to reduce energy demand to be given the same status under the Energy Bill as measures that seek to support the construction of low-carbon generation. The Government should use revenues generated from the carbon floor price and EU Emission’s Trading Scheme auctions to fund energy efficiency measures. The CfD for renewables should be reviewed so that it is suitable for all renewable technologies, not just the most developed: renewables should not be classified as a single energy source. They also wanted a binding 50gCO2/kWh decarbonisation target by 2030 to be inserted in the Energy Bill.

The ‘Energy Round Table’ Joint Communique and backup papers: www.wwf.org.uk/research_centre/research_centre_results.cfm?uNewsID=6074There’s also an Energy Bill Revolution petition at www.energybillrevolution.org, which is already backed by 90 leading charities, unions, consumer groups and businesses. More: www.wwf.org.uk/what_we_do/press_centre/?uNewsID=6075

Wind /RO Power Battles In the run up to the decision about RO support for wind power, a group of right of centre think tanks, including the Centre for Policy Studies and the Institute of Economic Affairs, urged the Prime Minister to ‘adopt a coherent and realistic energy policy’ based on rapid development of shale gas, as well as coal and nuclear plants. They urged ministers to ‘stop building wind-farms and repeal (or suspend) the Climate Change Act.’ However a very different view emerged from the CBI. Though not backing all aspects of DECCs green energy policies, the influential Confederation of British Industry said that ‘there is a hard-nosed economic argument that moving to a low-carbon economy can drive significant business investment and create many new jobs across the country.’ The CBI suggested that the UK could see a £20bn boost to GDP in this parliament by pursuing more effective green policies, and was critical of ‘inconsistency in government messaging’ on policy which can be damaging ‘not just for business investments, but for consumer confidence.’

Energy Secretry Ed Davey backed up the gains: ‘Over a third of the UK’s economic growth in 2011/12 is likely to have come from green business, which accounts for 8% of UK GDP. The UK’s green economy grew by £5.4 bn last year - that’s 4.7% growth, even as the rest of the economy was struggling. It created more than 25,000 jobs last year, and now employs nearly one million people. The UK is 6th in the world in the low-carbon sector, with an industry worth £122 bn’. He added ‘Around the world, the countries who are most competitive are the ones who are investing the most in low-carbon. Korea, spending 2% of GDP on green growth. Germany, whose development bank is leveraging €100 bn for renewable energy. China, putting green industries at the heart of its 12th five year plan. Investing more than anyone else in renewables, developing pilot emissions trading schemes in seven provinces- including Beijing and Shanghai. And India, which taxes coal and uses the proceeds to fund renewable energy; which has incentives for wind and solar power, and far-reaching energy efficiency plans’.

*REF rules offside The 25% cut was backed by the Renewable Energy Foundation’s John Constable, who even said that it was ‘unlikely that either the Treasury or the Dept for Business, Innovation and Skills will want to stop there. Retrospective cuts for existing wind farms and those in construction cannot be ruled out.’

Public’s view clear

79% of respondents to a recent DECC survey said they supported the use of renewables for electricity, fuel and heat, while just 5% opposed their use. 69% backed the view that ‘renewable energy industries and developments provide economic benefits to the UK’, while 55% agreed they would be happy to have a large-scale renewable energy development in their area. In contrast, 29% said they would disagree with such a development. 83% supported solar power, 76% backed offshore wind projects, 75% supported wave and tidal arrays, and 66% were in favour of onshore wind farms. 29% said the benefits of nuclear energy outweighed the risks, while 30% thought the contrary, and 32% said the benefits and risks were evenly balanced. www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/11/stats/5707-decc-public-att-track-surv-wave1-summary.pdf But see the EDF Poll mentioned earlier for different conclusions!

6. UK Energy Policy- ‘not just nuclear’ Energy Minister Charles Hendry reasserted DECCs view at the end of a short debate on nuclear power: ‘We estimate that in order to have a low-carbon economy where we have sufficient generation to ensure security of supply we will need up to 70 GW of new low-carbon generation by 2030. To put that in context, the ambition of the industry in the nuclear sector is for 16 GW by 2025. The overwhelming focus, therefore, is on a range of other low-carbon technologies alongside nuclear, including carbon capture and harnessing our own renewables. It is completely wrong to suggest that we are focusing only on nuclear. We see that as a very important element within a much wider and more balanced programme.’

He had been challenged by N Ireland MP Margaret Ritchie (SDLP), on the Contracts for Difference (CfD) system, which many see as favouring nuclear. She quoted Keith MacLean, policy director of Scottish and Southern Energy, which had, she noted, itself pulled out of the nuclear programme: ‘This complex and messy CfD policy looks like an attempt to try to hide the state aid from the European Commission and the subsidy from political opponents of new nuclear.’

Hendry said ‘There will be no market support to a private sector new nuclear operator for electricity supplied or capacity provided unless similar support is also made available more widely to other types of generation’. But, he went on, ‘within that, it is implicit that we recognise that nuclear is the lowest-cost large-scale, low-carbon source of generation and that, therefore, additional support will need to be made available to those emerging technologies in the renewable sector. [so nuclear is a renewable!-ed] They will be a very important part of the process. Any such change requires state aid approval. We have started to engage with the European Commission on that and we believe that approval will be achieved because the Government are not providing support; they are providing a mechanism whereby investors can get a return on their investment’.www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmhansrd/cm120704/halltext/120704h0002.htm#12070487000001

Offshore Wind & PV ‘cheaper than nukes’The Financial Times (15/7/12) said that EDF Energy has told officials that it needs about £165/megawatt hours, over 25 years, almost 4 times the existing wholesale price of electricity, if it is to go ahead with the new Hinkley Point nuclear plant- in line with estimates by Peter Atherton from Citgroup. And that’s just for starters. There would also be other costs, including insurance: see www.energyfair.org.uk

By contrast Dr David Toke from Birmingham University has pointed out that, under the Renewables Obligation, offshore windfarms that have been recently and are now being installed are being paid around £135 per MWh (2xs £42.00/MWh renewable obligation certificate value plus wholesale electricity price at £50/MWh). In the UK solar pv is now being paid £160 per MWh and onshore wind £92/MWh – and wind prices are inflated by the inefficiencies of the Renewables Obligation, compared to the ‘feed-in tariff’ system price that is quoted as the basis for EDF nuclear power. In addition, the consumer will be locked into paying for nuclear for 25 years under the EDF plan, whereas the RO support only lasts for 15 years. http://realfeed-intariffs.blogspot.co.uk

7. Local projects

Lancaster CohousingLancaster Cohousing’s eco-housing development won the ‘Green Building Project of the Year’ prize at the Business Green Leaders Awards in July. The Guardian reported that it’s on a six acre site of a disused Victorian Mill near the village of Halton, 3 miles outside Lancaster, and has 41 homes and flats all built to the highest standards of insulation demanded by Passivhaus standards, using recycled breeze blocks where possible. The houses are arranged in south-facing terraces to maximise natural warmth and light, and also benefit from heat provided through a communal system via a central biomass boiler. Solar power will be used to heat water and for electricity, while heat exchangers are fitted to conserve heat and provide ventilation. A160kW hydroelectric turbine in the adjacent River Lune will also feed power to the site, and to a further 200 local homes and the refurbished mill, converted into serviced workshops, studios, offices, and conference space.

The whole development is to be zero-waste to landfill thanks to recycling facilities and an industrial-sized composter, while residents will be offered membership of a car club in an attempt to encourage them to avoid owning their own vehicles. Some food will be produced by the onsite vegetable gardens and orchards, along with fuel for the biomass boiler, but much of the remainder will be sourced in bulk from local farmers, allotment holders, and co-ops. Residents will be encouraged to eat together several times a week in the central common house, which also features,guest rooms and a communal laundry – so households do not need their own washing machines.

Greening AngleseyE.ON and RWE backed out of the Horizon project, which included a nuclear plant on Anglesey, to replace Wylfa, but two Chinese companies may yet step in. However the People Against Wylfa B group (PAWB) have outlined plans to regenerate the Island’s economy without nuclear plant. Their ‘Manifesto for Môn’ says it has identified the potential to bring 2,500-3,000 alternative jobs to the island, although most of them are already in existing energy proposals. They include 150 jobs in energy conservation through insulation schemes, 300 jobs in wind energy with community turbines on-shore and support for Centrica’s 600 turbine Irish Sea development. PAWB say solar and biomass could also provide 750 jobs with projects on the table in Holyhead and Llangefni, and 150 jobs could come from wave and tidal schemes.

*If the Chinese Horizon deal does not go ahead, another possible candidate is GE Hitachi. There’s also Russian nuclear developer Rosatom. But they might also look to Bradwell, Heysham or Hartlepool, all curently owned by EDF, with Bradwell being the most likely. EDF Energy is under obligation to sell Bradwell, if it achieves planning approval to build two Areva EPR reactors at Sizewell.

More Geothermal- Manchester first E.ON is backing the development of urban geothermal power plants in the NW of England, in collaboration with Ireland-based geothermal specialist GT Energy, who have proposed a 10MWth plant in Manchester linked to the University and nearby buildings. www.gtenergy.net

The UK currently boasts only a handful of deep geothermal power plants, including a pioneering district heat system in Southampton that has been in place since 1986. However, a range of projects are currently under construction, including a new geothermal power plant in Cornwall and a geothermal heat facility in the centre of Newcastle. E.ON and GT Energy say that the UK has access to up to 100GW of geothermal energy potential, particularly in the SW, NW, and NE. They say that deep-geothermal technology is well suited to urban settings where heat can be easily distributed the buildings around the area.

Community heat

Community groups can bid for a share of £8 m to install low carbon heating like solar thermal panels, biomass boilers and heat pumps into homes in their local area. Community-based organisations including community co-operatives, voluntary groups, social enterprises and development trusts will be eligible to apply via EST to DECC’s new ‘Low Carbon Heating for Communites’ scheme. DECC expects to support 50-100 projects. Winners will be announced in December. DECC has just announced winners of this year’s £10m RHPP social landlord competition, helping to get low carbon heating systems into the homes of thousands of social housing tenants. 72 successful projects have been selected on their value for money, type of fuel being replaced, energy savings secured and track record on delivering similar initiatives. Most winners are located in the SW area. Projects will need to be completed by March 2013.

Local FiTup please

The Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change says ‘the eligibility threshold for small-scale Feed-in Tariffs should be extended to at least 10MW in order to allow smaller scale generators and community-owned schemes to continue to operate.’ It’s at 5MW now.

Wind costs- and fuel poverty‘Subsidies paid to windpower companies are forcing up to 50,000 households a year into fuel poverty’, claimed the Sunday Times in June, using figures from a House of Commons Library paper, Any price increase will of course push some more people into fuel poverty, defined as having to spend more than 10% of income of fuel. But it was quickly pointed out (by the Guardian and the Carbon Brief Blog) that the total amount added to an electricity bill by payments to support renewables (mostly via the RO) was £18.20 in 2010- of which about half went to wind. Between 2004 and 2010, dual fuel

bills rose by £455, of which £382 was due to soaring gas prices. That’s what has led to fuel poverty, not the £3 RO increase since 2009, or the £9 p.a for wind.

8. Global newsClimate Change There is evidently an emerging ‘Third Way’ option on climate change, in between the polarised ‘yes it’s real and vital we move fast’ and ‘no it’s all rubbish’ views, which, according to the European Energy Review (EER), roughly says that a) yes, increasing CO2-concentrations do have a warming effect but b) no, we do not know how large the effect is and whether it will be as disastrous as the IPCC says. EER says ‘this viewpoint (which still leaves many policy options open when it comes to “the energy transition”) seems to be supported by a growing number of respectable scientists who refuse to be pigeonholed into a purely “pro” or “con” position’.

EER carried an interview with one of their leading exponents is climate scientist Judith Curry, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, in which she notes: ‘there is certainly some contribution [to global warming] from greenhouse gases, but whether it is currently a dominant factor or will be a dominant factor in the next century, is a topic under active debate’. EER says ‘Clearly if she is right (and note she is talking about an ongoing debate), this would have very significant implications for energy policy. It may mean that the famous “2 degrees target” may not be as “hard” as many assume it is and that more- badly needed- flexibility can be built into the energy “transition”.’

She is critical of the way the IPCC operates via consensus and wants a more ‘open minded’ approach. But you could say she is just playing to the contrarian crowd by sowing doubts which will let intransigents off the hook for a while. See her blog Climate,etc at judithcurry.com and interview www.europeanenergyreview.eu/site/pagina.php?id_mailing=256&toegang=f718499c1c8cef6730f9fd03c8125cab&id=3573

Will it all lead to tears? We may find out at the next COP- this one in Qatar! One person who probably won’t be there is retired Norwegian Nobel Lauriate Prof. Ivar Giaever who resigned from the American Physical Society since it issued a policy statement saying ‘The evidence is incontrovertible: global warming is occurring’. He says ‘Incontrovertible is not a scientific word. Nothing is incontrovertible in science’. True, but it’s a semantic issue surely e.g. the world isn’t flat, and it orbits the sun. We’re pretty sure of that now. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240529702043 014045 77171531838421366.html

OECD warning The OECDs Environmental Outlook to 2050 looks at climate, biodiversity, water & health impacts of pollution. It says ‘without new policies, progress in reducing environmental pressures will continue to be overwhelmed by the sheer scale of growth, with the risk of irreversible changes that could endanger two centuries of rising living

standards.’ www.oecd.org/document/11/0,3746,en_2649_37465_49036555_1_1_1_37465,00.html

EU progressEU wind power capacity at the end of 2011: 94.1 GW up from 85.0 GW in 2010….

In terms of the future, all eyes are on Germany. Can it cope with the nuclear phase out? Renewables advocacy groups point out that it’s a political challenge as much as a technical one, with new patterns of energy supply and use emerging. See Box below and also p.14. The situation in France is less well advanced, but the issues are similar: can renewable be got up to speed rapidly as and when nuclear plants close?

Energy contestation in Germany In an article recycled by Nuclear Monitor 744, Rick Bosman notes that ‘over 50% of current installed renewable capacity is owned by private citizens or farmers, compared to less than 10% by the four largest utilities. In addition, many regions are taking steps to become “energy autonomous”. This trend constitutes a fundamental change in the organization of the energy system.’ That of course is a challenge to the big power utilities operating in Germany - Eon, RWE, Vattenfall and EnBW.

Bosman reported that Jurgen Grossmann, CEO of RWE, commented on the record PV-installations in 2011 by saying that PV in Germany ‘makes as much sense as growing pineapples in Alaska’. Bosman says ‘this comment is understandable from Grossmann’s point of view. To make a profit on coal-fired and nuclear power plants, they need to run as much as possible, generally 80-95% of the time. However, with an increasing share of variable renewable energy, which has priority in the German grid, conventional power plants need to be operated more flexibly which results in a lower capacity factor and therefore lower returns. Furthermore, solar PV generally produces energy at times of high demand, which used to be lucrative for utilities as energy prices were also high at these times. Because they have negligible running costs, wind and solar power push down electricity prices at the power exchanges. This means that every kW of wind and solar that is installed, worsens the business case for inflexible conventional power plants. From an end user perspective, however installing solar-PV makes perfect sense, because due to technological innovations and economies of scale, the costs of solar electricity are rapidly approaching the general consumer price level for electricity.’

Bosman says that ‘The renewable advocacy coalition concedes that in the short run, the price of energy will probably increase, but it points out that a distinction should be made between the price and the real cost of energy. At this moment only part of the actual energy costs are included in the kWh-price born by consumers, the rest is passed on to the public in the form of environmental damage. When accounting for these costs, most renewable sources are already cheaper than conventional energy sources. Furthermore, the renewables advocates argue that the costs of most conventional energy sources will probably go up in future, either through the need of increased safety measures in the case of nuclear power, or by the increasing challenges in extracting fossil fuels, whereas the costs of most renewable technologies will go down, as they still have large potential for innovation and cost reduction.’

Bosman suggests that prices will not be an issue for the public: he notes a recent poll by TNS Infratest showed that the public broadly supports the green energy programme. They were also willing to pay for it: 94% were in favor of an accelerated development of renewables and 80% thought the costs, which currently amount to around €10 per household per month, were ‘adequate’ or even ‘too low’. NM

*A survey last year showed that, in the wake of Fukushima, about 30,000 Vattenfall customers left the Swedish-owned power supplier for its rivals Lichtblick, Greenpeace Energy, Naturstrom, Hamburg Energie & Lekker Strom, which either have no or very little nuclear- generated energy in their portfolios. European Energy ReviewAlso see www.economist.com/node/21559667

German PV hit - but may still boom ‘We are the energy transition!’- a placard at the 11,000 strong ‘Stop the Solar Energy Exit’ Berlin demo. The German PV cuts will only lead to average savings of €0.30-0.60 per German household per month –according to BSW-Solar

The German government has proposed cuts of 20 to 29% to the solar PV Feed-In Tariff. The cuts are deeper than the 15% reduction ordered in January and were earlier than planned, but then PV prices have been falling rapidly (by 45% last year) and, given the relatively high FiT levels, capacity had been rising fast, passing on what were seen as excessive cost to electricity consumers. Among the key changes:* Systems up to 10 kW: a 20.2% reduction to 19.5 euro cents /kWh;* Systems from 10 -1,000 kW: a 25 and 29% cut to 16.5 c/kWh;* Systems larger than 1,000 kW: a 26% reduction to 13.5 c/ kWh;* Subsidies for systems over 10,000 kW will be dropped entirely in the future; so crucially will the bonus for self consumption;* New small systems will only get support for 85% of the electricity produced, middle and large scale systems 90%;

With its proposed changes, the government hopes to contain new capacity to between 2.5 and 3.5 GW this year and next year, down from 7.5 GW in 2011. From 2014, the government targets a yearly reduction of 400 GW and from 2017 between 900 and 1,900 GW. So, with France, Spain, Italy and the UK all also having imposed cuts (in the UK’s case, much higher) the PV boom will slow. As elsewhere, that led to recriminations and complaints.

Ingmar Wilhelm, president of the European Photovoltaic Industry Association, told PV World that ‘No one believes that PV support schemes should stay still for long, and everyone knows that they need to be smart, sustainable and properly adapted to changing market conditions,’ but ‘this decision sends exactly the wrong message about renewables at a critical time for the industry and for EU efforts to achieve its energy goals’. Renewable Energy World (REW) quoted First-Solar manager David Wortmann, who called the cuts ‘a slap in the face’. Phoenix-Solar CEO Andreas Haenel said the large-space market segment would be ‘strangled’.

Carsten Koernig, head of the German solar industry association BSW, warned that thousands of jobs were in danger. Dietmar Schuetz, president of the German Renewable

Energy Association BEE said the subsidy cuts represented nothing less than ‘an attack on the renewable energy law’. REW also quoted SAG CEO Karl Kuhlmann: ‘It is completely incomprehensible to us how the federal government can argue these drastic reductions. These short-term drastic reductions are slowing down the very positive development of photovoltaics that we have had up to now.’ German electricity suppliers are hiking prices by more than 3%, he said, far out of balance with any FiT-related increases: PV ‘is being made a scapegoat by the energy corporations in order to expand their own profit margin without any risks’.

It is clearly shaping up into a political row. REW quoted IHS iSuppli analyst Henning Wicht: ‘Solar cuts into the profit margins of electricity utility suppliers,’ and Solarbuzz analyst Susanne von Aichberger: ‘If Germany continues to build up PV capacities at the current speed, these capacities will seriously conflict with conventional power plants regarding grid capacity’.

Juergen Trittin, head of the Green Party parliamentary fraction, called the cuts ‘unreasonable’ and there were noisy protests. More may follow: the proposals have yet to be ratified. Although the FiTs for solar PV have been cut dramatically, Germany’s solar power capacity will still triple while overall renewable energy will supply a third (36%) of the EU powerhouse’s electricity by 2020, according to consultancy Frost & Sullivan’s Energy group. Their forecast includes an expected huge drop in electricity generation of at least 35 TWh from 2010 levels because of energy efficiency measures. See our Feature in Renew199 for Germany’s ambitious aims.

Wind hit tooConstruction of some German offshore wind farms could be delayed due to setbacks in connecting turbines to the power grid caused by the problems with ensuring cables and transformer stations, according to EON and RWE, as reported by Bloomberg, which suggested that, unless the problems were resolved, these and other companies might suspend investment in wind projects. That could challenge the government’s plan to install 10 GW of sea-based turbines by the end of this decade.

However Hermann Albers, the head of the BWE wind-energy lobby, said that both grid operators or their suppliers, had been aware of the challenges of connecting projects- that can cost € 1 bn. And, Juergen Maass, a spokesman for the German Environment Ministry, said the government’s longer-term target of 25 GW of offshore wind generators will be met by 2030. Could it be that E.ON and RWE are miffed at loosing the option of building nuclear plants in Germany? And are seeking to blackmail government?

Some do see utility industry hostility as being behind the PV cuts- see right. Maybe it’s the same for wind... Perish the thought! It may be more complex though. GE Energy has halted plans to build a £110m offshore wind turbine manufacturing plant in the UK, citing uncertainty surrounding the government’s renewable energy policy. It was part of a € 340m GE offshore wind strategy with investments in Germany, Norway & Sweden too. Vestas has also pulled out of its planned UK wind turbine manufacturing plant project. So are we seeing a flight of capital? The results of recession?

EU Supergrid The €104 bn plan for a pan-EU supergrid network would put under 1% on electricity bills- say the European Network of Transmission System

Operators. It could even extend to Morocco, which plans to get 18% of its power from renewables by 2012 and 42% by 2020, with 4.5GW in place then.

9. Growing pains in China Around the world Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has said China will restrain its ‘blind’ expansion of the wind power industry and improve planning procedures for projects. ‘China must establish a mechanism promoting the use of new energy. It must strengthen overall planning, furnish supporting facilities to projects, guide the projects with government policies, and expand domestic demands.’

Last year, China overtook the USA as the world’s largest wind-power developer. According to the China Wind Energy Association (CWEA), China now has an overall installed wind capacity of 62 GW. But this rapid development has led to growing pains in the sector with a large number of projects awaiting connection to the grid. Additionally, China’s wind turbine manufacturing capacity now far exceeds demand. Windpower Monthly commented ‘Seeing lucrative profits from wind-turbine production, many Chinese businesses have edged into the industrial sector. China has over 100 wind-turbine makers, compared with only six in 2004. Around 90 wind-turbine makers have produced prototypes. They have a total capacity to produce about 40 GW wind turbines annually. But according to China’s current wind-power development plan, China will install only 15 GW to 20 GW wind turbines each year in the near future.’

According to Scienceinsider, in 2010, only about 70% of the installed wind power capacity and just under 60% of installed solar power generating capacity, are on-grid. CPPCC delegate Chu Junhao told them ‘The problem lies in integrating solar and wind power into the grid’. http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/03/chinas-booming-solar-and-wind-se.html

*China plans to meet 9.5% of total energy consumption from renewables, according to the 2011-15 development plan for the industry. By 2020 it hopes to be getting 15% of total energy should from non fossil fuels. http://energychinaforum.com/news/60400.shtml WPM says Northern China’s Hebei province is to install 5.6 GW offshore wind by 2020.

US backs offshore at lastThe US government has announced $180m funding for four offshore wind projects in an effort to accelerate the country’s efforts in the sector. The money is to be invested over 6 years, the first $20m being made available this year. The Dept. of Energy said the programme would focus on developing new technology and reducing the cost of energy for offshore projects. However, the overall funding is subject to approval by Congress. In Sept. last year, the US government announced plans to invest $43m in improving technology and infrastructure in the offshore windpower sector. Windpower Monthly

Chile gets hot High energy cost due to a severe drought that has severely impaired hydro plants, coupled with restrictions in the capacity of transmission systems, has put renewables on the political agenda in Chile, with a campaign promise by President Piñera to get 20% of energy demand met from renewables by 2020.

Mexico mixes it up Mexico aims to get 35% of its electricity from non-fossil sources by 2026, up from 20% now. At present 10% comes from hydro, 4% from nuclear, the rest from solar, biomass and wind. Wind and nuclear are seen as the best bets for expansion to meet growing demand which could almost double; one scenario has them supplying 23% of electricity by 2026, 18.1% from nuclear. But other scenarios put nuclear much lower and a policy statement says the government will ‘conduct studies to determine the financial, political and social viability, as well as the environmental implications of the gradual incorporation of new nuclear power plants’. It added that there will also be an effort to engage in dialogue with local governments to reach consensus on the possibility of new nuclear. That may be in recognition that nuclear is massively (80%) opposed by the public in Mexico. More relevantly there are plans to connect the entire population to the grid, decrease transmission losses and improve energy efficiency. Less palatably perhaps there are also plans to develop shale gas reserves. WNN

Japan plans Marine test site The Ocean Energy Association of Japan is to set up a Japanese Marine Energy Centre , with help from EMEC in Scotland. The partnership will play an integral role in Japan’s focus on developing viable alternative major energy generation schemes to traditional fossil and nuclear power methods in the wake of the Fukushima disaster. It’s a two way exercise: Kawasaki Heavy Industries is to test a tidal energy system at EMEC.

Asia supergridThe Japan Renewable Energy Foundation (see Groups in Renew 199)) and the Desertec Foundation are teaming up to promote an Asia Supergrid that would connect the national grids of Japan, Korea, China, Mongolia and Russia. This could open up opportunities for renewable energy development, with the power produced being moved to where it’s needed most. So Japan, with fewer areas for renewable energy projects, could benefit from wind power produced in places like Inner Mongolia, where potential capacity far exceeds demand. The aim of the Asian Super Grid is ‘to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy to provide secure and sustainable alternatives to fossil and nuclear energies’ JREF and Desertec said. If built, it could also help redraw the map for both electrical power & political power. Source: Renewable Energy World

Offshore IndiaIndia will build its first offshore wind turbines within the next five years, according to a senior figure within the its Centre for Wind Energy Technology, although any European turbine designs would need to be tailored to Indian offshore conditions where wind speeds rarely exceed 6-7 metres per second. India has installed 13 GW of on land wind.

IIASA’s new Global Energy Assessment says renewables can supply up to 70% of all energy by 2050, 90% in some regions. The IEA says $36 trillion will be needed for new energy systems by 2050, but $100 trillion would then be saved by less use of fossil fuel. A new report by IEA Wind ‘The Past and Future Cost of Wind Energy’ is at

www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/53510.pdf See also: www.ieawind.org US wind now 50GW

10. UK Retirement delayed? Nuclear NewsThe UK’s ageing nuclear reactors may have their lives extended beyond the mid-2020s to meet expected demand for power and allow more time for new low carbon energy capacity to be built, according to energy minister Charles Hendry. Of the UK’s 19 plants, only the Sizewell B PWR is currently scheduled to keep running beyond the middle of the next decade, leading to plans for 16 GW of new plants at eight sites across the country, at a cost put by DECC at £50m. It could be that Hendry was actually just preparing the way for a delay in the construction of new nuclear plants in the UK. But he simply said the UK’s deregulated electricity market had not produced enough capacity to replace the fossil and nuclear plants that are due to be switched off over the next 10 years, while at the same time dealing with a predicted ‘doubling in demand’ for electricity over the next 30 to 40 years.

Last year EDF, which runs eight of the 10 UK plants, extended the working life of the Heysham 1 and Hartlepool AGR reactors by five years to 2019. and it recently indicated that it wanted to extend them further to 7 years. This approach has its financial attractions (see below). EDF estimated that prolonging the lifespan of its France reactors would cost up to € 860m per reactor, compared to € 5bn for building new, next-generation plants. But there are safety issues- after all Fukushima’s plants were similarly old. Hendry’s claim that ‘demand would double’ by around 2050, used in the past to justify the nuclear expansion, was of course challenged in the recent ‘Corruption of Governance’ report, which argued that the government had been poorly informed on this, and that, in fact, that there was no evidence for it. And certainly no need to accept it: Germany aimed to cut electricity demand by 25% by 2050.

UK and France do it together The Franco-British Summit in Paris back in February aimed to strengthen co-operation on civil nuclear energy between the two countries, with deals being announced in relation to EDF Energy’s plans to construct two Areva EPR reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset. Politically it was important for Cameron to show that there would be some UK jobs in an otherwise French led programme, and for Sarkozy it was vital, given the then upcoming presidential election, to show that new nuclear was still possible, even if only in the UK. Especially given that the French Socialist Party was winning in the polls: it said it would close nearly half of France’s nuclear plants. In the the event, it won, which makes this alliance rather odd. But nonetheless, Areva and Rolls-Royce agreed on the UKs (small) input and presumably that will still stand. Rolls-Royce will manufacture reactor vessel internals and heat exchangers and provide engineering and technical services for the first of two EPR units to be built at Hinkley. Rolls-Royce said, ‘once contracted, the work could be worth a total of £400 million in revenue to Rolls-Royce for the four EPRs currently planned by EDF Energy in the UK’. That has to be put in perpective: it’s about 5% of the cost of the EDF programme. Rolls Royce have also agreed to help with the development of Astrid Advanced Sodium Technological Reactor for Industrial Demonstration, fourth generation fast neutron reactor. This foresees a prototype operational by 2020 and ultimately. But who knows

now what will actually happen! For a wry commentary see: http://tomburke.co.uk/2012/02/17/no-more-nukes/

Counting le costBack in Jan, the French Court of Auditors produced a review of nuclear economics, which noted that, if the current limit of a 40-year operating life was retained, 22 of the 58 reactors would have to shut by 2022. But it felt that a replacement programme on any significant scale was ‘highly unlikely or impossible,’ and suggested that, if France wanted to maintain the same or similar levels of nuclear output, then extending plants was probably the best option, since it pushed back the decommissioning expenses and the need for investment in new plant. It put decommissioning/waste disposal costs of € 79.4 bn, albeit spread over many years. But extending the lifetimes will require upgrades. EDF have estimated that extending the life of its nuclear plants from 40 to 60 years would cost € 40-50 bn over the next 30 years. The Court suggested it would add 10% to production costs. And it said the electricity from nuclear plants in France cost € 49.5 MWh, but put the cost from EPRs like Flamanville at € 70-90/MWh. That is to be competed, but, following the election, more new plants are unlikely, just life extensions, and 24 old plants may be closed by 2025. The economics are clearly an issue The European Wind Energy Association says the average price of nuclear across Europe, taking into account the long build time, will be € 102 /MWh in 2020. But by then onshore wind prices will drop to € 58/MWh and offshore wind will cost € 75 /MWh. http://blog.ewea.org/ 2012/02/french-nuclear-set-to-become-more-expensive-than-wind-power

More to come?The Institute of Directors want 30% of UK power to come from nuclear: ‘nuclear radiation is far safer than many people imagine. A new tolerance of more realistic radiation exposure levels would bring large cost savings to any nuclear program, without compromising people’s safety,’ with much of the damage arising from nuclear accidents being caused by ‘over-zealous rules based on radiation exposure levels that are too restrictive’.

A Energy Research Partnership report, produced by the UK National Nuclear Labs at Sellafield in close consultation with industry, analyses two nuclear new-build options- a replacement scenario, with 16 GW in place by 2025 (as now underway) and then a further expansion scenario, bringing the total to over 40 GW by 2050, including fast neutron breeder reactors. www.energyresearchpartnership.org.uk/nucleartechnologyroadmap

Meanwhile, GE’s 300MW Prism fast reactor may be looked at as well as MOX in a new DECC review of UK options for using the 100+ tonnes of plutonium it has in store. Canada’s CANDU has also entered the field

But elsewhere the nuclear exit continues..

Its not just Germany and Italy that abandoned their nuclear plans after Fukushima. Switzerland did too. On the way to that the Swiss Federal Court says the 1972 BWR at Mühleberg must close next June unless it’s upgraded. And Bahrain has joined Kuwait

and given up on its nuclear plans,while. Japan looks like changing its policy radically: a new plan is due any minute now. See Renew 200 for details

11. In the rest of Renew 199Germany is powering ahead with renewables, as our Feature reports. So too, although less recognised, is Scotland, now with 35% of its power met from renewables and 100% planned for 2020- see Reviews. France may be contemplating something a little less spectacular. At present it relies heavily on nuclear, but that only works because they export at night e.g. to Germany, and import massively during winter power peaks for electric heating. With everyone else moving to renewables there will be much more of a role for cross-EU supergrid interchanges (see Technology), so having a big slab of nuclear may be increasingly awkward.

Certainly with the fallout from Fukushima continuing (see Reviews), it does seem like the nuclear end game is near in the EU: see Groups and our special Forum section.

On the technology front, the wind-to-gas idea is moving ahead rapidly, in Germany especially; see our Technology section. It does feed technological optimism and that’s a familiar trait of the Rocky Mountain Institute, which now says the US can go green and thereby release a lot of money- again see our Technology section. It’s very optimistic, positive, stuff, even if its still involves using a lot a gas. Maybe a bit too glib, but then US politics is often pretty superficial, with energy issues being no exception. But there’s always hope: see our editorial.

12. Renew and NATTA Renew is the bi-monthly journal of NATTA the Network for Alternative Technology and Technology Assessment, which was first established in 1976. Renew was based for many years in the OU Energy and Environment Research Unit, but given the retirement from the OU of Dave Elliott and Tam Dougan, they now run it, and NATTA, independently. Renew is supplied in PDF format by email attachment, free to NATTA members.Renew On Line is just a (free) sample of the news section.

After Issue 200 we will cease production of the PDF version. So there is one more PDF issue to come. Existing members will all get that, but if you are not one and want Renew 200 then please make a one off payment of £3 direct to NATTA . You might also want to buy our annual end of year Renew Review (Renew 2012), 40 pages packed full of reports on the year. Out in early December in PDF: £4. Make Cheques payable to ‘NATTA’ and send with your name, postal and email address to NATTA, The Cottage, Chapel Lane, Thornborough, Bucks, MK 18 2DJ.More details from: Tam_Dougan@natta-renew.org and at http://www.natta-renew.org That includes an index to back issues and lots more.

From January 2013 we will be produced an extended version of this Renew On Line which you can access free from our web site. There will be one more Renew on Line (ROL100) in the current format.

This change means we will loose our income- so donations to keep us running would be very welcome!