Solar is now cheaper than nuclear. Even in the UK

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Solar is now cheaper than nuclear. Even in the UK
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vegplot

Joined: 19 Apr 2007
Posts: 21301
Location: Bethesda, Gwynedd

Posted: Tue Jun 04, 13 8:49 am Post subject: Solar is now cheaper than nuclear. Even in the UK

https://www.carboncommentary.com/2013/05/16/3064

Quote:

At 2013 prices, solar PV in mid-latitude countries is now cheaper than new nuclear. Put in the UK context, the proposed EdF power station at Hinkley is now more expensive per unit of electricity generated than solar farms in the south of England.

OtleyLad

Joined: 13 Jan 2007
Posts: 2737
Location: Otley, West Yorkshire

Posted: Tue Jun 04, 13 9:02 am Post subject:

Not a bad article. One of the major benefits of solar of course is that once its built there are virtually ZERO carbon emissions. So the power generated during the day is not producing carbon. It's got low maintenance costs too.
At night and in winter of course you need back up power - which may or may not be fossil based. But if we got 25% of our yearly electricity from solar that's got to help reduce our emissions (and eke out fossil fuels a bit longer).

Jb

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 7761
Location: 91ï¿½ N

Posted: Tue Jun 04, 13 9:04 am Post subject:
Unfortunately they don't give their figures in any detail to work out how accurate their comparison is. The only things I noticed against their argument are that they don't consider storage and they did seem to base it on PV panels sited in Cornwall and Devon.

cassy

Joined: 04 Feb 2008
Posts: 1047
Location: South West Scotland

Posted: Tue Jun 04, 13 9:08 am Post subject:
If they added in the true cost of nuclear power ie. the clean up and waste storage costs (and the C02 footprint of the concrete needed), the sums would be even more clearly in PV's favour.

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15579

Posted: Tue Jun 04, 13 9:19 am Post subject:

That was an interesting article. I think we need to consider other forms of sustainable power too though, and it needs to be considered sensibly with a view to site, effects, generation at the right time etc.

We need a base system, such as nuclear, or even UK sourced coal, as a coal station takes a fair time to run up. We then need a mixture of solar, wind, tide, wave etc to bring us up near to 'normal' capacity, as some like solar, wind and wave depend upon the weather. For top up, we need either gas, or biofuel.

Nuclear does have the problem of high investment costs, disposal, storage etc. Others, as I have said are weather dependant, and some like biomass can't be reasonably sourced totally from British sources. There are some advantages to micro or mini generation being fed into the grid, but as was mentioned, fuel storage by some system also needds addressing.

vegplot

Joined: 19 Apr 2007
Posts: 21301
Location: Bethesda, Gwynedd

Posted: Tue Jun 04, 13 9:44 am Post subject:

JB wrote:

Unfortunately they don't give their figures in any detail to work out how accurate their comparison is. The only things I noticed against their argument are that they don't consider storage and they did seem to base it on PV panels sited in Cornwall and Devon.

My take on it was the article pointing out cost/availability of solar PV generation is not a large a barrier as it once was. Storage issues, while a valid consideration, was not part of the report's remit of the report as far as I could make out.

Jb

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 7761
Location: 91ï¿½ N

Posted: Tue Jun 04, 13 9:49 am Post subject:

The article also says

Quote:

By itself, the cost crossover doesn’t mean that countries shouldn’t invest in nuclear power. Nuclear delivers electricity reliably throughout the year. This baseload power is more valuable than PV’s high levels of output at midday in summer when demand levels are low in most of Europe. And nuclear power stations take up little space compared to the land needs for solar farms.

If they contend that they need the capacity in nuclear to provide the baseload because PV is at a maximum when demand is low then it would lead to the odd conclusion that they would be building solar power even though they have sufficient existing capacity in nuclear. If they're going to do that then why not just use the nuclear?

vegplot

Joined: 19 Apr 2007
Posts: 21301
Location: Bethesda, Gwynedd

Posted: Tue Jun 04, 13 9:58 am Post subject:

JB wrote:

The article also says

Quote:

Problem is there isn't sufficient existing capacity in nuclear. PV can offset nuclear but not entirely (or any other base load provider for that matter).

If, as the article suggests, PV is becoming more cost effective then base load requirements should go down - all things being equal. I suspect tariff pricing will eventually slew demand to coincide with peak solar as some not so distant point to manipulate energy usage where there is most money to be made.

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Tue Jun 04, 13 10:12 am Post subject:
How much land would be taken up by a solar farm to provide the same output as a nuclear power station? Has that loss of food producing land been taken into account? Aren't we eventually going to go over to fracked gas power stations, perhaps with carbon sequestration, so how does solar compare to that?

vegplot

Joined: 19 Apr 2007
Posts: 21301
Location: Bethesda, Gwynedd

Posted: Tue Jun 04, 13 10:24 am Post subject:
We're generating over 2MWhrs PV per annum without taking up any land at all. Our useful nuclear output is zero.

Jb

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 7761
Location: 91ï¿½ N

Posted: Tue Jun 04, 13 10:29 am Post subject:

Treacodactyl wrote:

How much land would be taken up by a solar farm to provide the same output as a nuclear power station? Has that loss of food producing land been taken into account?

Aren't we eventually going to go over to fracked gas power stations, perhaps with carbon sequestration, so how does solar compare to that?

Typical nuclear power station would generate about 2GW. Incident solar is about 1KW / m2 but the practicalities of things like the earth turning, not being on the equator and solar panel efficiency mean that realistic energy production rates are nearer 50W / m2. So 40 000 000 m2 or about 4000 hectares or about 40 km2

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Tue Jun 04, 13 10:35 am Post subject:

vegplot wrote:

We're generating over 2MWhrs PV per annum without taking up any land at all. Our useful nuclear output is zero.

The article you linked to is talking about solar farms and the land they take up is not insignificant.

vegplot

Joined: 19 Apr 2007
Posts: 21301
Location: Bethesda, Gwynedd

Posted: Tue Jun 04, 13 10:41 am Post subject:
We have 242,811 hectares of roadside verges enough for 60 nuclear power stations. That was tongue in cheek but a useful exercise in the worth of 'back of beer mat' analysis.

Pilsbury

Joined: 13 Dec 2004
Posts: 5645
Location: East london/Essex

Posted: Tue Jun 04, 13 10:45 am Post subject:
And I wonder how many hectares of roof top that has nothing but slate on them...... Then the power could be generated where its needed and less loss through wires and cables. Invest in renting roof space, the generating companies that is and not expect everyone to do it themselves and there could be some serious power

vegplot

Joined: 19 Apr 2007
Posts: 21301
Location: Bethesda, Gwynedd

Posted: Tue Jun 04, 13 10:48 am Post subject:

Treacodactyl wrote:

vegplot wrote:

We're generating over 2MWhrs PV per annum without taking up any land at all. Our useful nuclear output is zero.

The article you linked to is talking about solar farms and the land they take up is not insignificant.

Indeed it is assuming nothing changes.

Solar PV is ideally suited to distributed generation. The interconnections and customer delivery infrastructure is already in place and as unit costs continue to fall the high cost argument of installing on secondary land use, roof tops for instance, diminishes.

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