It has emerged that the UK’s strategically vital renewables sector will be forced to subsidise the nuclear revival, despite many critics saying that building new stations will never be economic.
The battle over subsidies for the UK’s new nuclear power stations deepened last month after it emerged that the £160million-a-year cost of fitting the next generation of reactors into the national electricity grid will be borne by all generators, including renewable energy providers.
The new reactors planned by EDF for Hinkley Point are much bigger than existing UK plant. It means the national grid has to pay for extra standby electricity to stop the grid crashing if one of the reactors unexpectedly goes offline.
National Grid said its decision to charge all generators for the cost was because “increasing costs on larger users could delay the commissioning of large nuclear plants by a number of years”.
Should the population of Scotland opt for independence at next year’s referendum on the Union, it is not clear what the impacts of the nuclear programme might be. The current Scottish government has a zero nuclear policy.
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