Posted by Sohail Azad
On 08:29
A study just published in the International Journal of Sustainable Energy Planning and Management says that renewable energy auctions do not reduce costs of renewable energy projects any more than conventional feed-in tariffs.SeeRenewable Energy Auctions and Tenders: How good are they?David TokeAbstractThis paper analyses the performance of two cases of renewable energy (RE) auction/tender systems in an effort to contribute to the evaluation of RE auction/tender systems and to study best practice...
Posted by Sohail Azad
On 10:49
As an academic who has written widely about ecological modernisation - essentially how business can combine ecological protection and development - I feel thoroughly mugged by the recent launch of the so-called 'eco-modernist' agenda. It ended up being associated with people like Owen Paterson, who wants to scrap the 2008 Climate Change Act, and one of so-called eco-modernism's founders, Mark Lynas seemed surprised by this.But you shouldn't be surprised if you do read the so-called eco-modernist'...
Posted by Sohail Azad
On 08:09
In a move that will astonish many the Treasury have decided to count payments to existing fossil and nuclear power stations for providing capacity as 'environmental' levies'. Real environmental spending is, as a result of the Government's policies, falling, and is being replaced by payments for polluting power stations. This 'levy' money is collected as a levy on consumer energy bills. See the Table below complete with newly added budget line 'capacity market'.The fear must be that as so-called...
Posted by Sohail Azad
On 08:17
Amber Rudd today compounded the fantasy that surrounds UK energy policy by declaring that the future would depend on new gas fired and nuclear power stations without any realistic policies of delivering such objectives. Meanwhile her Government is stopping support for renewable energy and energy efficiency even though (or perhaps precisely because) they are being delivered in substantial volumes.New nuclear power, as discussed in previous blog posts are very unlikely to be deployed for the forseeable...
Posted by Sohail Azad
On 10:25
The UK press has been full of stories implying that wind power is to blame for the National Grid having to call in expensive demand shedding measures recently to keep the lights on. What they will not tell you is how often wind power saves the UK consumer large amounts of money because the National Grid does not have to buy in expensive reserves of power. Also they do not tell you that wind power in fact has quite a substantial contribution to effective firm power station capacity.It is all very...
Posted by Sohail Azad
On 03:48
EDF's apparent obsession with continuing with the increasingly financially toxic European Pressurised Reactor (EPR) programme by building another two units at Hinkley C could spell doom for EDF. Further drastic losses on Hinkley C similar to the mounting losses accrued by AREVA and EDF on the EPRs being built in Finland (Olikuoto) and France (Flamanville) might lead to what hitherto has seemed unthinkable - the break up of EDF. At least a major sell-off of assets seems almost certain if EDF is to...
Posted by Sohail Azad
On 13:54
The only successful thing about the Hinkley C project is the management of the news to imply that there has been progress in the project. In fact there has been absolutely no progress, certainly not in the financial terms, and in many ways things have got worse. That is compared to two years ago when the UK Government's much criticised terms, for paying EDF �94 per MWh (2015 prices) for 35 years underpinned by a 60 per cent loan guarantee by the Treasury, were given state aid clearance by the EU...
Posted by Sohail Azad
On 16:16
All of us have been taught that having a system with one line is �better� than having dedicated lines (one per server). Engineers are taught about this in almost every Operations Research course, in almost every University around the world. Indeed, Queuing Theory provides strong support for this �fact�. It can be �demonstrated� that the average wait time for customers in the one line setting is far less than the average wait time for customers in...
