In pursuit of a complete failure to understand the problems with its own 'capacity market' Ofgem seems about to make things a whole lot worse by reducing capacity margins - by taking away the incentives to a lot of small scale generators whose existence helps to keep the electricity sector running.
Ofgem runs on a piece of fantasy theory that the capacity market will work better if the 'distorting' benefits to so-called 'embedded;' generators are taken away. In fact the opposite it the case. Ofgem's concern that proposed big gas power stations cannot win bids at sufficiently low prices to put them into business partly because of the small generators is total nonsense. Without the small generators the price at which the required capacity will be supplied by the big power stations will increase not fall. The problem has to do with the principles and practice of the capacity market, and has nothing to do with the small generators who currently provide a valuable service. Ofgem's actions are akin to destroying a table leg in order to save the table.
The central problem is that future prices for electricity that the power stations could sell on the wholesale power markets are very uncertain, and quite likely to fall. Given this it will require very high capacity market prices (which will put consumer energy bills up by large amounts) to evince the capacity that Ofgem wants from gas fired power stations.
A big part of the problem of course is that increasing parts of electricity supply are being paid for outside of the wholesale power markets, through the Renewables Obligation or contracts for difference. This will only increase in the future, especially if Hinkley C comes on line (whenever that may be). Note: this has nothing to do with so-called renewables 'intermittency' , it is to do with 'liquidity' being siphoned away from the wholeslae power markets to pay for low carbon energy sources - which has to be done of course, otherwise they will not come on line.
The answer to all of this is to offer new generators firm long term contracts so that they can have income guarantees in the future - this may involve some sort of 'take or pay' scheme for all generators at least, in the form of a contracts for difference arrangement as applied to the generators. - But this approach is bound to end up being a lot cheaper than the Government's current approach which consists on the one hand of giving the capacity payments to every generator and on the other hand (in these proposals) of driving the small generators out of business by taking away the income they need to provide capacity to the whole of the system.
The problem has a lot to do with ideology. Ofgem and civil servants seriously believe that somehow in a world of decarbonisation you can run wholesale power markets according to some imaginary free market trading arrangement. People must learn to be more pragmatic and tear themselves away from economic models that have little bearing on the real world.
For the story on Ofgem's proposals see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/09/24/industry-faces-160m-energy-hit-under-overhaul-of-power-plant-rul/
Monday, 26 September 2016
Tuesday, 20 September 2016
All green energy supporters should shun the Tories and join a Progressive Alliance
The Green Party and Jonathon Porritt have been organising campaigns to unite people to form a 'Progressive Alliance' that would co-ordinate efforts to defeat the Conservatives. There is hardly an area for which this is not more necessary than green energy. That means renewable energy and energy conservation.
Tories who oppose support for renewable energy are getting their way despite the fact that green energy is much more popular than nuclear power or fracking which is their preferred means of deriving energy. This is despite the fact that both of these options are much more difficult to deliver compared to renewables or energy efficiency.
Behind the spectacle of Hinkley C Point being, in reality, postponed again (until at least 2026) because of the inability of the nuclear industry to deliver, the Government refuses to offer contracts to several thousand MW of onshore wind that are in the planning system, or solar farms that could be quickly put together. It has postponed the issuing of contracts for new offshore windfarms. Targets for zero net energy housing have been abandoned. Local authorities have been stripped of their powers to make developers build buildings to a higher energy efficiency standard than the minimum requirements. As the UK leaves the EU the right wing will be straining at the leash to cut down the environmental protection rules, including EU inspired energy efficiency standards for machines and buildings. I could go on.......
All the Government seems likely to do now is to oversee the ramping up of incentives for fossil fuel power plant under the capacity mechanism and think of crazy schemes to fund nuclear power through back-door blank cheques.
Of course the predominantly anti-green Brexiteers hold green energy to ransom. Despite the fact that green energy is very popular the anti-green faction hides behind a front of xenophobia to push through policies that the public really does not want. It's classic right wing politics of course.
So it seems nothing will change until we get rid of the Tories. Divided the centre and left will fall. Together we can win.
See Jonathan Porrit's blog for some general further thoughts: http://www.jonathonporritt.com/blog/progressive-alliance-laying-foundations
Tories who oppose support for renewable energy are getting their way despite the fact that green energy is much more popular than nuclear power or fracking which is their preferred means of deriving energy. This is despite the fact that both of these options are much more difficult to deliver compared to renewables or energy efficiency.
Behind the spectacle of Hinkley C Point being, in reality, postponed again (until at least 2026) because of the inability of the nuclear industry to deliver, the Government refuses to offer contracts to several thousand MW of onshore wind that are in the planning system, or solar farms that could be quickly put together. It has postponed the issuing of contracts for new offshore windfarms. Targets for zero net energy housing have been abandoned. Local authorities have been stripped of their powers to make developers build buildings to a higher energy efficiency standard than the minimum requirements. As the UK leaves the EU the right wing will be straining at the leash to cut down the environmental protection rules, including EU inspired energy efficiency standards for machines and buildings. I could go on.......
All the Government seems likely to do now is to oversee the ramping up of incentives for fossil fuel power plant under the capacity mechanism and think of crazy schemes to fund nuclear power through back-door blank cheques.
Of course the predominantly anti-green Brexiteers hold green energy to ransom. Despite the fact that green energy is very popular the anti-green faction hides behind a front of xenophobia to push through policies that the public really does not want. It's classic right wing politics of course.
So it seems nothing will change until we get rid of the Tories. Divided the centre and left will fall. Together we can win.
See Jonathan Porrit's blog for some general further thoughts: http://www.jonathonporritt.com/blog/progressive-alliance-laying-foundations
Wednesday, 7 September 2016
‘The newest windfarm in Aberdeenshire – a good omen for renewable energy?’
‘The newest windfarm in Aberdeenshire – a good omen for renewable energy?’
Roger McMichael from the company ENGIE who are building the Cairnborrow windfarm in north west Aberdeenshire will be coming along to talk on Friday September 16th at noon in room New Kings (NK) 3 at the Kings College, University of Aberdeen. He will talk about renewable energy policy as well as the windfarm that is currently under construction. You can see some details of the windfarm at http://www.westcoastenergy.co.uk/…/work-begins-on-10mw-cai…/
You can see the position of New Kings Building at:http://www.abdn.ac.uk/about/campus/maps/view/36/
All are invited to this meeting.
You can see the position of New Kings Building at:http://www.abdn.ac.uk/about/campus/maps/view/36/
All are invited to this meeting.
Saturday, 3 September 2016
EDF leaders get desperate over Hinkley C
EDF leaders are now in such a state of panic over their Hinkley C proposals that desperate messages were being sent out to tell the British Government that they need to take a £6 billion equity share in the proposal. Signals are coming from Downing Street that the Government wants to decouple Hinkley C from the 'deal' with China allowing them to build their own nuclear power plant at Bradwell. The Chinese have responded that they would no longer be interested in funding their (approx one third) share of Hinkley C.
A Chinese response of withdrawing from the Hinkley C deal would be entirely logical from their point of view since the only point of taking a huge risk of funding Hinkley C would be the possibility (in their imagination at least) of opening up a western market for their own nuclear power stations. The 'deal' with China was always a bizarre arrangement compared to the normalities of building power plant and really reflects earlier desperate attempts by EDF and some pro-nuclear allies in the UK to prop up what had become, by 2012, a project of increasingly dubious commercial realities.
I know that some people still occasionally produce projections that on the basis of the now notorious 35 year contract to pay EDF £92.5 per MWh in 2012 prices (now worth about £97 per MWh) EDF can still make a profit on a rate of return of around 7 per cent. But, and this is a VERY important 'But' without a) the ability to finance the bulk of this from bank loans as opposed to equity capital which needs to be serviced by much higher returns and b) any reasonable certainty that the project would be delivered relatively close to projected cost and timescale, then the scheme is something that no sane boardroom in the private sector could possibly ever contemplate taking on.
The Treasury has quietly edged away from offering the sort of guarantees that would have allowed EDF to take out bank loans to finance the deal - fearing quite rightly that the guarantees would most likely be transformed in the fullness of time to a state funded blank cheque. Meanwhile the construction disasters for the Hinkley-style EPR models in Finland and France have made the achievement of cost and timescale delivery projections look like, as they say these days, a 'heroic' ambition.
So it is no surprise that there would be no private sector takers for the Hinkley C investment. Centrica withdrew their plans to invest in Hinkley C in 2012, and remember that the previous year the other privately owned big electricity companies had walked away from the British nuclear programme. But a foreign Government with their own techno-political agenda, China, then decided, in effect that Hinkley C might act as a 'loss leader' for their ambitions to be major nuclear exporters. I think this hope is much misplaced and that China should stick to exporting the solar panels, but I shall reserve that story for another time.
Of course if one country has a political agenda in investing in another, then it is hardly a surprise if the host country (in this case the UK) considers its own political agenda, as we read in the papers. But the point here is that this issue (China's involvement) only arises simply because the Hinkley deal is commercially inferior to the various other clean energy options that the UK has at its disposal, none of which will have any major problems in delivery or financing. The only problem here is that the Government does not want to offer any long term contracts for them - and is even (now) delaying offering contracts for some more offshore windfarms.
People can often be heard to say that nuclear power is needed to provide energy security. Yet what is remotely secure about the technology which you don't know whether or when it will be delivered? Indeed, this produces the opposite - insecurity!
EDF's desperate plea that the British Government take over the Chinese share in Hinkley C is unlikely to be welcomed by Treasury officials who would (or at least should) see that as tantamout to locking in the British state to shovelling money down a black hole, with a lot more inevitably following the first £6 billion equity.
See FT report: https://www.ft.com/content/0b80e672-70ea-11e6-a0c9-1365ce54b926#axzz4Io1bYUFm
A Chinese response of withdrawing from the Hinkley C deal would be entirely logical from their point of view since the only point of taking a huge risk of funding Hinkley C would be the possibility (in their imagination at least) of opening up a western market for their own nuclear power stations. The 'deal' with China was always a bizarre arrangement compared to the normalities of building power plant and really reflects earlier desperate attempts by EDF and some pro-nuclear allies in the UK to prop up what had become, by 2012, a project of increasingly dubious commercial realities.
I know that some people still occasionally produce projections that on the basis of the now notorious 35 year contract to pay EDF £92.5 per MWh in 2012 prices (now worth about £97 per MWh) EDF can still make a profit on a rate of return of around 7 per cent. But, and this is a VERY important 'But' without a) the ability to finance the bulk of this from bank loans as opposed to equity capital which needs to be serviced by much higher returns and b) any reasonable certainty that the project would be delivered relatively close to projected cost and timescale, then the scheme is something that no sane boardroom in the private sector could possibly ever contemplate taking on.
The Treasury has quietly edged away from offering the sort of guarantees that would have allowed EDF to take out bank loans to finance the deal - fearing quite rightly that the guarantees would most likely be transformed in the fullness of time to a state funded blank cheque. Meanwhile the construction disasters for the Hinkley-style EPR models in Finland and France have made the achievement of cost and timescale delivery projections look like, as they say these days, a 'heroic' ambition.
So it is no surprise that there would be no private sector takers for the Hinkley C investment. Centrica withdrew their plans to invest in Hinkley C in 2012, and remember that the previous year the other privately owned big electricity companies had walked away from the British nuclear programme. But a foreign Government with their own techno-political agenda, China, then decided, in effect that Hinkley C might act as a 'loss leader' for their ambitions to be major nuclear exporters. I think this hope is much misplaced and that China should stick to exporting the solar panels, but I shall reserve that story for another time.
Of course if one country has a political agenda in investing in another, then it is hardly a surprise if the host country (in this case the UK) considers its own political agenda, as we read in the papers. But the point here is that this issue (China's involvement) only arises simply because the Hinkley deal is commercially inferior to the various other clean energy options that the UK has at its disposal, none of which will have any major problems in delivery or financing. The only problem here is that the Government does not want to offer any long term contracts for them - and is even (now) delaying offering contracts for some more offshore windfarms.
People can often be heard to say that nuclear power is needed to provide energy security. Yet what is remotely secure about the technology which you don't know whether or when it will be delivered? Indeed, this produces the opposite - insecurity!
EDF's desperate plea that the British Government take over the Chinese share in Hinkley C is unlikely to be welcomed by Treasury officials who would (or at least should) see that as tantamout to locking in the British state to shovelling money down a black hole, with a lot more inevitably following the first £6 billion equity.
See FT report: https://www.ft.com/content/0b80e672-70ea-11e6-a0c9-1365ce54b926#axzz4Io1bYUFm
Thursday, 1 September 2016
Labour 's 'choose a policy' approach to nuclear power looks like chaos
With Labour trying to face several ways at once it looks more like chaos as the front bench tries to please everybody and fails to satisfy anybody at the same time.
Jeremy Corbyn is quoted (quite rightly in my view) as saying that 'Tories have just put up the cost of your electricity by giving a blank cheque to EDF for a power station that doesn’t work' See: https://dwpexamination.wordpress.com/2016/07/31/jeremy-corbyn-facing-backlash-from-unions-momentum-activist-and-shadow-business-minister-over-hinkley-c-nuclear-opposition-huffington-post/
On the other hand, Labour's energy spokesperson Barry Gardiner is said to be in favour of the Hinkley C power station but at a lower cost to the consumer. See Ian Fairlie's piece at:
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2988060/if_its_jobs_they_want_labour_and_the_unions_must_back_renewables_not_hinkley_c.html
How to reconcile these two views? Well, you could say that Labour wants to pay a slightly lower price for a power station 'that doesn't work'. Alternatively, you can just choose the particular policy that comes closest to your particular taste. That's one way of running a political party I suppose, though even (nay, I say, ESPECIALLY) the Green Party has somewhat more coherent policy responses than Labour!
As for the trade unions, well that depends on whether you are a French union or a British one. The British trade union position is that it's ok if somebody else pays for Hinkley C, and of course the French unions are opposing the deal because they know that they will end up paying a lot of money (and jobs) for it!
Of course, as Ian Fairlie argues, there's plenty of jobs in alternative clean energy sources to Hinkley. One estwhile Momentum supporter has attacked Corbyn as being an 'anarchist' for his position on Hinkley. Well, I'd more see the Labour position as being much closer to chaos! There's a big difference!
Jeremy Corbyn is quoted (quite rightly in my view) as saying that 'Tories have just put up the cost of your electricity by giving a blank cheque to EDF for a power station that doesn’t work' See: https://dwpexamination.wordpress.com/2016/07/31/jeremy-corbyn-facing-backlash-from-unions-momentum-activist-and-shadow-business-minister-over-hinkley-c-nuclear-opposition-huffington-post/
On the other hand, Labour's energy spokesperson Barry Gardiner is said to be in favour of the Hinkley C power station but at a lower cost to the consumer. See Ian Fairlie's piece at:
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2988060/if_its_jobs_they_want_labour_and_the_unions_must_back_renewables_not_hinkley_c.html
How to reconcile these two views? Well, you could say that Labour wants to pay a slightly lower price for a power station 'that doesn't work'. Alternatively, you can just choose the particular policy that comes closest to your particular taste. That's one way of running a political party I suppose, though even (nay, I say, ESPECIALLY) the Green Party has somewhat more coherent policy responses than Labour!
As for the trade unions, well that depends on whether you are a French union or a British one. The British trade union position is that it's ok if somebody else pays for Hinkley C, and of course the French unions are opposing the deal because they know that they will end up paying a lot of money (and jobs) for it!
Of course, as Ian Fairlie argues, there's plenty of jobs in alternative clean energy sources to Hinkley. One estwhile Momentum supporter has attacked Corbyn as being an 'anarchist' for his position on Hinkley. Well, I'd more see the Labour position as being much closer to chaos! There's a big difference!
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