About £2billion, or cost per household off all green technologies is about £41 per year - figures from the telegraph/ OFGEM. Solar is the cheapest part of that, about £5, because cost of deployment is lower than other technology, especially off-shore wind. It could also be argued to be the most useless as it only generates during daylight hours. Nuclear, I posted some figures previously, think that was about £80 per year per household, though if you add the cost of waste management about £250 per year according to Greenpeace. ( no doubt biased on the high side).
A gas power station is about £800m, coal about £1 billion - that's just to build. Problem is they take years/ decades to get off the ground and we need energy now to plug the gap as power stations are shut down. Cheaper than Green, but at what cost to the planet - figures are basically impossible to generate as no-one has accurate enough info for the cost of climate change resulting from CO2 emissions. You need to add figures like cost of household insurance, mine is around £250/ year, houses in flood zones £3k to £9k from figures on the news. The £9k figure is from the news tonight on a house that coast £200k to repair so that's £191k the rest of us are paying....
It's difficult to find unbiased figures, if you look at 'levelised' figures PV is one of the most expensive per kWh generated, but if you add the disposal costs and damage to the environment, it changes significantly and it's bloody quick to build! The materials in the panels can be recovered and re-cycled to boot - that will be a big industry in future.
I will have another search for some reliable figures. You can always read the OFGEM report all 115 pages on why they slashed the traiffs.
This article is interesting though, it's from the IMF.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/18/fossil-fuel-companies-getting-10m-a-minute-in-subsidies-says-imf
and this from the Economist, alas American numbers, but UK would not be much different.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/08/cost-renewable-energy
and a last article which doesn't include costs mentioned in the IMF report. Fossil fuels have limited life, we need to develop alternatives
http://www.renewable-energysources.com/
A gas power station is about £800m, coal about £1 billion - that's just to build. Problem is they take years/ decades to get off the ground and we need energy now to plug the gap as power stations are shut down. Cheaper than Green, but at what cost to the planet - figures are basically impossible to generate as no-one has accurate enough info for the cost of climate change resulting from CO2 emissions. You need to add figures like cost of household insurance, mine is around £250/ year, houses in flood zones £3k to £9k from figures on the news. The £9k figure is from the news tonight on a house that coast £200k to repair so that's £191k the rest of us are paying....
It's difficult to find unbiased figures, if you look at 'levelised' figures PV is one of the most expensive per kWh generated, but if you add the disposal costs and damage to the environment, it changes significantly and it's bloody quick to build! The materials in the panels can be recovered and re-cycled to boot - that will be a big industry in future.
I will have another search for some reliable figures. You can always read the OFGEM report all 115 pages on why they slashed the traiffs.
This article is interesting though, it's from the IMF.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/18/fossil-fuel-companies-getting-10m-a-minute-in-subsidies-says-imf
and this from the Economist, alas American numbers, but UK would not be much different.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/08/cost-renewable-energy
and a last article which doesn't include costs mentioned in the IMF report. Fossil fuels have limited life, we need to develop alternatives
http://www.renewable-energysources.com/
Last edited by a moderator:
