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| 1 |
ID:
125734
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2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Current UK Government support for nuclear power has in part been informed by cost estimates that suggest that electricity from new nuclear power stations will be competitive with alternative low carbon generation options. The evidence and analysis presented in this paper suggests that the capital cost estimates for nuclear power that are being used to inform these projections rely on costs escalating over the pre-construction and construction phase of the new build programme at a level significantly below those that have been experienced by past US and European programmes. This paper applies observed construction time and cost escalation rates to the published estimates of capital costs for new nuclear plant in the UK and calculates the potential impact on levelised cost per unit of electricity produced. The results suggest that levelised cost may turn out to be significantly higher than expected which in turn has important implications for policy, both in general terms of the potential costs to consumers and more specifically for negotiations around the level of policy support and contractual arrangements offered to individual projects through the proposed contract for difference strike price.
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| 2 |
ID:
111387
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2012.
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Offshore wind power is anticipated to make a major contribution to the UK's renewable energy targets but, contrary to expectations, costs have risen dramatically in recent years. This paper considers the context of these cost increases, and describes a disaggregated levelised cost model used by the authors to explore the effect of different assumptions about the direction and scale of the major cost drivers. The paper identifies the competing upward and downward pressures on costs in the medium term, and discusses the range of future costs that emerges from the analysis. The paper goes on to analyse the implications of these cost projections for the policy support levels that offshore wind may require. The paper suggests that there are good reasons why it is reasonable to expect a gradual fall in costs in the period to the mid-2020s, although it is unlikely that costs will fall as rapidly as they have risen, or that it will be a smooth downward trajectory. A key challenge is to reconcile the scale and pace of development desired for UK offshore wind with the potential growth rate that the supply chain can sustain without creating upward pressure on costs.
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| 3 |
ID:
162345
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Recent climate change initiatives, such as ‘Mission Innovation’ launched alongside the Paris Agreement in 2015, urge redoubled research into innovative low carbon technologies. However, climate change is an urgent problem – emissions reductions must take place rapidly throughout the coming decades. This raises an important question: how long might it take for individual technologies to emerge from research, find market opportunities and make a tangible impact on emissions reductions? Here, we consider historical evidence for the time a range of energy supply and energy end-use technologies have taken to emerge from invention, diffuse into the market and reach widespread deployment. We find considerable variation, from 20 to almost 70 years. Our findings suggest that the time needed for new technologies to achieve widespread deployment should not be overlooked, and that innovation policy should focus on accelerating the deployment of existing technologies as well as research into new ones.
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| 4 |
ID:
117223
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2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Low carbon scenario and transition pathway analysis involves the consideration of uncertainties around future technological and social changes. This paper argues that uncertainty can be better understood, and the strategic and policy effectiveness of scenarios or pathways thereby improved, through a systematic categorisation of the different kinds of certain and uncertain elements of which the future is comprised. To achieve this, this paper makes two novel methodological contributions. First it proposes a system conceptualisation which is based on a detailed description of the dynamics of the actors and institutions relevant to the system under study, iteratively linked to a detailed representation of the technological system. Second, it argues that as a result of developing this actor-based low carbon scenarios approach it is possible to characterise future elements of the system as either pre-determined, actor contingent or non-actor contingent. An outline scenario approach is presented, based on these two contributions. It emerges that the different categories of future element are associated with different types of uncertainty and each prompt different strategic policy responses. This categorisation of future elements therefore clarifies the relationship of scenario content to specific types of policy response, and thus improves the policy tractability of resulting scenarios.
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| 5 |
ID:
103408
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2011.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Wind power is widely expected to expand rapidly in Britain over the next decade. Large amounts of variable wind power on the system will increase market risks, with prices more volatile and load factors for conventional thermal plant lower and more uncertain. This extra market risk may discourage investment in generation capacity. Financial viability for thermal plant will be increasingly dependent on price spikes during periods of low wind. Increased price risk will also make investment in other forms of low-carbon generation (e.g. nuclear power) more challenging.
A number of policies can reduce the extent to which generators are exposed to market risks and encourage investment. However, market risks play a fundamental role in shaping efficient investment and dispatch patterns in a liberalised market. Therefore, measures to improve price signals and market functioning (such as a stronger carbon price and developing more responsive demand) are desirable. However, the scale of the investment challenge and increased risk mean targeted measures to reduce (although not eliminate) risk exposure, such as capacity mechanisms and fixed price schemes, may have increasing merit. The challenge for policy is to strike the right balance between market and planned approaches.
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