Monday 23 May 2016

41 x Beatrice Offshore Wind Farms [3,427 x 7 MW Wind Turbines] Costing £106.6 Billion = 1 x Hinkley Point C Nuclear Power Plant.

Beatrice Offshore Wind Farm is rated at 588 MW, will cost £2.6 billion and occupy 131 sq km. It uses 84 of the latest 7 MW wind turbines nearly 4X the height of Nelson's Column [651 ft].

That's a costs £4.42 Billion/GW installed.

The Beatrice website states it will supply 450,000 homes. But a wind-friendly research paper states:  "...The combined average of these measures..........[gives] −1.6 ± 0.2% annual degradation..."
−1.6 ± 0.2% annual degradation 

After its '25 year lifespan', Beatrice will only be capable of supplying 300,700 homes. So on average over the 25 years, it will supply 375,350 homes p.a..

Using the BEIS figure for each home of 3,900 kWh p.a., that works out at 1.464 TWh per year. So over its lifespan it will deliver 36.6 TWh of intermittent, low-carbon electricity.
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By contrast, Hinkley Point C Nuclear Power Plant will supply 6,470,000 homes every year for its 60 year deign life, without any degradation in output. 

That works out at 25.229 TWh of 24/7, on demand, low-carbon electricity every year. It's design life it will deliver a total of 1513.7 TWh
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17 Beatrices would have to be constructed to deliver the same units of electricity each year as Hinkley. 

That's 1,428 x 7 MW turbines, occupying 2,227 sq km 
[47 km x 47 km]. Hinkley sits on a site 0.69 sq km in size.
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But that's not the end of the story. After 25 years, those 1,428 x 7 MW turbines would have to be built a 2nd time and then be 10 years in to the 3rd build before 1,513.7 TWh of [intermittent] electricity were finally delivered.  
A factor of X2.4.
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2.4 x 17 = 41 Beatrices.
41 Beatrices x £2.6 billion = £106.6 billion.
2.4 x 1,428 = 3,427 x 7 MW turbines.
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Hinkley will cost £18 billion + £7.3 billion [end-of-life] decommissioning, waste handling and storage, totalling £25.3 billion.

 For £106.6 billion, nuclear power would supply 4.2X more low-carbon electricity (24/7, on demand).