New report: How Scotland’s new energy company could revive renewable energy in Scotland

New report:  How Scotland’s new energy company could revive renewable energy in Scotland

In a new report published by Nuclear Free Local Authorities, Dr David Toke of the University of Aberdeen argues that the best business strategy for the Scottish Government’s proposed Energy Company will be to enable new renewable energy schemes to be established. To do this, the Scottish Government needs to offer long term guarantees of minimum electricity prices for electricity from new renewable energy schemes.

Dr Toke said “The Scottish Government has a great opportunity to become the UK leader in the supply of green energy. It can achieve this if its proposed Energy Company is able to offer long term power purchase agreements for new onshore wind and solar projects. But if the SG’s new Energy Company relies on the common practice of electricity companies of sourcing renewable energy from projects that have already been established on the back of Westminster based incentives then it will fail to impress – and also miss out on a great opportunity to steal a march on its energy supply competitors. The Scottish Government needs to offer guaranteed long term pries for electricity generated from new renewable energy schemes”

Executive summary

The Scottish Government’s commitment to start an energy company could re-energise renewable energy in Scotland and deliver electricity at competitive prices for the consumer. The key objective for a new Scottish Energy Company (SEC) must be, in marketing terms, to demonstrate how it can offer a superior product compared to its competitors at a price that is no higher than that offered by its competitors. The SEC could out-sell rival competitors by giving long term power purchase agreements to new renewable energy schemes. This will achieve a ‘quality’ selling point that will be unmatched by other electricity suppliers. Although various electricity suppliers boast that their supplies come from renewable energy, usually they only offer PPAs to renewable energy schemes that have been given support on Westminster incentive schemes, the Renewables Obligation and feed-in tariff - and which thus already exist.  The Energy Company initiative should be backed by activities of the Scottish National Investment Bank to offer loans to new renewable energy projects. There are a number of potential renewable energy projects that can be implemented for prices at or below recent levels in wholesale power prices meaning that the Scottish Energy Company could give PPAs to such companies and deliver electricity to consumers at the same or lower prices than other electricity suppliers.

A copy of the report can be accessed at http://www.nuclearpolicy.info/briefings/nfla-policy-briefing-177-how-scotlands-new-energy-company-could-revive-renewable-energy-in-scotland/

For some coverage see 
http://www.thenational.scot/news/16389541.expert-backs-plan-for-publicly-owned-scottish-energy-company/
and:

https://www.energyvoice.com/other-news/178109/scottish-publicly-owned-energy-firm-could-bring-cheaper-bills-expert-claims/

Renewables generated close to 30 per of UK electricity in 2017: set to top 50 per cent by 2025

Today's UK energy statistics reveal that renewable electricity generation increased by around 20 per cent in just one year so that 29.3 per cent of electricity consumed came from renewable energy in 2017. If at least 80 per cent of the offshore windfarms now in different stages of planning (let alone other renewable energy sources) come online, as could be expected, in the next 7 years, then renewable energy will comprise half of total UK electricity generation by 2025.

In 2017 renewable energy's proportion of electricity consumed increased from 24.5 per cent in 2016 to 29.3 per cent in 2017. Making up the 29.3 per cent figure around 15 per cent came from wind power, 4 per cent from solar pv, 2 per cent from natural flow hydro and 8 per cent from various biomass sources. All other major categories fell, with natural gas supplying around 40 per cent, nuclear 21 per cent, and coal just 7 per cent.

As if the massive and continuing increase of renewable electricity (up from around 3 per cent in the year 2000) wasn't enough of a slap in the face for the industrial establishment's earlier sneering at green energy projections, electricity consumption fell once again in the year 2017 compared to 2016. Electricity consumption is now 9 per cent less than it was in 2010.

Meanwhile over 20 GWe of offshore wind are in various stages of planning and construction. In total these would generate around 25 per cent of UK electricity. Since the Government are saying they will hold auctions for offshore wind and some other renewables in 2019 and 2021 this means that a lot of them will be built by 2025. Of course we are going to have substantially more onshore wind and solar by 2025 to buttress these figures (although the Government are doing very little to help) meaning that electricity generated from renewable energy will top 50 per cent of total consumption in 2025/6.

See https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/729379/Ch5.pdf

Wave power - new bottom up development?

One of the new designs for wave power is looking to enter the energy market via small scale scale applications - as such it is a different approach to the stand-alone mode often proposed for wave power devices - a strategy that seems to have faltered in recent times.

The new approach is about developing the technology in a bottom up fashion by finding 'local' markets rather than sending power into the grid. That means the technology can start off small, and then grow, which is how innovation usually develops

The technology company is called 'Resen Waves'. The device is designed to be a small device (initially 300W) that could provide power for sensors and other small power applications in the offshore oil and gas market - well, that's one way that the oil industry could give renewable energy a break! But its still needs some partners and demonstrations schemes to get it going.

Per Resen Steenstrup, the founder of the Resen Waves company which is now active in Aberdeen, tells me that it is in the Danish renewable energy tradition of incrementally building up from small beginnings. That's right of course - the wind power industry started in Denmark in its modern form at the end of the 1970s and early 1980s using small machines. The concept behind Resen Waves is that it can build up from small beginnings by finding and developing niche markets.The company behind the technology says that it is 'the first company in the World to provide continuous power and real-time data connectivity to autonomous instruments and machinery in the sea, as a plug and play solution'.

You can read more about Resen Waves at http://www.resenwaves.com/

How the Committee on Climate Change gave the Government dud advice

The Climate Change Act has been celebrating its 10th anniversary, but there is surprisingly little to celebrate in the earlier advice of the Committee on Climate Change (CCC). The CCC is the body created to advise the Government on the achievement of the carbon reduction commitments (80 per cent of 1990 levels by 2050). You would expect the advice of the CCC to speed the Government's low carbon programme, but in the crucial aspect of electricity supply policy it has (in the past) actually damaged it!

Looking back on its past, it looks like the Committee gave completely the wrong advice to the Government, advice which, alas, they still seem to be following now. 

In particular, in the 'Renewable Energy Review' issued in 2011 (1) (which I criticised at the time), the CCC, urged the Government to cut back the targets for offshore wind and instead focus on nuclear power. They told the Government not to be put off by the Fukushima disaster that had happened earlier that year. According to the Times Report on May 9th 2011 ''The Committee on Climate Change says heavy reliance on offshore wind could result in unacceptable increases in fuel bills.' (2) David Kennedy, the then Chief Executive of CCC said that 'Nuclear looks like it will be the lowest cost for the next decade or two'. Indeed the Review stated that nuclear power was currently 'the most cost effective of the low carbon technologies' (1). That conclusion, given the cost of onshore wind, was highly challengable at the time, especially as given the existing record of nuclear power plant that had been built in the UK and the roll-out of onshore wind. Whereas the deployment of renewable energy has soared ahead, despite the best efforts of many in the Conservatives to block it, nuclear power plans set out in 2010 have proved to be fantasy. And, of course, offshore wind costs have tumbled rapidly making the CCC's earlier pronouncements looking especially silly.

As the Times report of May 9th 2011 stated ''Before the Fukushima disaster the Government had been planning to build 12 new reactors on seven sites by 2025'.  Of course there is no chance that there will be even one reactor by then, let alone 12. The only deal signed so far, Hinkley C, has been achieved at great cost to the British electricity consumer. The scheme only survives because the French taxpayer already has stumped up several billions to subsidise the deal. No doubt more will be needed further down the line more as cost overruns escalating as they always do (and no doubt British taxpayers ending up with further commitments to finish the job). A deal is being discussed for the Wylfa project with Hitachi that will see British taxpayers 'invest' in the project (as well as paying high premium prices for the power in their electricity bills) that will make them liable for a large chunk of the almost inevitable costs overruns.

Yet onshore wind and solar pv projects that can be delivered at no extra cost to the consumer are being denied  contracts for differences that would deliver the power much, much more cheaply for taxpayers and electricity consumers than nuclear power. The Government seems in no hurry either to prepare for new offshore windfarms which are now much cheaper to deliver than new nuclear power.

The UK has been relatively successful in reducing its carbon emissions. Indeed, according to Carbon Brief (3) the UK has reduced its emissions by 38 per cent compared to 1990. That is due to a reduction in electricity use this century (partly a result of energy efficiency policies), more energy efficient buildings, and a switch away from coal to gas and renewable energy. Renewable energy has grown, as a proportion of electricity supply, from 1 per cent in 1990 to around 30 per cent today. By 2020 this will be close to 35 per cent. Most of this increase has occurred this century having being kickstarted by the last Labour Government, especially under Ed Miliband who set out some ambitious plans for offshore wind which were later cutback in the context of the disastrous advice from the CCC.  

In more recent times, at least, the CCC, has been a bit more positive for renewables, and indeed Lord Deben, the Chair, has recently chided the Government on its lack of incentives for onshore wind. The CCC has a new CEO in the shape of Chris Stark whose previous job was Director of Climate Policy for the Scottish Government. At least we shouldn't get any disastrous advice from him!



(1) Committee on Climate Change (2011) 'Renewable Energy Review', https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/the-renewable-energy-review/

(2), Webster, B., (2011) 'Set Aside fears and build reactors not wind turbines says climate watchdog', Times, May 9th 

(3) Carbon Brief (2018) 'Analysis: How UK carbon emissions fell to their lowest levels since 1890', https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-carbon-emissions-in-2017-fell-to-levels-last-seen-in-1890

Wylfa: How the Tories are deliberately forgetting their nuclear lessons

For the sake of artificially massaging down the price paid for electricity from the proposed Wylfa nuclear plant  the Government is about to commit the country to pay for billions of pounds of almost inevitable construction cost overruns. In doing so the Tories will be junking their opposition to doing such a thing. In 2010 The Conservative Party election manifesto stated that: ‘we agree
with the nuclear industry that taxpayer and consumer subsidies should not and
will not be provided – in particular there must be no public underwriting of
construction cost overruns’(1)

There was a very good reason for this manifesto commitment. None of the nuclear power plant currently operating in the UK were constructed according to their original cost estimates. They were built during the time when electricity was nationalised, and so the costs were spread around all consumers and there was limited transparency about the economics of building nuclear plants. The Tories decided that there should be no more wastage of public money on nuclear plant which soaked the public purse. They wanted competition in electricity generation.

According to the Electricity Market Reform law (initially proposed at the end of 2010) nuclear power should only have the same incentives as other low carbon fuels. But it has emerged that if this was done literally, there would not be any nuclear power stations built since various other low carbon options are much cheaper. But now that memories of the past problems with building nuclear power plant have receded from, or been airbrushed from, political memory, this principle has been gradually stripped away to return us to the past. The past of the nuclear blank cheque.

Nick Butler in the Financial Times has made some perceptive comments on this peculiar deal (2). He is one of the few who has done some serious thinking about how it can possibly be the case that the Wylfa project will be sold on a 'cheaper' price than Hinkley C (£92.50 per MWh in 2013 prices) despite the fact that the projected cost of building Wylfa is actually higher than Hinklrey C per GW of capacity (see my previous blog post). Prices around £75 per MWh have been kited as the suggested price tag for Wylfa for electricity consumers.

The price of the contract given to EDF to build Hinkley C was seen to be very large. So there was great political pressure to reduce this price. But the nature of nuclear power is that it is very expensive, so all the Government could do was to fake the price by giving 'below the counter' financial incentives. Of course this price can be reduced on paper if the state takes at least part of the risk and invests and lends money at cheap rates. But in real life not only is this mechanism not being made available to other low carbon fuels, but the taxpayer will end up paying a much higher price than advertised through a different route - when the time comes for the project investors (including the Government) to pay for the almost inevitable cost overruns.

The remarkable thing is that despite this effort at price fakery, the price agreed will still be a lot higher than that available for installing large amounts of onshore wind offshore wind and solar power.

The nuclear industry appears to have lobbied successfully for this return to the past, a past where nuclear power was financed by opaque means, and its expensive nature hidden by the fact that the state effectively offered the developers a blank cheque. Of course the British body politic will find out to its disgust that there will be billions of pounds paid out when the fund initially vested in the development is exhausted - thus revealing the grotesque fakery of the allegedly 'cheaper' price of the Wylfa project compared to Hinkley C. That won't happen for quite a few years since, no doubt, despite the usual wildly optimistic projections of delivery dates, the plant will not be constructed for a number of years yet. It will be long enough to ensure that the architects of this sorry deal are out of office and unavailable for comment from their retirement mansions.

(1) Conservative Party, 2010. Rebuilding security – conservative energy policy in an uncertain
world, page 18

(2) Nick Butler, 'Stake in nuclear plant would be dramatic change of policy for UK' Financial Times, 4/06/2018 https://www.ft.com/content/7ba55ce6-63f3-11e8-90c2-9563a0613e56

Hitachi's Wylfa project is even more expensive than Hinkley C

A fake price for the faltering proposed Wylfa nuclear plant will obscure the fact that the project, backed by Hitachi, will be even more expensive than Hinkley C. Negotiators for the Wylfa project are clamouring for the Government to use taxpayers money and a commitment to pay at least some of the risks of construction cost overruns to massage the price of the deal down compared to Hinkley Point C. If this is done, then the combined support for Hinkley C and Wylfa projects through loan guarantees, equity support and risk underwriting could rival the size of bill the UK has to pay the EU for Brexit. But a carefully contrived fake price produced by giving a massive taxpayer funded handout to the project will obscure this terrible consequence.

Hinkley Point C (HPC), scheduled to be built by EDF, is now said to cost around £20 billion, almost exactly the same as the cost of the Hitachi-led Wylfa project. In fact both of these figures do not appear to include interest charges, and so will be underestimates of the total mount of money needed to be paid out before the plant is even built. But the interesting thing is that whilst the Hinkley C project is 3.2GW, the Wylfa project is smaller, at around 2.9 GW, which actually makes the Hitachi project even more expensive!

The costs have jumped upwards for the Wylfa project because the developers have to meet UK safety standards. Indeed this fact undermines a lot of wishful thinking and confusion among nuclear supporters who look at the costs of constructing projects in places like South Korea and the UAE and suppose that they can be transposed to the UK. They cannot, because the British public expect higher safety standards, and these are required by the Office for Nuclear Regulation.

Hinkley C is routinely quoted as having been given a 'contract for difference' (CfD) worth £92.50 per MWh payable over 35 years, underpinned by what seems likely to be a loan guarantee of maybe £15bn or more. Note that the £92.50 per MWh price is in 2012 prices, and that today this is worth just over £100 per MWh given that the contract is uprated using the Consumer Price Index (CPI). This price will be paid by electricity consumers (over 35 years) once the project starts operating. But the thing to watch over even more is the massive sums that may flow from the Treasury in taxpayers money before the project generates a single KWh. The scale of potential losses is likely to be made much worse (by comparison) under the terms of the deal that its supporters are advocating for the Hitachi project at Wylfa.

Of course the Government do not want to be seen to give a similar price for the Hitachi project as the HPC project; hence the attempt to massage down such a figure by the ruse of the Government handing over taxpayers money to the consortium long before the project is generating any electricity.

Figures of around £70 per MWh have been suggested for Wylfa, based on what is euphemistically described as the 'Government taking an equity share'. This is still a lot more than renewable energy projects such as onshore wind and solar farms (effectively banned by the Government) or even offshore wind, whose costs have been tumbling to well below £70 per MWh in recent contracts awarded in the UK, The Netherlands, Germany and Denmark. Of course all of these projects run onmuch shorter contracts than HPC and they certainly don't get any loan guarantees or 'equity' support from the governments. But expect a lot of bloated estimates of dealing with 'intermittency' to excuse such differences. But a major problem in any cost comparison is that the nuclear price of any Wylfa deal will have been faked

Of course you can reduce the contract paid for ANY power project if the Government pays for part of it! We could (supposedly) have wind and solar power for free on this basis! So this process will be just a giant exercise in fakery, but one that has large and potentially catastrophic impact on the nation's finances.

Contrary to what the Government claims, if the they do offer loan guarantees to EDF for building Hinkley C, then the Government will have to start paying out in the (extremely likely) instance that the project suffers cost overruns and is not completed on time. So the UK could be liable for up to around £15 billion on this deal alone - even before electricity consumer start paying out on the very high price that has been agreed to pay for HPC's electricity.

But it gets much worse with the proposed Hitachi deal. There the Government's liability could, in theory, be open-ended. Not only will the Government be giving an initial handout to Hitachi of several billion pounds for what is called an 'equity' share in the project, but the Government will also at least share part of the risk of paying for (again almost inevitable) cost overruns on the project. This will be on top of the loans guarantees, similar in nature to those to be offered to HPC.

To top is all of course, the reactor earmarked for Wylfa, the 'Advanced' Boiling Water Reactor, has a rather chequered operating record in Japan.

So if up to, say, £15 bn of taxpayers money is at risk through HPC's loan guarantee scheme, the same will be the case for Wylfa and top of this will be billions handed out in the public 'equity' share PLUS a share of any of the cost overruns. The cost of leaving the EU through payments to the EU Commission has been variously estimated as being £30-£40 billion, so the cost of our nuclear programme will rival, perhaps even exceed that. And that is before we include the high costs that electricity consumers will have to pay over 35 years!


Report: see:
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-nuclear-hitachi/hitachis-u-k-nuclear-project-to-get-guarantees-from-government-media-idUKKBN1IA0IV?rpc=401&

Why the 2018 local elections were a good result for Labour

The local election results were a good result for Labour in that if the results were simply transpositioned to a General Election then Jeremy Corbyn would be Prime Minister. Arguments saying that Labour will necessarily do worse at a real General Election don't wash.

Ok it wasn't exactly a landslide Labour surge, but Labour did improve significantly on its 2014 result. The projections made would put Corbyn into office. See https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/992487750661279745

 Moreover the Liberal Democrat and Green Party vote went up as well, which, indirectly is also good news for Labour for the simple reason that a lot of these voters would vote tactically for the Labour candidate in a General Election in marginal Tory-Labour seats. Hence Labour could actually end up with a significant lead in seats over the Tories at a General Election - and remember, the Tories only need to lose 10 of their current seats and Corbyn will be Prime Minister. In theory under some scenarios the Lib Dems might go with the Tories again to keep them in power, but in reality the revulsion of Lib Dems (led by Vince Cable especially) against re-visiting this option would be likely to allow Labour to form a Government.

On the other hand comparisons with Miliband's experience of doing moderately well in 2014 and then losing in 2015 don't carry much weight. Why? Well because in 2015 substantial numbers of UKIP supporters voted tactically for the Tories in order to get the EU Referendum, which turned out (for them) to be a winning strategy. But now with UKIP collapsing UKIP voters have returned to their former folds and so by definition there won't be much UKIP tactical voting at the next election, and much less motivation to do so anyway. So, in contrast to 2014, the Labour vote is more solidly placed for the next General Election. Indeed, as I have argued, the tactical voting possibilities are actually positive for Labour at the next GE, as opposed to being rather negative for them in 2015.

Hence this is a good result for Labour. The Tories face an uncertain economic future. The UK has practically the lowest growth rate among OECD countries. The 'Leavers' in the Conservative Party may say this is not caused by us leaving the EU. - But that only puts blame on the Tory Government. So, unless there's a a major upswing in the economy thing may actually be pretty good for Labour overall.