The government has allocated the latest round of Contracts for Difference (CfD) for renewable energy, with several projects splitting opinion across the energy sector.
In particular, plans for a new biomass plant in Grangemouth, Scotland have raised the ire of environmentalists, with Biofuelwatch lambasting the government for its CfD award. The environmental organisation has long disputed biomass’s renewable credentials, claiming it drives deforestation and produces more CO2 than coal per unit of electricity. Biofuelwatch has also expressed disappointment that six ‘energy from waste’ projects across England and Wales have received CfD awards.
“We are dismayed to see yet more subsidies going to power stations that will burn biomass and waste – neither of which are remotely sustainable,” said Almuth Ernsting, co-director of Biofuelwatch.
“We are particularly shocked to see money awarded to a large biomass power station in Grangemouth, one which we must assume will burn imported wood pellets or woodchips, in an already heavily polluted town. The UK already burns more wood in power stations than we can produce annually, which causes forest destruction in other parts of the world such as the southern US. Awarding more money to power stations to burn more wood is only going to make this problem worse.”
But while Biofuelwatch questions the credibility of biomass as a renewable power source, others claim it is an important part of the efforts to decarbonise. Dr Tim Rotheray, director of the Association for Decentralised Energy (ADE), welcomed the new biomass CHP (combined heat and power) plants, which will add a total of 85.64 MW of capacity to the grid.
“Renewable CHP plants are a key way for industrial energy users to drive down emissions, support the power networks and remain competitive,” he said.
“Decarbonising industrial energy is particularly challenging and renewable CHP offers a key tool for industry.”
Another significant development revealed in the government’s figures is the increased competitiveness of offshore wind. Two of the selected projects – Hornsea 2 and Moray Offshore Windfarm – will receive strike prices of £57.50/MWh. This is substantially cheaper than the £74.75/MWh that all but one of the biomass and ‘waste’ power plants have struck. It also casts a major shadow on the £92.50/MWh strike price that Hinkley C nuclear plant will receive.
In response to the figures, New Nuclear Watch Europe (NNWE) noted the progress made by offshore wind, while also stating that a diverse energy mix was important for future grid security. Interestingly, the organisation voiced implied criticism of the Hinkley project, stating that its strike price is not representative of costs across nuclear as a whole.
“NNWE has always argued that renewables and nuclear complement each other and both are needed,” said Tim Yeo, NNWE chairman.
“The CfD strike price for Hinkley Point has wrongly become synonymous with the cost of nuclear, however, rarely is it mentioned that there are tried and tested nuclear technologies coming onstream elsewhere at a fraction of the agreed Hinkley price.”
“Once again, NNWE urges government to give consumers the best possible deal, which means Britain needs to look beyond Europe to overseas vendors from countries such as China, Russia and South Korea. These countries have developed nuclear technologies which can generate electricity at close to half the price of Hinkley, which is lower than the latest CfD auction price for offshore wind.”
A few weeks ago I took my grandsons to the Great Western Railway Museum in Didcot. [I am a much better grandpa than I ever was as a father!] I got chatting to a German Engineer (he was from a very well known company: whose founder apprenticed himself to Mather & Platt in Manchester in the later 19th century! and took his knowledge back to Germany) who had responsibility for the several control systems supplied to Drax. [He was also responsible for similar in Iran, Iraq and and indeed in the Southern USA: causing him some grief from Homeland Security!] He could not really understand why ‘we’ were shutting down plants that still had ‘life’ in them: and using newer and expensive and environmentally suspect alternatives. I was unable to suggest any sensible reasons!
The greenness of our leaders has cost the country billions in subsidies for unreliable power generators and uniquely massive penalties on reliable coal-fired generators, arguing over fiddled subsidies achieves very little: thus, wood CO2 is free, but coal CO2 costs massively: truly logical.
This distortion of the economics of power generation (and the consequent inflation of power prices), does not show-up immediately, but as a long-term drain. Either the poorest will have to subsidise energy for industry to make it compete, or the industry will go, creating more poverty; Well done parliament!
Who signed the contract for Hinkley? They should be sacked and charged with incompetence. We need to scrap Hinkley now, or at the very least re-negotiate the price. All of us as consumers should expect the best possible deal.
The EPR is probably the worst design of all the modern reactors. It is excessively complicated and hence very expensive. The prototype at Flamanville has been bogged down with problems and the same with the one in Finland. But, to be fair, much of the finish problem is ever-changing requirements by the regulators that require frequent redesigns.
Nuclear power has the potential to provide the most reliable, safe and environmentally friendly power supply in the world. But before that can happen the irrational fear of low levels of radiation and the excessive delays and frustrations created by the meddling regulators have to be fixed. But that is all that needs to be done.
I support biomass burning power stations in general on the grounds that they represent the lowest-cost renewable energy back-up power to intermittent generation from wind and solar.
A modern design ought to include fast start technology, such as hydrogen gas burning, the plant’s hydrogen tanks being filled by hydrogen sourced from electrolysis of water powered either by the grid or by the biomass power itself before it shuts down when its back-up power is no longer needed.
Harvesting of wood for wood pellet fuels can be more assuredly carbon neutral if the wood is harvested from fire-prone woodland / forests or scrub-land / bush. Indeed harvesting from such fire-prone areas can help manage the risk of wild-fires, thus killing two birds with one stone.
However, one word of criticism for this new biomass plant for Grangemouth in that at 86MW there is still insufficient biomass power or back-up power in general available in Scotland. We will need much more, particularly as wind power capacity grows and the nuclear power stations are closed.
Indeed, I argued that the former coal-fired power station at Longannet, Fife, Scotland at 2,400 MW could have been converted to burn biomass, as was its sister coal-fired plant at Drax, England.
So I would support new biomass plant capacity of that order – 2,400 MW – in Scotland and we have nothing like that yet.