Oh, dear, yet another silly claim that solar and wind would be cheaper for the grid than nuclear. (“Renewables-led energy mix in SA will be cheaper than nuclear, study shows”, June 19).
As usual it is based on “models” rather than the real world. In the real world, solar and wind have proved an expensive disaster in every country that has tried them for the grid, including Germany, the UK, the US, Denmark and Australia.
The reason these models, including the models used in our integrated resource plans, fail dismally is that they do not consider the full cost of electricity. Electricity leaving a solar PV panel or a wind turbine is useless for the grid because it is intermittent, unreliable and seldom available. To convert it into useful grid electricity is exceptionally expensive, requiring back-up generation, spinning reserve, storage, extra controls and extra transmission lines.
The Greens never tell you the full cost of electricity from solar and wind. They only tell you the price. They keep telling us that wind and solar are getting cheaper, as we see the final price of electricity rising with more wind and solar.
Under Germany’s energiewende, nuclear was replaced by wind and solar. The result was rocketing electricity prices, just about the highest in Europe, sending less wealthy Germans into energy poverty and threatening German industry.
In South Australia the move from coal to wind and solar saw electricity prices soar into the stratosphere, reaching A$14/kWh at one point in July 2016 (more than 50 times Eskom’s selling price). The state had two complete blackouts because of renewable failures.
Nuclear, on the other hand, proved cheap and successful, as shown by France before it too succumbed to pressure from the Greens. Now it has done an about turn and is expediting construction of at least six new nuclear power stations, with the first expected to come online in 2035.
Andrew Kenny
Sun Valley
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