Renew Extra Weekly

 The UK power grid will need upgrading as it tries to take on heat pump power demand and electric vehicle battery charging loads. And on the supply side, new grid links are needed around the country to link to new wind projects – including those in sensitive areas like the Highland of Scotland .  There’s also a need for new links across East Anglia to carry power from its offshore wind projects and from the proposed Sizewell C nuclear plant on the Suffolk coast to the rest of the country. It’s the same in some other parts of the country- new power links will be needed  However, there has been strong opposition to new pylons in most places. In some locations it may be possibly to put power grids underground, but although views are changing  (for example, given their possible role in starting wild fires) overhead cables have usually been strongly favoured. They can carry more power at higher voltages and, crucially, burying grid cables safely is a very expensive ...

The UK may have been having issues with some areas of energy, but at least it did look to still be doing well with offshore wind- its flagship green energy programme. However then came the results of the 5th round of the Contract for Difference (CfD) support system. Offshore wind had been tokenly allocated 5GW in that, but in the event no offshore wind projects have gone forward- zero!   There had been plenty of warnings, not least Vattenfall’s exit from the 1.4 GW Boreas offshore wind project. It had had won a CfD contract for its Boreas project last year at a record low price of £37.35/MWh. But the market has now evidently changed, making it economically unviable for Vallenfall and it seems others, even at the £44/MWh CfD strike price cap initially set for this round.  As noted in my last post, there had been some minor adjustments (a bit more capital head room) to try to keep the show on the road, but to no avail- this round was a complete wipe out for offshore wind. I...