The Future of Power Generation in Great Britain

[rolando]

jmorgan said:

Maybe I read the wrong stuff but the winner in the Bay thing will be the developers not the nation (or Wales) and Jones, well, Labour rule the roost here so god knows what will happen.

Article from Private Eye quoted on Twitter
Concludes with “Ministers should put this DeLorean of the Deep out of its misery”. Couldn't be put better.

[rolando]

Is the future expensive French imports?

[Ali G]

Still can't work out what purpose this Icelandic interconnect is to serve - other than line the pockets of those constructing that interconnect.

Was this idea conceived during the Icelandic mid-summer madness festival?

[PRTVR]

Read the comments, a puff piece of PR, if it was a sensible idea it would connect at the first point of the national grid, most of the components will come from mainland Europe or Asia ,
I am struggling to see any job gains in all this.

[WatchfulEye]

PRTVR said:

Read the comments, a puff piece of PR, if it was a sensible idea it would connect at the first point of the national grid, most of the components will come from mainland Europe or Asia ,
I am struggling to see any job gains in all this.

The national grid is critically constrained at several points. In particular, the Scottish part of the grid is weak and heavily constrained, to the point that national grid are not able reliably to deliver energy generated by Scottish wind farms. As a result, national grid have already commissioned HVDC undersea cables between Scotland and Wales, and had scoped work for an East coast Scotland-to-England undersea HVDC cable, although this has not been progressed.

One of the major grid constraints is just South of Peterhead, which would be an "obvious" landing site for an Icelandic cable. However, constraints mean that Nat Grid were actually planning to run power North to Peterhead, then undersea down to Teeside.

There are also constraints in the North of England, including between Teeside and Yorkshire, which would need to be upgraded, but the distances are smaller than in Scotland, and the Yorkshire and Midland regions of the grid are already very strong and would not need major works to accommodate strengthened North-South power lines.

So, given that there are already N-S connection constraints within GB, it makes sense to connect an Icelandic interconnector further South, especially as there was already work underway to plan an undersea interconnector terminating at the same place.

This could be less of an issue if planners and DECC did not have such a phobia of powerlines. However, it is near impossible to develop new power transmission lines these days. A case in point is the electricity supply to Wigan, where the local distribution network identified a risk of power shortages due to rapidly rising demand in 2005; this was of sufficient risk that this represented a breach of the terms of their electricity distribution licence. They immediately engineered a solution which would involve running a power line on wooden power poles across farmland from Kirkby near Liverpool, to Wigan. This was held up for 2 years in local planning (e.g. the power lines would run 1/4 mile behind a grade 2 listed farmhouse which, incidentally, had local power distribution lines in front of it). Eventually local planning was granted, and it fell to the DECC to give consent as they had final authority over any new powerline. At this point, the process stalled for 7 years because of concerns over migration of pink-footed geese. The powerline was finally commissionned in December 2015 - 10 years after the problem had been identified as sufficiently serious to represent a breach of the legal requirements for grid reliability.

[Talksteer]

robinessex said:

What we going to do with the nasty waste it generated? Hope that's been costed into the project.

Nope it's been massively overestimated and then priced in.

[robinessex]

Oh look, windy is at 0.8% at the moment. Good job it's June and not January !!!

[MYOB]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

It is an unsurprising 'No' for the Tidal Project.....


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wal...

I was involved (on Government's side) on this proposal in the early days. I'm not surprised with this decision.

[Huntsman]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

It is an unsurprising 'No' for the Tidal Project.....


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wal...

I never thought that would fly.

[Ali G]

Wind? Nope
Solar? Nope
Coal? Nope
Interconnects? Nope
Nuclear? Could be!
CCGT? Absolutely!

http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

And the high pressure is set to continue - hope there's enough gas.

[irc]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

Lights went out ?

I see Coal is also at Zero

What is this whichcraft that allows the grid to continue to work ? Oh. thats right : a balance and spread.
Solar tends to work when there is no wind in the summer after all..

Though not at night.

[Evanivitch]

MYOB said:

I was involved (on Government's side) on this proposal in the early days. I'm not surprised with this decision.

Do you care to expand?

Undoubtedly it wasn't a cheap option, but it was reported that it was comparable to Nuclear strike rate.

The feeling in South Wales is this is yet another example of Westminster being prepared to spend big elsewhere but leaving South Wales to rot. And on the same day Heathrow will probably get approved to expand it's absolutely valid sentiment.

[MYOB]

Evanivitch said:

MYOB said:

I was involved (on Government's side) on this proposal in the early days. I'm not surprised with this decision.

Do you care to expand?

I'm bound by the Official Secrets Act

[Dixy]

MYOB said:

Evanivitch said:

MYOB said:

I was involved (on Government's side) on this proposal in the early days. I'm not surprised with this decision.

Do you care to expand?

I'm bound by the Official Secrets Act

I know your answer is flippant but it is typical of the short sighted bureaucrats that seem to have totally missed the point, the strike price was less than nuclear and in 50 years it keeps going rather than costing millions to decommission.

[MYOB]

Dixy said:

MYOB said:

Evanivitch said:

MYOB said:

I was involved (on Government's side) on this proposal in the early days. I'm not surprised with this decision.

Do you care to expand?

I'm bound by the Official Secrets Act

I know your answer is flippant but it is typical of the short sighted bureaucrats that seem to have totally missed the point, the strike price was less than nuclear and in 50 years it keeps going rather than costing millions to decommission.

I think it's you who are missing the point. This was a massive project with huge and complex issues that required solutions from the developers and other stakeholders but the problem was, solutions were not provided in a satisfactory way. The strike price was just one issue - there were 100s of others. Primarily around environmental and residual liability issues. For instance, no-one was willing to take responsibility for the sea wall after 120 years in terms of maintenance and so on. There were issues around the financial security (to reduce liabilities fallen to the public) and to be frank, it would have been a huge risk if the project was built with no financial security upfront (what if the developers went bankrupt during construction - who would pay for removing the infrastructure?).

The "short sighted bureaucrats" worked their socks off working with everyone trying to identify solutions - they invited the developers to offer solutions and so on. A lot of the time, no-one had adequate solutions that would help ensure the millions/billions of pounds didn't fall on the public purse.

[Talksteer]

Evanivitch said:

MYOB said:

I was involved (on Government's side) on this proposal in the early days. I'm not surprised with this decision.

Do you care to expand?

Undoubtedly it wasn't a cheap option, but it was reported that it was comparable to Nuclear strike rate.

The feeling in South Wales is this is yet another example of Westminster being prepared to spend big elsewhere but leaving South Wales to rot. And on the same day Heathrow will probably get approved to expand it's absolutely valid sentiment.

The price was very high the amount of power generated was low and not totally dispatchable as the tide can't be switched on and off.

The strike price offered for the project was about the same as the abysmally procured Hinkley Point C apart from:

1: It was for 90 years not 35 years
2: To hit that price there was a sweetheart loan from the Welsh government, actual price would be more like £130/MWh otherwise
3: The nuclear price will drop eventually to more like £40/MWh, there was little evidence that tidal lagoons will ever get much cheaper.

[Evanivitch]

MYOB said:

I think it's you who are missing the point. This was a massive project with huge and complex issues that required solutions from the developers and other stakeholders but the problem was, solutions were not provided in a satisfactory way. The strike price was just one issue - there were 100s of others. Primarily around environmental and residual liability issues. For instance, no-one was willing to take responsibility for the sea wall after 120 years in terms of maintenance and so on. There were issues around the financial security (to reduce liabilities fallen to the public) and to be frank, it would have been a huge risk if the project was built with no financial security upfront (what if the developers went bankrupt during construction - who would pay for removing the infrastructure?).

The "short sighted bureaucrats" worked their socks off working with everyone trying to identify solutions - they invited the developers to offer solutions and so on. A lot of the time, no-one had adequate solutions that would help ensure the millions/billions of pounds didn't fall on the public purse.

It all sounds like centralised government is willing to take those risks everywhere else for a good news story, but not in South Wales.

Whilst the points are valid we are quite literally talking about a concrete wall. In 5 years, 50 year of 120 years it is still a concrete wall. How can we get past the liability issues of nuclear power but not a concrete wall!?

Also, liability doesn't seem to concern government when opencast mines get abandoned and company directors close shop because all the cash was siphoned off before their obligation to return the land to good use.

[Dixy]

Its not a concrete wall, most of it would be dredged from the sea bed locally for which the state planed to charge them £1.50 per tone.
After 120 years you worry about maintenance, when has guberment ever thought that far ahead.

this was not only an opportunity to do something worthwhile it would also give us a world leading knowledge base that we could sell on.

[Dixy]

Deleted duplicate post

Edited by Dixy on Tuesday 26th June 12:34

[LongQ]

Dixy said:

Its not a concrete wall, most of it would be dredged from the sea bed locally for which the state planed to charge them £1.50 per tone.
After 120 years you worry about maintenance, when has guberment ever thought that far ahead.

this was not only an opportunity to do something worthwhile it would also give us a world leading knowledge base that we could sell on.

If it's really that good then no doubt the local entrepreneurs, maybe the ever present Sir Terry Matthews, could put a consortium together to build it with the help of the Welsh Government (an resource of a type that is not available in England) whereby the use of some local taxes could fund the development and research. This would give the people living in Wales a global identity and an opportunity to profit from the knowledge and expertise that could be sold around the world. Or at least to anywhere with a suitable location for undertaking something similar and a power requirement that could not be satisfied in some other way. Plus enough demand for the recreational side of the concept to balance the books.

Right now pumping tax money into more proven concepts looks like a better deal.

Not necessarily a good deal, but a better deal on the basis of an achievable outcome.