For the complete year 2024 what fuel mix percentages were used to provide the UK with electrical energy?

I suspect the NESO figures will be for centrally metered generation - so is likely to be an  underestimate for small scale on-site generation like domestic PV - which at a national level merely looks like reduction in demand as the current is consumed either within the premises or in the local neighbourhood.

   - Andy.

Peter Brooks said:

So Nuclear takes forever to build-- WHY???

Big projects always overrun, and the budget always spirals out of control.

Hinkley C was announced in 2010.  Building started in 2017 with an estimated completion of 2025.  But it's now more like 2031 for commissioning.

If a nuclear power station is going to take 21 years to build, then it's hard to see how more nuclear is going to solve any of our energy problems.

Maybe Rolls Royce can actually build their much hyped, but never seen, small modular reactors, then things might be different.

Is the basic problem caused by hiring way too many chiefs and way too few Indians?

Peter Brooks

Palm Bay Florida 

In the case of Hinkley C, it's a one-off.  So no standard plan to follow.  No off-the-shelf safety case for the regulators.  So every safety feature has to be justified.

It took ages to start building.  With a price of about £31 - 35 billion (according to Wikipedia) in 2015 prices, getting anyone to actually fund it was a problem.  Who wants to invest in something that won't deliver any returns for over a decade?

When it does get build, the energy customers are going to be fleeced.  The Chinese and French investors have only been enticed to put up the money by being offered a ridiculous price per MWh.  Of course, the government negotiated the deal, but it will be the consumers footing the bill.

Hello Simon:

Hinkley C is a one off?

As I understand it, Hinkley C uses the modern European Reactor (EPR) design installed in Power Stations in France.

So how can it be a ONE OFF!

Peter Brooks

Palm Bay 

Partly, there are many organisations that have a right to 'put an oar in' at the planning phase. so things like discussions over access road routes,  and bat relocation boxes take disproportionate time, that problem is not just nuclear power but anything large enough to attract significant attention.  This can delay anything by years from 'agreed' to 'spade in ground' well, diggers on site.
Then the actual design of the thing - all the more mil background and grounded in practical experiment folk who built Hunterston  Hinkley etc at breakneck speed in the 1960s have all long retired from the game and the modern way is to computer model to death in all the fine detail before freezing even the outline of a design - which avoids last minute plan changes, is technically less risky, but also is a very sow process compared to scale models, and starting and then finessing on the fly - and as a country we don't have a huge pool of folk who can be design authorities and design reviewers, so things move very carefully and in a very risk averse way, with what is actually by historical standards a modest technical team and a large crew of support and admin.
Of course the old way was probably more expensive too, but it was perhaps deliberately not made clear how many folk were on secondment  from the atomic weapons establishment  and so on. so an unknown fraction of the cost may well have been borne by the cold war budget - there used to be jokes about departments with ten thousand employees doing the work of two thousand jobs and that is no longer politically correct to say perhaps, but there is an element of that today, but more about the management of paperwork side than the engineering.

Mike

Hello Mike:

You paint a very bleak picture of the current "large project" situation in the UK.

Maybe if the project was being built  in a poorer part of the country, it would get  better support from the local population.

Peter Brooks

Palm Bay FL

Peter Brooks said:

As I understand it, Hinkley C uses the modern European Reactor (EPR) design installed in Power Stations in France.

So how can it be a ONE OFF!

It's new to this country.  So new to our nuclear safety regulators.  And each one will have some site-specific issues.

Hello Simon:

EPR reactors are in use in the following countries (in addition to France):- Belgium, Bolgaria, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany ,Hungary, Netherlands, Romania,Slovakia, Slovenia and Sweden.

I am sure that at least one of them is a close fit to Hinkley C.

Then according to you, it is being used as a training ground for British nuclear safety regulators!

Why didn't the UK just send them to France for 6 months, to get this training.

I guess they could't find anyone who speaks French!

Peter Brooks

Palm Bay Florida 

Hello Mike:

It just hit me that creating a complete (down to the lowest possible level) "digital twin" of a big project like building a New reactor automatically delays the project and makes it really costly. 

Peter Brooks

Palm Bay Florida 

Hello Mike:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHIuPPtsAUg

This morning I watched the attached youtube titled "Blackouts are coming to Britain" - (in a couple of years).

It is an excellent review of the mess Britain (and Europe for that matter) has got it's self into.

The IET needs to have a major review/discussion on the facts presented here.

Peter Brooks

Palm Bay Florida  

Hello Mike:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHIuPPtsAUg

This morning I watched the attached youtube titled "Blackouts are coming to Britain" - (in a couple of years).

It is an excellent review of the mess Britain (and Europe for that matter) has got it's self into.

The IET needs to have a major review/discussion on the facts presented here.

Peter Brooks

Palm Bay Florida