Renewables Okay, no Nuclear Power Programme, says N.I.C.

Assessment of the UK future power system - to meet the 2050 zero carbon target - has just been issued by the National Infrastructure Commission.  

    Thumbs down for Nuclear Power; best to go for 80-90% renewables by 2050

It includes an assessment of the proposal for a fleet of tidal lagoons. 

This agrees that the ‘gappy’ nature of tidal lagoon generation is a big deficiency.  Moreover, off-shore wind power is now cheaper and will be increasingly economic - 2030s without subsidies – while  lagoon power never becomes competitive.  Whilst tidal can be considered a more predictable source of generation than offshore wind, it adds additional constraints to the system as it is only able to generate power at fixed times of the day. This leads to low load factors and 10.2 GW more tidal capacity to generate the same amount of electricity as the displaced offshore wind.

The study considers the UK’s power system as a whole.  Decarbonising heat is taken seriously – replacing natural gas either by hydrogen/green gas or switching to electrical-heating plus heat pumps.

A high fraction of renewable, 80%  or 90% is more cost-effective

   ▪ Renewable integration costs tend to be higher in a hybrid system where carbon targets are met by a mixture of renewables and nuclear

   ▪ High levels of renewable integration require a high degree of system flexibility

   ▪ This flexibility can be provided by:  Interconnectors / Storage / DSR / Fast-ramping thermal generation

   ▪ Nuclear is typically not a great source of flexibility due to high ramping costs

It recommends no further nuclear power plants, or not more than one further after Hinkley Point C, saying that investments could prove sub-optimal over the long term, particularly given the potential for rapid decline in costs of renewable sources and battery storage.  It finds that very high levels of renewable penetration (80-90%) allow us to reach carbon targets cost-effectively without new nuclear, providing further  interconnector capacity is added and demand-side management used.  They include widespread introduction of electric vehicles, whose batteries may be ‘smart’, used for balancing purposes.