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Hinkley Point C: Electricity from new British nuclear power plant costs >15c/kWh
- chris222 3y agoRenewable wind power comes in at a fraction of the cost.
- RobinL 3y agoTo put it in context, the current price of electricity from Octopus on a new contract is about 30p/kWh. These high prices are a historical anomaly due to the high price of gas in Europe, but still, I think it's relevant context. I imagine this price is not strictly comparable to the one quoted in the article since it includes various additional factors such as tax, network costs etc
- chris222 3y agoNot comparable. Wholesale market vs residential price is not the same.
- mytailorisrich 3y agoIt is always overlooked, though, that a nuclear plant can deliver its rated output whenever needed, day in, day out.
- chris222 3y agoThats good for steady baseload but actually a problem since our demand is quite variable and spinning up and down Nuclear is hard.
- mytailorisrich 3y agoIt's less of a problem than not having electricity because there's no wind or it's night. And with EVs the demand is going to massively increase. It's good to have as much renewables as possible but it's also very needed and useful to have Hinkley C.
- chris222 3y agoUtility scale battery storage is already here which solves that issue. The price of renewables + storage is cheaper (there have been PPAs in the 8-12 cent range). Also electric cars are not the demand generators that people think. I live in the New England region and our NE ISO has studied this and put out their forecast for the region already. Heat pumps are a much bigger issue. https://www.iso-ne.com/static-assets/documents/2023/04/transfx2023_final.pdf https://www.iso-ne.com/static-assets/documents/2023/04/trans...